RUTH AND SEÁN McCabe lived in Cavan, worked a farm and had five children.
Farming was Seán’s passion but seven years ago cracks started to appear in his personality which affected his life at home.
“2007 was the first time I noticed Seán’s coping mechanisms and personality short fusing,” his wife, Ruth, told Ear to the Ground, which returns to RTÉ this week.
“Just not my Seán, the way he used to be. That’s the only way I can describe it.
“I had my Seán for a couple of days in the week but didn’t have him for the remainder. It’s as if he would shut down or close off from you. He wasn’t the same.”
Two years ago, after years of battling undiagnosed depression, Seán died by suicide.
Ruth recalls how her husband could get up in the middle of the night, sit at the kitchen table, pace up and down a nearby lane or just stay in his jeep for hours, staring ahead.
“When the truth be known, what was there all along, was depression. He would say that it was just stress. You know, the word depression wasn’t used. It was a taboo subject. It was horrendous. That’s the only way I can look at it.
That 44-year-old man thought there was no other way out of the pain that was in his head than to go up the shed here behind the house and take his own life.
Ruth continues to farm the land in Cavan and speaks openly about mental health issues, hoping to remove some of the stigma attached to it in the farming community.
“Farming was the passion. He was all the time on the go. Loved the spring and the summer – for the silage, the hay, the whole lot. Work was never any bother.”
Ruth believes that Teagasc is well placed to provide farmers with information about helplines and suicide awareness.
“They come in and sit down during the night and look through the literature,” she said.
Paddy O’Rourke, from Sosad, told the RTÉ programme that farmers are in a unique position as they have few colleagues to vent to during the work day.
“Farmers spend a lot of time on their own on the land, with their thoughts. They may need nothing more than sitting somebody and talking to them.
“The message we’d like to get out is that, ‘It’s OK not to be OK.’”
Ruth continues to care for the cows and will be expecting new calves shortly.
“It wouldn’t be the same around here,” she said. “We’ll just keep going the best we can. One day at a time.”
Ear to the Ground returns to RTÉ One at 8.30pm on Thursday.
Helplines
Samaritans 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org
Console 1800 247 247 – (suicide prevention, self-harm, bereavement)
Aware 1890 303 302 (depression anxiety)
Pieta House 01 601 0000 or email mary@pieta.ie - (suicide, self-harm, bereavement)
Teen-Line Ireland 1800 833 634 (for ages 13 to 19)
Childline 1800 66 66 66 (for under 18s)
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