Sinead O’Connor was a very successful and popular Irish singer and musician who in 1987, at age 21, released her debut album, “The Lion and the Cobra,” that made her famous internationally. Her second album, released in 1990, “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got,” sold more than seven million copies throughout the world and included “Nothing Compares 2 U”, which was voted the top single by Billboard Music Awards and earned her a Grammy Award. She released 10 successful studio albums and in 2021, at age 55, she wrote a best-selling memoir, Rememberings: Scenes from My Complicated Life. She was incredibly brave on social issues and publicly attacked child abuse, abuse of human rights, racism, and lack of women’s rights. She frequently talked about her own life-time struggles from birth onward and her own mental disease.
On July 26, 2023, at age 56, she died of an unreported illness that was most likely related to the cruel manner in which the world treated her serious mental problems. Every day, people who suffer from mental illnesses are destroyed by the cruel manner in which most people respond to the bizarre behaviors of people who have mental diseases.
Genetics, Environment and Mental Illness
O’Connor was eight years old when her parents divorced, and her mother was granted custody of three children. She claimed that her mother was very cruel to her and she went to live with her father when she was 13 years old. At age 15, she had to leave her regular school to go to a special school because of shoplifting and not attending classes. She claimed that she was treated very cruelly at this special school for delinquents, but she did learn how to write and play music. When she was 18, her mother died when the car she was driving skidded on ice and slammed into a bus.
• In 1987, at age 20, O’Connor shaved her head just two years after she signed her first record deal. This was an act of defiance because she did not want to look like other singers and she spent the rest of her life with a nearly bald head.
• In June 1993, at age 27, she wrote a letter to The Irish Times asking people to stop hurting her and mentioned that her behavior was influenced by her difficult childhood. On “Saturday Night Live,” she tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II as a protest against child abuse in the church. She was a tireless campaigner against child abuse.
• At the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles, she took so many sleeping pills that the media guessed that it was a suicide attempt. She denied this claim and left the tour.
• In 1999, at age 33, she was ordained a priest by the Latin Tridentine Church, a sect that is not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church.
• In a 2000 interview in Curve, she said that she was a lesbian, but later denied this, telling Entertainment Weekly in 2005 that “I’m three-quarters heterosexual, a quarter gay”.
• O’Connor suffered from fibromyalgia, with pain and fatigue that led her to take a break from music from 2003 to 2005.
• In 2003, at age 37, she announced that she had been diagnosed with a mental disease called bipolar disorder. On an Oprah Winfrey Show in 2007, she told the audience about her bipolar disorder and that she had attempted suicide on her 33rd birthday. On another Oprah Winfrey Show in 2014, she said that she had three “second opinions” that she was not bipolar, and that she was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder.
• O’Connor was unable to stay in relationships. She was married four times with marriages lasting two years, one year, one year, or just several days. She had other established partnerships that lasted less than a year.
• In 2011, she cancelled a tour and all concerts because she suffered a serious physical breakdown. She resumed touring and produced another album in 2013.
• In August 2015, she had her uterus and ovaries removed and later blamed not receiving hormone replacement therapy as the cause for her mental state. “I became very suicidal. I was a basket case.”
• In 2016, she entered a rehabilitation center to treat her 30-year cannabis habit.
• In 2017 at age 51, she changed her name to Magda Davitt. After converting to Islam in 2018, she changed her name again to Shuhada’ Sadaqat.
• In August 2017, her Facebook page had a 12-minute video in which she said that she had felt alone since losing custody of her 13-year-old son, Shane, and that for two years she wanted to kill herself. Only her doctor and psychiatrist kept her from doing this. The next month, she appeared on Dr. Phil’s Talk Show “to destigmatize mental illness”. She was also agoraphobic, afraid to leave her home because she was afraid of what would happen to her outside her home.
• In September 2019, she performed for the first time in five years with the Irish Chamber Orchestra.
• In June 2021, she retired again and did not tour to support her latest album, “No Veteran Dies Alone”. She said that she will no longer tour, but later said that she would go ahead with her previously scheduled 2022 tour.
• In January 2022, her son, Shane, committed suicide at age 17. She cancelled her 2022 tour and album and was hospitalized one week later.
On Thursday, July 27, 2023, police in London announced that Ms. O’Connor’s unresponsive body had been found on Wednesday at a private home in the city. “The death is not being treated as suspicious,” the police said in a statement. Because no medical cause of death was given, the coroner’s office reported that an autopsy would be conducted and the results would not be available for several weeks.
[Sinead O’Connor/Willie Nelson duet, “Don’t Give Up”] – What This Can Mean For You
Try to be nice to everyone, particularly those who are not nice to you. If you can’t be nice to people who offend you, try to limit your exposure to these people. People who consistently have trouble keeping relationships and friends often suffer from mental and emotional disease. Mental disease is characterized by irrational thoughts and bizarre behaviors. Responding negatively to people who are offensive to you is a natural response, so these people often find themselves isolated from society and they become severely depressed and lose interest in staying in society and can seriously harm and injure themselves. Being mean to them decreases their self-worth to increase their chances of harming themselves.
Sinead O’Connor
(Shuhada Sadaqat)
December 8, 1966 – July 26, 2023
