Majella: ‘I could not cope any more’
MAJELLA O’DONNELL talks about one of the most painful times in her life in tonight’s episode of the RTÉ series, Keys To My Life.
The wife of country singer Daniel describes her battle with postnatal depression (PND) in a way that is sure to resonate with many women.
A trip to her former family home with series presenter Brendan Courtney evokes traumatic memories of the time immediately after the birth of her son, Michael.
‘Siobhán was outside the door and she was [saying] “Mammy, Mammy”, and I was inside sitting on the toilet with Michael in my arms and to me it felt like she was just, you know, clawing at me and I just couldn’t. I had the phone with me and I just phoned social services and said, “I can’t cope”.’
Majella broke down again while telling the story. She was living in Edinburgh at the time and didn’t realise she had PND. She just thought she felt ‘lonely’ and ‘isolated’.
The mum-of-two welled up remembering her regret at the precious time lost with her children, saying: ‘It’s just when I think of the kids. I see them and just want to pick them up and cuddle and hold them because I probably wasn’t great with them when they were small. I would like to have them like that with my frame of mind right now so I could enjoy it. It was such a struggle with them and I’d just love to be able to enjoy them at that age again.’
Driving her misery was the collapse of her marriage to Ray McLennan and what she thought was the ‘perfect’ family life.
‘I still didn’t really know it was postnatal depression but then the whole marriage just started to go wrong and he’d be home less and less, and then the whole thing came out about him having an affair.’
Majella remembers having a worrying feeling that something was wrong but Ray reassured her that everything was fine and that he was happy in the marriage, which prompted her to go to a psychiatrist because she felt the problem must have been hers.
Eventually, a friend confirmed her worst fears. At first this brought a sense of relief, ‘because I thought I’m not going mad’, but she still found herself unable to walk away from the marriage.
The now 62-year-old was still in love with her husband and took him back after he cheated on her time and time again, until eventually he walked out for good.
‘Even then I probably would have taken him back but he didn’t come, you know, and I can remember being on my knees and just holding onto him saying “Please don’t go”.
‘It was pathetic. That’s pathetic. I said, please don’t leave me because I don’t know what I might do to myself. That’s how depressed I was.’
Majella and Ray had moved to Dublin in 1992 in a bid to save their marriage and ran three successful
restaurants. After they split, she moved back to Scotland with their children where she worked as a banqueting manager at the Balmoral Hotel.
When the children went to boarding school, she finally began focusing on her own needs again. In 1999, she moved to Tenerife to spend time with her parents and the place soon began to feel like ‘a refuge’.
It was there she met Daniel, who immediately invited her on a date.
‘We met in my Mum and Dad’s pub, which isn’t here any more,’ she says. ‘He came in that night and it was very quiet and Mammy said “Would you ever sing a song?” so I threw up an aul She Moved Through The Fair.
‘Now when I think about it I’m embarrassed! He must have thought, “Jesus, is the mother trying to get me a singing partner or something?” and then I sat down at the table. He was with a couple of friends and we started chatting and he said, “Would you like to come out?”
‘We arranged to meet and I could feel all butterflies and, oh my God I’m going on a date with him.’
It wasn’t long until their wedding day and the rest is ‘lovely history’.
Keys To My Life is on RTÉ One tonight at 8.30pm
‘It was pathetic. I said please don’t leave me’