Mothering in a family with genetic mental disease

Mental illness is so very often a genetic disorder. It is a disease, not a problem with a "crazy person". This disease can often be seen in various forms throughout the family tree, if you have a detailed enough description of older family members.

It's a scary thing to realize that you may not have full control over your thoughts, reactions or emotions, especially if someone who is or was close to you in your family suffered from a severe form of illness. You may wonder if you'll get that bad, if you're crazy, if you'll be locked away one day...... all of these thoughts, of course, would cause anyone stress, but there's hope - And help.

If you recognize that your depressed, go see a counsellor or therapist and get help. If you feel angry or violent, go see a professional before it gets out of hand. At the earliest onset, if you feel something is wrong, go get help. Get analysed and tested, and find out what is wrong. Get treatment. For so long in the past, any form of mental illness carried such a stigma with it that people mentioned nothing, their relatives were put in back rooms, or institutions for the insane. But there wasn't any treatment being performed. That exists now.

My Grandmother committed suicide; my Mother is a Pathological Narcassist; my Sister has a personality disorder; I have severe clinical Depression and my daughter suffers from bi-polar. It is certainly genetic; I did nothing to cause my illness. I'm not just some "crazy" woman. Research shows every day the link between chemical imbalances in the brain and these conditions. They are not conditions of a person's personality....

As you can well imagine, our family life is interesting. It can be quite stressful. At times, my daughter infuriates me, and I have to remind myself of her mood swings and help her adjust. At other times, she's helping me, taking care of normal household things when I just can't seem to get out of bed. We get help, and go to therapy together, and it's caused a great improvement. But there will always be work to do.