All through high school and college, Jennifer Mullé remembers waking up each morning and thinking, “Is today the day I start hearing voices?”
One of Mullé’s aunts had schizophrenia, and another had psychosis. “I would hear my parents talking about them. Long before I knew anything about genetics, I knew I was at risk,” says Mullé, assistant professor of epidemiology at Rollins.
The knowledge that she was vulnerable to developing the disease that plagued her family shaped Mullé’s young adulthood and career. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by delusions and/or hallucinations that leave sufferers unable to distinguish between what is real and what is not. It generally strikes young adults, with the risk for developing the disorder peaking between ages 20 and 25 and dropping off by age 30.
During her early to mid-20s, Mullé did little but wait for the onset. Although she attended college, she did not apply herself. She did not allow herself to become entwined with boyfriends. She did not plan a career.
“My future seemed so uncertain, I just couldn’t commit to anything,” she says.
But as she neared 30 with no signs of schizophrenia, she decided it was time to start her life in earnest.
Of course any breakthroughs in the search for final causes of schizophrenia is great. But what impressed me most about this article is the first part, how the threat of possible schizophrenia affected Mullé’s life up to her thirties.
It seems an important consideration in the decision to take children as a schizophrenic. How best to prepare them, or should you not infuse them with worries about it? I have always thought it would be best to be very open about the condition towards your children, such that they will be best prepared if it hits them.
Also to create a family environment in which extraordinary experiences are openly discussed such that they won’t have to go through the experience all by themselves, again, if it were to hit them. This story shows the possible negatives of such an approach and to me makes the decision all the more difficult.
I agree - openess is good and to educate them about the current science around it and the real risks (quite low in most situations). At the same time I think families have to be careful not to overemphasize or focus on it as the fear, waiting, or expectations could in themselves be very debilitating as I think the article suggests also.