She believed there was no hope for herself or for Ciara, she explained to them. She planned they both would die"
"In the eyes of the experts this went even further and Dr Cleo Van Velsen, a renowned London psychiatrist, believed that
in the months leading up to the tragedy, Lynn had become "pathologically identified" with her daughter and found it difficult to see where she left off and her daughter began.
The mother and daughter had something else in common. At the age of 17, Lynn had a brush with anorexia, becoming pre-occupied with her weight and appearance."
"Lynn went on to study medicine at Trinity College, specialising in paediatrics and eventually -- due to an understandable fascination with mental health issues -- psychiatry.
Away for the first time from the caring watchful eye of adults, Lynn experienced
her first serious episode of clinical depression and attempted to take her own life by overdose."
As a psychiatrist, Lynn knew what it was she needed to do to keep herself healthy.
Professor Tom Fahey of the Institute of Psychiatry in London had keenly noted this during the trial: avoiding stress, working as a locum rather than at a full-time post, avoiding "difficult" patients and
compartmentalising her problems.
She also had a loyal and caring circle of family, friends and colleagues who loved her. As a human being, Lynn was kind, gentle and honourable; she was an organised and hard-working professional, a thoughtful and loving friend and,
as a mother, had always put her children first."
"As
a successful couple -- Lynn a psychiatrist and Gerard a well-respected lecturer in avionics, who runs the only course of its kind in the country at Carlow Institute of Technology -- they could afford to build themselves the home of their dreams."
"After an unhappy two weeks on student exchange in France, Ciara, tall, beautiful and highly talented, had hit a speedbump with which Lynn herself was all too familiar with.
It was feared she was developing anorexia nervosa.
Lynn was wracked with guilt that she had passed this difficulty on to her daughter and she began to take an extremely pessimistic view of her daughter's condition, believing her daughter had no hope of a career or a family of her own.
Ciara had been furious to be told by her mother that she was to see a specialist in St Patrick's hospital in Dublin and had, on one occasion, shouted at her mother that she hated her and that she, herself, would be better off dead.
Lynn's friends, consultant psychiatrists themselves, were shocked at Lynn's own deteriorating state --
she was constantly exhausted and completely preoccupied with Ciara and they urged her to seek professional help. However, she seemed sensitive to the side-effects of any medication she tried and so her condition continued to worsen."
"The last person to see Lynn and Ciara that night was Lynn's close friend of 30 years, consultant psychiatrist Marese Cheasty, who had called on her way home from work.
She had been worried about Lynn for a number of weeks, dismayed by
her obvious depression and had tried to help her.
Lynn had admitted that
thoughts of death had come to her mind "from time to time," but she said she would never do anything about it.
Dr Cheasty believes her friend was telling the truth that night. However, in the middle of the night, Lynn's mind finally snapped.
"Lynn admitted pushing Ciara under the water and trying to end her own life. She believed there was no hope for herself or for Ciara, she explained to them. She planned they both would die.
https://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/three-generations-united-by-tragedy-26345351.html