Schizophrenia is said to be increased by genetic factors. Out of curiosity, do any of the family members here also have it or are there any other mental disorders in the family? What about the ones who have no history of illness in their lineage? How did your loved one develop it?
On my mother’s side of the family, my maternal grandmother had psychotic depression, My mother’s older brother had schizophrenia, and another brother of my mother appeared to have a spectrum of Asperger’s. My mother’s older sister’s daughter was bulimic and anorexic, and my mother has an obsessive compulsive and anxiety disorder. On my father’s side of the family, an older sister, who I had never met, had a mental disorder, my father’s younger brother had bi-polar and committed suicide at age 38. Another son of one of my father’s brothers has bi-polar. As well, my father’s grandniece who had bi-polar committed suicide at age 33. My 37 year old son was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder at age 23.
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We have a variety of things going on on both sides of the family.
I think you’ll find there aren’t very many families out there that don’t have some kind of mental illness.
It seems so. I just find it interesting how certain disorders will skip certain generations. It’s even far more interesting when a child turns up with something that doesn’t run in the family.
On my husband’s side, his mother and all her siblings had something or another - bipolar, serious depression, something, but they also had some things in their childhood that could have contributed.
My husband and his sister are OK for the most part, although there are minor issues.
My son is pretty bad, and although we don’t have contact with his sister anymore, we heard that her son started having the same kinds of problems as our son at about the same age.
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I don’t know anyone with no family history of mental illness developing it…but as for my family it is a wonder I function at all with my history-- it is so pervasive and rampant. My great grandmother had an anxiety disorder, my grandmother had depression, and borderline personality disorder, my mother had major depression and bi polar disorder and today at 73 has full blown dementia, my biological father was an alcoholic with several mental disorders, out of my 3 sisters -2 have major depression and alcoholism and one had schizo affective disorder and borderline personality disorder and is a recovering crack addict, my oldest son is high functioning Asperger’s and my youngest son the one that I care for has Disorganized Schizophrenia, Borderline Personality Disorder, and drug induced brain damage and is on the autism spectrum. I am myself borderline bi polar-and I have had long term PTSD—I manage okay with cognitive therapy, DBT. and acupuncture. So that’s my history, blows my mind when I read it back. whew! Too much disorder in my genes.
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Genes that increase the risk for schizophrenia are "most active during early fetal brain development, prior to 24 weeks gestation.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/19/health/schizophrenia-genome-study/index.html
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