Sheila was a mixed-up girl growing up,,and because she had no guidance during her formative years,,had no idea who she was as a person. This is why she'd felt that she never " fitted in " when she first attended school. If June never went into any kind of discussion regarding the adoption,,then neither would she enter any other type of conversation concerning life in general.
I'm no professional when it comes to psychiatric illnesses,but Sheila to my mind was a normal girl of her years with no disturbances,mentally.
It was her mother who made her ill and drove her to do what she did.
June was sick. I don't ever remember her having friends,apart from acquaintances from the church,,but not a real friend as we know. Even the children never spoke about their " best friends " as children do.
This WASN'T a normal household at all with a lot of paper covering a lot of cracks. Jeremy had managed to shrug off his mothers' condition by hiding behind his arrogant outlook which stayed with him through growing up. That was his safety-valve,,whereas Sheila was more vulnerable because of being a nervy type girl,always trying to please her mother as best she could in case June threw a wobbly.
It wasn't to last with Sheila,,as bottled-up emotions started showing themselves in all sorts of ways,,and that's when the rot set in between mother and daughter,as Sheila rebelled against her stifled life with its stifled emotions. Sheila would have benefitted from going into the middle of the field and screaming,rather than to listen to her mothers' rants,which she bottled up inside her. To be brought up without emotion is dangerous,,and it's because Sheila couldn't let go of them is what made her ill.
She didn't need medicating------------just a complete change of scenery away from her mother and the life that she was forced into.
I will continue to say that the tragedy was brought on by mother and daughter and that Jeremy IS telling the truth.
How would the relatives know anything,,not seeing the family,or knowing about them ? How easy it was for them,EP and the thousands of others,to jump to conclusions !!