Do you inherit your parent's mental illness?
I'm often told I look like my dad, that I have his mannerisms and some of his habits. It's something I take pride in. But it's also something that worries me because he had schizophrenia, and when I was nine, he took his own life.
After a particularly bad two-week episode, he set fire to his flat in London, and threw himself out of a window.
Some of the details of his life and death have only become clear while looking into this story. Multiple suicide attempts; walking around London in just a bathrobe; hearing voices. They are details that contrast so strongly with the man I remember from when he was well - happy, creative and funny.
Twenty years earlier, his own father - my grandfather - had shot himself after finding out he had cancer. I also have other family with mental health issues. Now in my twenties I sometimes struggle with depression. So I naturally think - is this something that runs in my family?
For a lot of people, mental health is a difficult thing to talk about. But those who deal with these issues can often point to family members with similar problems. Do I get depressed because of the trauma of losing my father in such tragic circumstances? Or is it written into my DNA?
At King's College London (KCL), researchers have been looking into the genetics of mental health.
Studies into twins and family histories have proved that mental health illnesses have a genetic contribution. But it's only in the past few years scientists have been able to fully identify the genetic changes that might be causing that increase in risk.
Prof Cathryn Lewis, a researcher from the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre explains: "It's really hard to identify the genetics for mental health disorders. We learn at school about simple Mendelian [relating to the laws of Gregor Mendel] diseases - like Huntington's or cystic fibrosis - where there is the gene, a single gene that contributes to it.
"Mental health disorders are not about a single gene but about a collection of genes. We need to start thinking about this as a cumulative loading of genetics."
Making sense of my genetic legacy is important, because it allows me to break away from the feelings of inevitability that depression gives you. Is this meant to happen? Am I meant to get over this? Is this bigger than me?
"Evidence from the last few years also suggests that many mental disorders share common genetic risk factors - for instance, genetic variation associated with schizophrenia overlaps with both depression and bipolar disorder," says Lewis.
My father's schizophrenia has not been passed down to me - as I haven't experienced any of the symptoms I would have had by now - but perhaps some of the genetic coding we share has caused me to experience depression.
Siblings can have very different outcomes. Twins Lucy and Jonny have a bipolar mother. Jonny has also suffered from the condition, while Lucy has not.
"When I have a bad episode I'm not able to drag myself out of bed," says Jonny. "Or if I do, maybe next level, I'm able to drag myself out of bed but I can't understand things. I literally can't understand how things fit together. There's cloudiness in my brain. So there are lots of physical aspects of feeling what people are calling mentally unwell."
I asked him how he felt when he was diagnosed with his mother's illness.
"Oh my God. So many different emotions and intellectual responses that you go through. I cried with relief." But he continued: "I'm my mother's child. But I feel like my own condition is unique. Because every mental health condition is unique to that person."
But these are relative risks - overall risk remains very low. And, as ever, there's a certain amount of chance involved in picking up genetic traits. Our upbringings and what we experience as children and adults has a huge influence on whether or not we develop mental illness.
My father's death has had a huge impact on my life and on my relationship with my mother. She too has depression - brought on perhaps by my father's death. So it was vital that I spoke to her, to understand a little more of what she went through - and what worries she had about me.
The sense of failure she felt in not being able to stop his death was clear. So too were her concerns about me developing a psychotic illness like my dad.
She describes the day he died. She came into my school to tell me, and remembers my nine-year-old face looking up at her from her lap, my legs swinging between hers. I'd cry at night, she told me, calling out for my dad. I remember none of this.
"He would be very proud of you now," she says. "Very, very proud you're doing all the things he would never be able to achieve. In his heart, he would feel: 'Oh wow, what a great young man - we made him.'"
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36228055
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I have clinical depression. My mother struggled with it most of her life. My little brother has it, as does one of my sisters. The question is, is it genetic or was being raised around with someone with depression enough to cause depression in the children? Is it nature or nurture?
Each of us who has or had depression in our family also have other things that could have caused it. In her later years my mother told me that her older brother, my uncle Ray, had molested her many times when she was a young teen and that she always believed her parents knew, but closed their eyes to it. My little brother's father died before he was born, so he never knew him. My sister and I were molested by the same man. Myself when I was seven and then years later he molested her (he was her biological father) when she was 10 or 11 years old.
Still, I have to believe that there is a genetic component, as all of the men on my mother's side of the family were suffering some form of dementia when they died, usually in their late 60s.
I found this to be particularly interesting;
Siblings can have very different outcomes. Twins Lucy and Jonny have a bipolar mother. Jonny has also suffered from the condition, while Lucy has not.
"When I have a bad episode I'm not able to drag myself out of bed," says Jonny. "Or if I do, maybe next level, I'm able to drag myself out of bed but I can't understand things. I literally can't understand how things fit together. There's cloudiness in my brain. So there are lots of physical aspects of feeling what people are calling mentally unwell."
Besides the description of how I feel when I am having a real struggle with my depression (as I have been lately, spending 16 hours or more in bed, usually sleeping, per day) I would really like to know if the twins were identical twins or not?
RED BOX! Just be nice!
Can depression be inherited? - good chance of it. My father was hospitalized with clinical depression, and years later so was I. My life is so different now - I weaned myself off anti-depressants about 6 or 7 years ago.
It would be nice if science could pinpoint the gene or genes that (if it is genetic) cause depression and/or other forms of mental illness, if for no other reason then to help remove the stigma by showing that it IS a medical condition. Perhaps it would be possible to formulate a medication that targets just that aspect of it. Or, if nothing else, actually come up with some form of vaccine for it for children who are at risk due to a family history.
My mother was hospitalized several times with depression and I have been also.
My life is so different now - I weaned myself off anti-depressants about 6 or 7 years ago.
Congratulations on that. It works for some people. For me it does not seem to. I have tried to wean myself (with my psychiatrist's help) off from many of my medications with varying degrees of success. However the anti-depressants are something that I am afraid I will always be taking and will probably need to be increased when I see him again in July. When I have tried to be weaned off from them the depression returns with a vengeance. Not wanting to get out of bed at all all day is bad enough as is the going days at a time eating maybe 2 or 3 bowls of cereal as my entire intake, but the one that really gets to me is the paranoia. It's a strange feeling of impending doom. It's hard to describe, but I become positive something terrible is about to happen to me, my biggest terror being a completely irrational fear of going to jail or prison, even though I have no warrants and do not commit crimes.
Keep in mind that I did a sea change of environment, work load and responsibilities generally - I lived a much more relaxed life, and I'm sure that made all the difference. However I still keep up an email correspondence with my psychiatrist, but not for medical reasons. She's travelling the world and sending me photos.
I would love to be able to have contact with my old Psychologist, but he was adamant about not having any outside of the office contact. My current therapist is pretty good, but she's leaving the clinic I'm going in a few months and has promised to set me up with a good one. I'm going to meet a few over the next few visits. It has to be a good fit because you are going to be telling this person things you'd never reveal to anyone. I don't really care if they are male of female, just so they are as serious about this as I am. I don't want someone perky trying to cheer me up.
Did anyone see the miniseries "Olive Kitteridge" from a couple years ago?
Inherited depression is a major theme of the movie.
The main character Olive Kitteridge is an unlikable misanthrope, but suffers from depression passed down through her parents (her mother killed herself).
Great performance by Frances McDormand won an Emmy.
I haven't seen it, but thanks for the tip on it. I'll look it up and grab a copy from Amazon. Or it might be on youtube.
Off topic, but have to say that Frances McDormand is a great actress - did a super job in Fargo.
It was like being stationed back in North Dakota again. I would come home on leave and people would ask me where I got the accent from and I hadn't even realized I'd picked it up. She (and everyone else) nailed the accent perfectly!
I think I got mine from the kids.
LOL! My mom used to say the same thing, but her therapist told her that genetics don't work backwards (as in up to the parents) and that mental illness is not contagious.