Do you have kids who are healthy or did they have schizophrenia like you? What are the chances of your kids having schizophrenia? Also is it hard to raise kids and hold a job at the same time?
I am schiophrenic and i have 3 kids. I idid research on there chances of having sz and its about 10%. My wife is not sz if she and i both had it our kids what have about a 50% chance of getting it. There is no way to really know yet if any of my kids will have sz at this point because all 3 are still under 10 years old. I think holding a job and raising kids is hard for anyone so having sz is just going to make it that much harder. I am on disability and my wife works. Honestly its hard having sz and raising kids but i couldnt imagine my life without them.
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I can’t answer the first two questions but the last I can. It’s a pain in the butt but I love being a dad, my son is 3 weeks away from turning one. Holding a job is easy because in in military for now until I get medically retired with a lifelong pension of over $3,000 monthly probably. So I will not work after I get out. Just live real good off of VA benefits 
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I have 4 children and work full time. Only one was born after my diagnosis, and she was actually conceived while I was still psychotic, so idk if I would have made the choice to have children if I had known before that I was sick, but I don’t regret having any of them. Working and raising kids is stressful, but rewarding. Without my kids I probably wouldn’t have the desire to do anything at all. They are also the reason why I haven’t tried to go off meds, because I’m too afraid of the unknown possibilities.
As for the risk, I don’t know what the statistics are, and my children are all too young to be able to tell, although my oldest (biological) daughter has high anxiety for a child her age, and possibly even a mood disorder, but again, it’s too early to be sure.
I have one son. When no one and nothing else seems worthwhile, he’s my reason for pushing through a bad time. From the day he was born he’s been my greatest joy and blessing.
I got divorced when he was a baby and moved in with my parents. I couldn’t have raised him on my own.
He has sz, and I have to say that’s my deepest sorrow. It didn’t occur to me that he even could inherit any part of my MI, but he did…However, he’s stronger, more aware and smarter than I ever was, so I believe he’ll be ok. He’s 22 now.
So, he’s my greatest joy and my deepest sorrow, and I would go back and endure every second of the suffering his dad brought to me to have my son exist.
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I have delusional disorder. There is no SZ on either side of my family that I know of. I have had incidents of psychosis, though. My MI was diagnosed 2 years ago when I was 46. My son is 20 and my daughter is 18 and neither have any MI issues to date. My MI is unique in my family. I think I would rather have won the lottery but that isn’t the ticket I drew
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I have 2 boys one 13 one 16 have had sz for 16 years. Neither boy has shown signs. We had the second because I recovered well. I talk with them openly about sz and they know they are at risk. I don’t stress ,as I give all my worry’s to Christ. I think it all depends on what type of example you can lead your kids with. If you have trouble taking care of yourself kids might be overwhelming. Doesn’t mean you can’t have children in your life, maybe just not your own. Your never really ready to be a parent, you grow as your kids grow. Also have to think about what kind of life could you give your children. Can you supply the love and support to raise a happy child? I’ve never regretted having kids but phycosic without my wife would have been terrible on them.
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I have 2 boys. Teenagers. The older one is depressed and suicidal. Does self harm, cuts his arms. He hears voices. Has depression as diagnose. I became ill when they were 5 and 9 years old.
I work full time. I plan resting in my calendar. I need to rest a lot. I try to avoid stress. Stress makes my symptoms much much worse.
I don’t think I would have managed the toddler years as ill. Not regretting my children, but I don’t think I’d have kids if I knew I was ill.
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13% of sz + ?% of a schizophrenia spectrum disorder.
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I love my son a lot. I had him before becoming ill. My pregnancy wasnt planned. He is too young for us to know whether he will be ill as well, but I worry about that. I didnt know at the time, but his dads family has a lot of issues (schizophrenia, autism, personality disorders) too, so there is quite a risk. I would have loved to have more children, but I dont think I would choose to do that, which is a big grief. But im hormonally vulnerable and the pregnancy and the tough first period with my son were quite destabilizing to me. Also I cant raise my son even by myself now. I feel there would be too much of a risk to myself and my son and the new child in several ways. But thats just for me personally. I dont know what i would do if, hypothetically, in a couple of years, i would be stable without meds and in a committed relationship and capable of caring for my son fulltime…I might choose differently then.
I am the only diagnosed schizophrenic in my family, my parents are both relatively sane apart from episodes they’ve had of depression. My only possible relative was my great grandfather who had severe mental illness, my mum tried to investigate, my grandad would only ever call him an invalid and a layabout. He felt this way because he could have gone to grammar school but couldn’t afford the uniform, my great nan who cared for her husband and the my grandads siblings took him as the eldest to an apprenticeship in the gas board. He revealed in his dementia he wanted to be a musician, this broke my heart because he hadn’t touched an instrument since he was in school.
My grandad would do anything for any of us, he was a strong man, he was bitter about his dad when we tried to explore him but this was probably because of what could’ve been for him. But I have a feeling there’s the gene that gave me my predisposition. However I was three months premature which could cause predisposition and my years leading up to my psychotic break I had multiple traumas, so it could be I’m the odd one out due to circumstance.
I’m posting because someone could be born with completely normal genetics but still end up with psychosis and I believe the opposite is true too.
I wouldn’t risk it if I were you. Sz is like opening pandoras box, people die man.
I’ve never had kids, but judging from my experience being a kid there are a lot of things they do that will worry you, and it’s not just sz you have to worry about. Kids so all kinds of dangerous things. When I was young we were making all kinds of bombs. We used the recipe Timothy McVeigh used when he bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City, but we just blew up rocks and trees, not people. We would crawl through the storm sewers of Muskogee, where there was a good chance that we’d meet up with a snake or snapping turtle. We were jumping off dangerous cliffs at Lake Tenkiller. And when kids get the age where they can drive, that’s a whole universe of worries on its own. Your kids will also be faced with pressure to use drugs and alcohol. There is a lot of things that can go wrong with kids, but just about everybody I came across said it was worth it to have them. Kids come with a lot of worries, that’s all.
I have sza and my son ended up with paranoid sz and he committed suicide at the age of 30 years. He was my only child. It was extremely hard being a single parent, holding down a full time job and raising him as a sza person myself. I would not recommend it to anybody. You CAN pass this disease on to your kids. And they DO suffer.
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