One of Ireland's greatest singers of all time, Sinead O'connor, has released a heart-breaking video on social media begging her family to come and get her and explaining about how the stigma of mental illness is making it a struggle every day to keep on living.

Sinead O'Connor performing liveSinead O'Connor performing live

The 'Nothing Compares 2 U' singer looked deeply distressed as she sat in a Travelodge motel in New Jersey, where she is currently living having lost her apartment, talking about how she's been left alone for two years by her family with no-one to care for her but her psychiatrist as she suffers from three different mental illnesses.

'I'm all by myself and there's absolutely nobody in my life except my doctor, my psychiatrist - the sweetest man on earth, who says I'm his hero - and that's about the only f***ing thing keeping me alive at the moment, the fact that I'm his bloody hero and that's kind of pathetic', she sobbed in her Facebook video. 'I give so much love in my life and I just can't understand how a person can be left so alone.'

She goes on to liken mental illness to drug addiction (not that the two are mutually exclusive) and slams her children and the fathers of her children by name for not taking care of her when she is unable to look after herself, just because she has problems with her anger sometimes. 

'The stigma doesn't give a s**t who you are', she says. 'And suddenly all the people that are supposed to be loving you and taking care of you are treating you like s**t. And then when you're angry... it's like a witch hunt they're pointing at you going, 'See? See? This is why we don't want to know'.'

Indeed, Sinead has been headline news several times over the years for her erratic behaviour and her angry outbursts, and while that may seem like a difficult situation for her family to cope with, she doesn't see why a physically weak, 5 foot 4, 50-year-old woman isn't getting the help she deserves especially when she's this close to suicide.

'I'm fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting like all the millions and millions that I know I'm one of to stay alive everyday', she continues. 'Which I'm doing because I love the people that are doing this to me. I'm not staying alive for me. If it was me I'd be gone straight away back to my mom. Because I've walked this Earth alone for two years now as punishment for being mentally f***ing ill and being angry that nobody would f***ing take care of me specifically for being suicidal.'

Not only is she at breaking point with her mental health, she's also been physically ill and hospitalised with painful kidney stones. And she talks about how she feels as if her 'body is dying' after 'two years of solitary confinement'. She's desperate to stay alive for the sake of the people she cares about, and ends by pleading with her children and indeed anyone who'll listen to come and take her home and take care of her. 

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In the end, it's an important message for those who are struggling daily with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and any other of hundreds of illnesses. 'I hope that this video is somehow helpful', she explains. 'Not actually to me, but the fact I know that I'm only one of millions and millions and millions of people in the world that are just like me, that don't have necessarily the resources I have in my heart or my purse.' Keep fighting, Sinead.