Tessa's postcard, 1990: How things were before.                                                                                                   Index of articles

THE smiley face and the flowers say it all: A year before Tessa's inexorable slide into schizophrenia, there was no inkling of what lay ahead. The relationship between us was not — as I think some of the mental health professionals later assumed — an antagonistic one, in which a competent, exuberant young person was trying to break free from the strictures of pursuing parents. Far from being concerned about Tessa, and trying to force her to conform with some parental ideal, we confidently expected to shed all our responsibilities for her upon her graduation from university at the end of 1991.