Myth: Bad parenting is the cause of schizophrenia

Mothers, in particular, often get blamed.

But schizophrenia is a mental illness. It has many causes, including genes, trauma, and drug abuse. Mistakes you’ve made as a parent won’t give your child this condition.

I don’t blame my Mom. My parents are great.

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My mom sometimes blames herself for my illness. It breaks my heart. She was by no means a great parent though. Sadly the genes for alcoholism run in that side of my family.

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I mean like if a parent abuses their child physically or whatnot, it could be traumatic and causes it no?? If trauma is indeed a cause.

I just think there’s some overlap between parenting and environment.

That said I don’t blame my parents in any way they did their best but I’m not the only example out there.

I’m not trying to argue that you shouldn’t have love for your caring parents nor should you dwell on abusive ones either too much. But I’m just not sure how literal I should take this statement. “Bad parenting doesn’t cause sz”.

Unless it’s like 80-100% genetic and little environmental impact. Then I would believe it’s true but I don’t think we have those answers yet…

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I do think neglectful or violent parenting might up the odds of developing schizophrenia, but not poor parenting in general.

My dad is a psychologist, and carries a lot of guilt about not discovering my condition earlier, or having me checked out for the symptoms he did see.
I’ve told him I don’t blame him. After all, I kept most of it a secret.

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My mum was neglectful in my teens but i could never blame her for my illness. It’s likely she had the same condition as me and was neglected by her mum, but who knows

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