Hi,i am new member here,and first i appologyse on my english,i’m not native. Although i do’nt have schizophrenia i am pretty familiar with mental issues: my husband is diagnosed with bipolar,my father in law had sh. and i struggle with depresion,anxiety and eating disorder.I read your posts and i am very touched with each story that also broke some of my implicite stereotypes about schizophrenia. I am interested in this: do you have a familial hereditary of mental illness?i am asking because i have a kid who is world to me and i can not get a rid of “he has that gene” thoughts. It is really hard.when i got married my husband did not have bipolar and i did’nt know about his father. Also,recently i notice some symptoms on my 22yr old niece…
No one in my family has what i have. Not that I know of anyway.
It seems currently I am the only one in our almost 40 family member from old to young to have mental illness.Its a lonely disease and I don’t hope any of my family member to have similiar illness as me,it’s quite disabling
For me… it does run in the family… I have an Uncle with Sz… I had a Grandfather who was never diagnosed… but people are guessing Sz as well.
My middle brother is coping with depression. My youngest brother is coping with bipolar… my slightly younger brother is going through something dark… and refuses to see a doc.
I am the only one in my family diagnosed with a mental illness. However my paternal grandfather, a great uncle(both deceased), and my sister have all had a bout of depression. There were also a few ancestors with bipolar traits. My mother was highly neurotic and an alcoholic/problem drinker who never came out of denial . Addictive tendencies run fairly high in the family. My brother has become increasingly paranoid over the years. I wonder how much of that is due to drugs and how much it was due to a genetic propensity( my mother could also be quite paranoid when inebriated).
I’m also surrounded with people either diagnosed or suspected of depresion/anxiety/bipolar. It is mostly in my husbands family,there is just me and my strange-acting niece on my side.But i am wondering is that a rule for relatives to develope schizophrenia or it can take any form of mental illness
nope, mi doesnt run in my family or relatives, as far as i know im the only one
And it becomes more strange considering that my father in law had sh. but my husband and his twin brother neither have sh.but bipolar and depresion. I think that paranoid thoughts can be highly “improved” with drugs,because my brother in law use to cure his depresion with drugs&alch.ending up frightened to sleep alone.
No one else besides me in my family has sz, but my sister and niece have Bipolar and my maternal grandfather had an alcohol problem, maybe depression too.
My son has sz, my mother had clinical depression, My sister has has bipolar, My dad has bpd…My son was also doing drugs which complicated everything…
I’m sorry to hear that. Obviously it has something with genetics. I am so scared for my son 
@sarad please don’t worry too much. I realise there is a genetic component to mental illness but rates vary. It seems in some families rates are strong but equally other families are spared.
I think in a lot of cases stress can be as big a trigger as genetics so bring up your boy in a low stress environment and I’m sure he’ll be fine.
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There is a genetic component. I wrote a paper on this crapola last year and the odds of getting it get slimmer the less you are related to the one who has it. For example, if I had a kid with a normal woman, there would be a 13% chance that a single child would have it. The odds increase with each kid. If I had a kid with another schizophrenic, it goes up to 50%.’
And yes I have two living distant relatives on my maternal side who have schizophrenia.
No known relatives diagnosed with sz but I did have a distant relative on my maternal grandfather’s side who used to chew the brass around the fender and threaten to cut his throat with a knife. I’m guessing he wasn’t exactly normal.
Schizophrenia and other mental illnesses run in my family. My father has sza like me. I have an aunt with sz. My brother has bipolar disorder and my mom has clinical depression. I also have an uncle with anxiety. I don’t know about grandparents or further back in the gene pool.
My mom suffers from depression. One of my brother’s suffers from schizophrenia. I have schizophrenia as well but not as severe as my brother. I think my dad may have had depression since he was an alcoholic.
Sh doesn’t run in my family.
Doesn’t run in mine either.
Schizophrenia runs in my mom side of the family. I am the only one of my brothers and sister that has been diagnosed. My four children currently show no signs of it.
Wow,4 kids! that is amasing! i got one and had to stop because of my condition and medicine