Real Weddings: Laura and Conor’s fairytale wedding in Bellingham Castle
Real Weddings: Laura and Conor’s fairytale wedding in Bellingham Castle

Shayna Sappington

An Irish rugmaker on the importance of personality and longevity when designing your interiors
An Irish rugmaker on the importance of personality and longevity when designing your interiors

IMAGE

‘When it comes to women’s health, you have to be your own best advocate’
‘When it comes to women’s health, you have to be your own best advocate’

IMAGE

Page Turners: ‘Burn After Reading’ author Catherine Ryan Howard
Page Turners: ‘Burn After Reading’ author Catherine Ryan Howard

Sarah Gill

The IMAGE staffers share the best blushes they’ve ever tried
The IMAGE staffers share the best blushes they’ve ever tried

Sarah Gill

How I found the one bikini I look forward to wearing
How I found the one bikini I look forward to wearing

Suzie Coen

Join us for The Motherload Live: Getting Your Spark Back
Join us for The Motherload Live: Getting Your Spark Back

IMAGE

Meet the sisters behind the hugely successful Nóinín in Kilkenny
Meet the sisters behind the hugely successful Nóinín in Kilkenny

Megan Burns

The Undecided: No wonder more of us are unsure about parenthood
The Undecided: No wonder more of us are unsure about parenthood

Sarah Macken

How to actually manifest according to an expert
How to actually manifest according to an expert

IMAGE

Image / Agenda

‘That was the thing; she hid it’: Caroline Flack hid Bipolar diagnosis


By Jennifer McShane
28th Aug 2021
‘That was the thing; she hid it’: Caroline Flack hid Bipolar diagnosis

Caroline Flack was told she may be bipolar in the weeks before her death, her mother has said.

Caroline Flack was diagnosed as bipolar in the weeks before her death, her mother has revealed.

In the wake of Flack’s death, the presenter’s mother Christine has become an advocate for mental health awareness, and spoke about her daughter’s attempts to conceal her own struggles and how she didn’t want the last months of her life to be defined as they were.

“It’s so important to me that Carrie is not tainted by those last few months of her life. It’s tragic. I hate the memory of my daughter to be a negative one because she wasn’t negative.”

“Carrie suffered for a long while, but never showed it because her outgoing personality covered everything,” Christine told The Sun. “Mainly she was happy, and funny, and brilliant. She just had these terrific downtimes – and not many people saw those downtimes.”

Stigmatised 

“That was the thing; she hid it. The last doctor she saw thought she may have had bipolar. And that’s what I always thought. It was just constant highs, all of a sudden, then the lows.”

She explained her daughter felt stigmatised;  that she was nervous about other people being aware of her medical history.

“She was so ashamed of people thinking she had mental health problems,” she said.

The former Love Island presenter tragically died in February 2020 just as she was due to stand trial over allegations she had assaulted her boyfriend, which she denied.

She was an avid social media user; she used the platform, and in particular, Instagram, to say that her recent bout of scrutiny had been difficult to cope with.

“This kind of scrutiny and speculation is a lot to take on for one person to take on their own.

“I’m a human being at the end of the day and I’m not going to be silenced when I have a story to tell and a life to keep going with. I’m taking some time out to get feeling better and learn some lessons from situations I’ve got myself into to.”

Fans, friends, and colleagues expressed their sadness at the shock of the untimely death of the presenter and paid tribute to her, saying she was “an absolute diamond.”

If you are affected by the content in this article and need support, contact Samaritans Ireland on 116 123