Is mental illness hereditary???

LegacyUser

Hi all,
As the above title states I am wondering is mental illness and depression hereditary or is it something we develop over time? This question has been boggling my mind for some time now and just thought I would post here to see if anyone could help find answers. Basically im a young man couple of weeks short of 23 years old and have had a couple of rough patches in my life over the last 3 or so years and at time to time have felt low and depressed in myself and was on medication for a couple of months which in my opinion i dont think i needed. There is a history of mental illness in my family on both sides two of my uncles on my mothers side suffer from depression one of which is permantly institutionalised, on my fathers side my father himself suffers bouts of depression and has been hospitalised from time to time due to this. Personally I feel my depressive patches are directly linked to my genetic make up but i could be wrong. Basically I dont want to see myself end up like my father or uncles as I see first hand how mental illness can really debilitate an other wise perfectly normal person. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
JP

Victor

We are made up of two parts - genes and environment. Often it is difficult to separate people who might be pre-disposed to one or the other, simply because we spend a lot of our lives with our family. While it is believed that alcoholism is strongly linked to genetic make-up, many children of alcoholics don't drink at all as they have seen the effect it has on their parents

While there might be a pre-disposition towards any particular condition, that does not guarantee that you will have the same condition as your father or experience it in the same way. time has moved on and so has society and treatment.

Rather than use the internet, I would suggest that you talk to your medical professionals (starting with your GP, I suppose) to recommend reading suitable for your situation.

LegacyUser

Victor wrote: »

We are made up of two parts - genes and environment. Often it is difficult to separate people who might be pre-disposed to one or the other, simply because we spend a lot of our lives with our family. While it is believed that alcoholism is strongly linked to genetic make-up, many children of alcoholics don't drink at all as they have seen the effect it has on their parents

While there might be a pre-disposition towards any particular condition, that does not guarantee that you will have the same condition as your father or experience it in the same way. time has moved on and so has society and treatment.

Rather than use the internet, I would suggest that you talk to your medical professionals (starting with your GP, I suppose) to recommend reading suitable for your situation.

Sorry Victor but where are you getting that information from, I have 2 alcoholic parents and no one else in my family has a drink problem. Similarly I know plenty of people with alcoholism in their families and no one else around them has a drink problem, i'd love to know what the basis for that statement is.

Ginja Ninja

short answer yes,long answer no.

in short,yoou are gentically very similar to your parents,so your mind works fairly similarly,so you'd be that bit more predisposed to whatever mental illnesses they had.

however,you don't have to let it be like that.you're not a slave to your genes.In my family on my dads,three of his fathers family died young by what look like spurious circumstances and we suspect suicide and in my own family I've lost 3 brothers to suicide and have a had some serious bouts of depression myself,but I refuse to let it affect me and anytime I've thoughts of suicide I look at what my brothers suicide did to those around us and how it affects the world,I know I could never do that and just get through it.

basically,yes you could end up like your uncle,but only if you just elt it happen.There are plenty of steps you can take and be mindful of to ensure you don't end up in that situation

Victor

confusedmuch wrote: »

Sorry Victor but where are you getting that information from, I have 2 alcoholic parents and no one else in my family has a drink problem. Similarly I know plenty of people with alcoholism in their families and no one else around them has a drink problem, i'd love to know what the basis for that statement is.

I also said "We are made up of two parts - genes and environment." and "While there might be a pre-disposition towards any particular condition, that does not guarantee that you will have the same condition"

LegacyUser

Victor wrote: »

I also said "We are made up of two parts - genes and environment." and "While there might be a pre-disposition towards any particular condition, that does not guarantee that you will have the same condition"

I would have thought for the most part that genes and environment come hand in hand, ie if your father is an alcohlic, then you're going to grow up in an environment where alcoholism is present. Mental illness and alcoholism are not the same thing by the way.

Bottle_of_Smoke

confusedmuch wrote: »

I would have thought for the most part that genes and environment come hand in hand, ie if your father is an alcohlic, then you're going to grow up in an environment where alcoholism is present. Mental illness and alcoholism are not the same thing by the way.

He's just using it as an example. There's nothing he said that suggests alcoolism/mental illness are the same thing.

I would agree anyhow. There as predisposing gentic factors but they're only really useful for statistical purposes, your environment will play a part too. Even

Don't get bogged down in genes, they're far more complicated than you get half mums half dads. You could for example get some genes that you inherited from your father but were recessve with him and played no role in his make up. So even if environments were the same you're not neccesarily going to inherit specific genes that push you toward depression

Its hard to explain but believe me its not worth worrying about on an individual level. Ones is not doomed to depression/alcoholism/diabetes/cancer/red hair/brown eyes etc if his/her parents had genes that pointed that direction

hollis12

well yes and no, you can bet that thinking that your predisposed to depression will do more damage to your mental health than the risk of any mental health factors.

alcoholism is treated as a symptom of a mental illness/stress ect rather than a mental illness.

the biggest factor in this is your attitudes to it if your dad was a alcoholic it would do you no good thinking your genetically predisposed to it.

LegacyUser

Hi all,
Thanks for your replys, so the general gist im getting is that it is hereditary but only if you let it be am i right?

Jumpy

jpod wrote: »

Hi all,
Thanks for your replys, so the general gist im getting is that it is hereditary but only if you let it be am i right?

Can be hereditary, not definitely.

Learned behavior plays a part as well.