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The parents of a troubled teenager who leapt to her death in North Wales after enduring years of agony with schizophrenia have revealed she begged for more help on the day she took her own life.

Kerry and Geraldine Swatridge revealed 15-year-old daughter Pauline was placed in a psychiatric unit at Abergele Hospital after attempting suicide through a paracetamol overdose in June 2012.

But the couple believe her transition from full-time support in the unit back into life at home and school with weekly counselling sessions was too sudden.

And they say psychologists were reluctant to ‘label’ Pauline as schizophrenic when she herself believed being open about the nature of her illness was the key to proper treatment.

Pauline jumped to her death from the Menai Bridge between Anglesey and the North Wales mainland last May.

French mum Geraldine, 44, said: “It was the transition of hospital and life at home. If you have received a diagnosis of a very serious illness and you’re suffering would you go back to work very soon after?

“Maybe you’d need some time to adjust and make yourself ready for your old life without the doctor and learn how to live with this diagnosis. It was what she went through, but she had to go to school. She wanted to (go to school), but I don’t think she had a lot of support with the diagnosis.

“To me it was a tough one and I don’t think it was addressed enough. She should have received much more psychological support regarding her diagnosis. Instead she saw a counsellor who didn’t even want to say the name of the illness because she didn’t want to put some label on her.

“But Pauline was furious. Pauline said, ‘Well that’s not a label - that’s my illness. It’s stupid not to talk about it because that’s what I’ve got. I need to know what I can.’”

Fine art student Geraldine told how Pauline pleaded with psychiatrists for more help on the day of her death.

She said: “Pauline on that morning (of her death) said to the psychiatrist, ‘I really need more help. I need to see more people than I see.’

Pauline’s parents also feel more information ought to have been passed on by health officials to their daughter’s school Ysgol Friars, in Bangor.

The couple, from Felinheli, Gwynedd, say their daughter, who was multilingual and artistic, was extremely sensitive and minor incidents could trigger bouts of suicidal introspection and depression.

In the days before her death Geraldine says Pauline was left inconsolable after being told off by a member of school staff when she tried to go to the library during an exam.

Geraldine said in the end she took to e-mailing information to the school so they were better positioned to deal with the deeply distressed teenager.

She added: “The school never had any support. They never were informed about the nature of her illness or how to approach it - even if Pauline made it clear she wanted them the to know.

“She wanted good communication so they would know how to react and what to expect. You need a bit of training because it’s not easy. They didn’t want to do wrong and the guy was just doing his job.

“In the end it was me who wrote to the school regularly with information I found on the Young Minds (young people’s mental health) website.”

Geraldine asked the staff to avoid shouting at or getting cross with her daughter, but maintains some “didn’t understand very well” and the library incident “started a big thing” in Pauline.

She asked her daughter whether the incident had left her feeling suicidal. Though she maintained it had not Pauline believes she was concealing her true feelings.

The parents say they are unsure whether more intensive support after she left Abergele Hospital or better communication with school staff might have avoided the tragedy.

Geraldine added: “That’s impossible for us to say, but I’m sure it would have made her life easier. She complained herself - it’s not just me who is talking.

“I’m talking with her words. She was cross and she said ‘I don’t receive what I need. I have schizophrenia - I really need more support.’”

Born in Nancy, France, Pauline was Geraldine’s daughter by Portugese ex-husband José Goncalves Ferreira.

Now a translator Kerry, who with Geraldine has a 13-year-old daughter Alice, was a bass player in the Nancy-based band June Frost.

Geraldine was pregnant with Pauline when the couple met. They moved in together soon afterwards and Kerry embraced and raised Pauline as his own daughter.

José suffers from schizophrenia.

Studies show around 15% of those with one parent with the condition are at risk, compared to just 1% in the general population.

José had a tough childhood with alcoholic parents, spent time in care and was on heroin when Geraldine met him.

Pauline also experimented with drugs and drink. Her parents say she tried vodka and gin, ‘magic mushrooms’, and suspect she was smoking cannabis regularly to escape the torment of her condition.

Further Geraldine’s older brother Stephane Franoux took his own life at 24 and though he was never diagnosed with any mental illness she suspects he suffered from depression.

But studies of identical twins show schizophrenia is not just about genes. Where one identical twin has it the other ends up with the condition in fewer than 50% of cases, showing life experience, or environmental triggers, play a big part.

Experts say stress and drug use while a teenager are among the factors that can result in those who are genetically vulnerable developing it.

Geraldine had a “feeling” something was wrong with Pauline from early childhood. Though before her teenage years the bouts were several years apart she heard voices and suffered vivid hallucinations from the age of three that sometimes left her paralysed with fear.

The couple, who are planning to raise funds for mental health awareness raising day Time to Talk on February 6, put the episodes down to her imaginative temperament.

It was only when José opened up about his illness in 2010 they began to fear for Pauline.

Kerry, 42, said: “It was only later when she really started to go downhill that she said she had been hearing voices for as long as she could remember.”

Geraldine said she and her husband are trying to cope with the loss of their daughter by focusing on Alice, who was left severely traumatised by the death of a sister she was very close to, and charity work for Young Minds.

A spokesperson for Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board said additional “seven days a week” intensive support for children and young people leaving mental health units has been introduced in North Wales since Pauline’s death.

However the spokesperson insisted the additional support had not been provided as a result of Pauline’s death alone.

Ysgol Friars head teacher Neil Foden said Pauline had “misinterpreted” what was said to her over the incident at the library.

Contributions can be made in Pauline’s memory to Young Minds at www.justgiving.com/Pauline-Swatridge