Friends and family were right to worry about Sinead O'Connor's mental state after she posted a concerning suicide video in 2017 - she insists she wouldn't have survived if she didn't reach out for help.
The Irish singer had battled mental illness for years and admits she was at her lowest point when she decided to go public and reveal she had been planning her own death for two years.
Appearing on Irish TV personality Tommy Tiernan's show on Saturday (01Feb20), Sinead said, "I was really seriously in danger of dying... There was s**t going on in my life that drove me a bit mental in the midst of which I had a radical hysterectomy, which would drive anyone mental," said the 53-year-old.
The singer, who has since converted to Islam and goes by the name Shuhada Sadaqat, added, "I can laugh about that now, but at the time it was terrible. I don't enjoy suffering."
And she told Tiernan her darkest days are behind her now: "I am the opposite (now) and it is over, thanks be to God. And the great thing about going mental is that you get sane again. So it is over.
"There is no point looking back or behind, if you get well you just keep looking forward. If I hadn't done the reaching out that I did do I wouldn't be sitting here, talking now, I really wouldn't."
But the Nothing Compares 2 U singer admits she still faces a battle with loneliness and agoraphobia.
"I never discuss that, which is a fear of open spaces, so I don't go out much," she said.
"Because I had gone through hard times I isolated myself as well and I still find that people want to be friends with me for the wrong reasons. It would be rare for me to experience people who want to be friends with me just because they like me; there is usually a job or something else in it. I have become untrusting of people. I became cynical, so I am not great at making friends, I am lacking in that department."
