Hi, I’m new to this and just read your post. My son is the exact same way. He was very social (still is- just with a different group) , smart, athletic and a leader. This came out of nowhere as well except my son started abusing marijuana at 17 and we think this set him off. It’s so hard to look back at how smart and independent he was. He was going to swim in college and now he is living at home trying to work part time. He is very kind and sweet but it’s so sad to see him struggling.
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I had a horrible life from birth on. I was abused and neglected. I truly believe my issues are caused at least quite a bit by the neglect and abused I endured
My son, now 50-years-old living in a group home,
had many, many ear aches as an infant.
No other trauma that I know of.
He was an agreeable, self-directed kid who started with violence, delusions, abuse of family, property and a girl friend at about 17.
We thought it was hormones.
To this day, he cries and says " That this is no life,mom". And I cry, too.
He can’t work, can’t sleep,has had serious cardiac issues as a side effect of daily meds. Still has psychotic episodes, whatever that means.
SZ is not well-defined diagnostically.
And has never granted me permission to listen to/speak with his CW or Psych-doc.
Thanks for reading this.
It helps that there’s a listening SZ community here.
from Vermont
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@VermontWoman1 Yikes! My son had many ear infections also which only went away after ear tubes were surgically implanted. He had many, many rounds of antibiotics.
I googled on it and found this: Middle-ear disease and schizophrenia: case-control study
Background: One hundred years ago psychiatrists thought that ear disease could cause insanity by irritation of the brain. Current understanding of the role of the temporal lobes in schizophrenia and their proximity to the middle ear supports this hypothesis.
Conclusions: There is an association between middle-ear disease and schizophrenia which may have aetiological significance.
I’ve never heard of this idea of middle-ear disease causing(?) schizophrenia. When my brother developed a brain abscess probably due to an ear infection. After surgery he developed epilepsy possibly due to the scarring from the surgery. It was done in the late 1950s so brain surgery was not as refined as it is today.
A brother-in-law was diagnosed with SZ about 40 years ago and now has a schizoaffective disorder diagnosis. As my spouse and I have been supporting him (his parents are deceased) and trying to help him manage his illness, I’ve been reading up on the latest theories as to causes of these disorders. A wide swath of the population apparently has genetic markers associated with schizophrenia, but most never suffer from it. In addition, most SZ sufferers do not have children, but the percentage of the population diagnosed with SZ has remained constant through the years.
It does appear to run in some families, indicating that family members who themselves are unaffected are nevertheless able to pass on genes linked to the disease. Some researchers think that adverse events that switch on these genes must occasionally occur. One line of inquiry is whether this happens during pregnancy, due to some sort of stress on the mother, whether general stress or perhaps from exposure to a contagious virus such as influenza. The so-called male placenta, that is, the placenta formed during a pregnancy resulting in a son, is evidently more vulnerable, so that might explain why SZ is more prevalent in males.
Other explanations for SZ include inclusion (i.e., too many, as in Down Syndrome patients) or deletion (i.e., missing, where they should exist) of genetic components. Another important factor is so-called advanced paternal age, or APA, generally defined as 40+.
I have no doubt that my mother-in-law was really stressed during her pregnancy, since the child in question was her fifth within an eight year span, and at a time when the household conveniences of today were not in existence and women were expected to do all of the housework. Such a scenario was quite common in those days, however, with no ill effects on most offspring, and the flu theory interested me, so I did a search of the now-digitized local newspaper for her city for the year in question, using influenza as a keyword. As it happens, a flu epidemic had swept through several states that year, hitting my in-laws’ city so hard that the newspaper would qualify sports results according to how many players were out due to the flu. (The flu vaccine had been available for some time, but two variants were active that year, and the vaccine was effective only for the variant that had been anticipated, not the unexpected one.) IMO, that may explain a lot.
As far as I know, my brother-in-law, now extremely fragile emotionally, was a normal child, happy and doing well in school, although I now wonder whether any sign of fragility might have been written off as just inherent in being the youngest child. Can’t go back in time to observe, unfortunately.
To me, the scariest aspect of SZ and related illnesses is that unaffected family members cannot be certain that their children have been spared until at least age thirty. Am praying that gene therapy will ultimately resolve not only SZ, but a number of other dread diseases.
Welcome to the forum!
You might be interested in a book written by Robert Kolker - “Hidden Valley Road”.
The book has a storyline that mades it quite readable. Kolker gives good background on the history of scz meds, the genetic factors and current research that is in place to prevent scz in future generations.
I was wondering if you could supply the source for this particular bit of information? I do realize that “most” can mean 50.1 % - just curious, thanks!
Hi, hope.
Thanks. It’s great to know that there is a safe place for family members to share insights and experiences.
I couldn’t find the specific source that I quoted, probably from the NIH website. I try to get my information from scientifically validated sources. Here’s one from Sweden, a country with robust social supports, indicating that the population of schizophrenic men studied had less than a quarter of the number of children on average compared to the control population, and the schizophrenic women had slightly less than half. Interestingly, the average number of children produced by their unaffected male and female siblings was close to that of the control population:
In our case, the affected family member did have three children whom he was subsequently unable to support. Doesn’t seem like such a great idea now, but both he and the children’s mother were employed at the time. Hindsight is always 20/20; however, we fear that one of the kids may have inherited the disorder and are holding our breath until he ages past the point by which it generally manifests. Here’s hoping that genetic therapy will be a true game-changer, to limit the damage that this cruel disorder can inflict.
Hi frustratedinlaw, Thanks for the link, its interesting that they were studying people with scz, autism and bipolar for “reproductive fitness” does that mean biologically or otherwise? - (@Maggotbrane if you have time could you review the study and share your thoughts here with myself and frustratedinlaw?)
While we have bipolar and autism on my side of the family-(both sides) my husband’s family has schizophrenia and autism on his mother’s side and autism on his father’s side. My son has scz as did his paternal grandmother, her sister, and one of her nephews. Interestingly enough, his grandmother and great aunt’s scz was quite similar in nature to my son’s once it was fully present. Both women had children, 3 for his grandmother and 4 for her sister. The male cousin died of an overdose in his late twenties without (as much as we know) having any children. My son (to our knowledge) has no children.
My MIL had 3 male children that have been functional (working, relationships, family), yet the presence of comparatively mild paranoia is present in all 3. Between the 3, they have fathered 7 children. 2 of those children have autism (males), 1 has schizophrenia(male) , 3 are too young to know (2 females,1 male) - except to say they don’t have autism, and 1 (male)has us concerned as he is in his early 20’s and has possibly started withdrawing socially.
My MIL’s sister who had scz and 4 children - we know 1 son had scz, we don’t know anything about the other 3.
My MIL’s sister who didn’t have scz had 2 males and 1 female. 1 male with scz died of an overdose in his late 20’a -no known children. The other male has functionable anxiety issues and never had children. The female seemed normal and died of cancer in her 50’s. She had 2 children.
Neither of us knew about the scz on my husband’s side. His mom and her sister married and held simple jobs while raising families. Once I realized my MIL was not quite right, I thought she was an alcoholic, she was certainly drinking enough constantly. When I met her sister, I thought, “another alcoholic” Both women were heavily into self medicating with alcohol.
I don’t know much about my MIL’s sister besides those few facts and what I observed years ago. My MIL did talk about her voices - in a way- like my son she attributed them to real people. She would tell some wild tales about things people had told her. We just thought she was an awfully big alcoholic liar as she would talk about things people told her when we knew she hadn’t seen the people. When her symptoms were severe, she retreated to her bedroom and smoked for hours.
I don’t remember the details, but the book I mentioned does talk about a study that is ongoing regarding prenatal supplements to prevent scz. The results of the study will take some generational time.
I’ll see what I can do. I started a draft reply last night to add to the pile, since as you anticipated I had thoughts on the subject, but felt it required a more comprehensive response and a less cursory reading of the study.
I’m rather busy at present as I’m in the process of a gradual move closer to my parents and brother. I close on the new house next week, and there are possessions to move to and from storage and into the new house and preparing the old house to sell and on and on. My hope is by next month or thereafter I will own my new home free and clear and be close enough, but far enough away to be a better caregiver.
Some initial thoughts:
Since SZ is considered by many researchers to be a spectrum or cluster of related diseases, I think it’s premature to consider genetic therapies as silver bullets. I realize some caregivers rely on hopes and dreams to keep motivated, but some can veer off into escapism and denial that reduces their effectiveness in the here and now. There are far better understood diseases with clearer and simpler genetic links that are more disabling and life threatening with little to no treatment that will go first.
That said, I haven’t had the time to read “Hidden Valley Road”, but accounts suggest a stronger genetic link in this family than previously observed in the public at large. To my mind it suggests the “many schizophrenias” or “many genes” hypotheses could have some validity.
As far as the study goes, I suspect it may be motivated by concerns of family planning education needs or child care needs for budgetary planning for children of neurodiverse parents who need support from the state. And perhaps balancing this with better care for these parents’ illnesses so they may be better parents (or non parents), as a rising tide lifts all boats.
I can think of a myriad of simple explanations and hypotheses to match these data from my understanding of what it means to have SZ (and bipolar) symptoms, be male gendered, and attempt to have relationships and a sex life, much less procreate. I started down a list, and ended up bifurcating it by factoring in anasognosia and prodromal behaviors, so I need some time to think it through.
I feel to a degree it’s a bit academic, as we can quibble over how well SMIs and autism are diagnosed and how accurate these numbers are, but my take-away is the genetics and environmental factors that trigger the genes are complex or these diseases would have died out long ago. Not to say this isn’t worthy or study, but perhaps more with an eye to screening and drug and protein design.
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Hi, hope.
I’m not a biologist, so please take these observations with a grain of salt: By “reproductive fitness”, I think they mean ability to reproduce, not in terms of whether a person is biologically (i.e., technically) able to reproduce, but whether that person actually has offspring. (Humans not being like other animals, there are exceptions, obviously, such as when people simply have no desire to become parents or instances in which, especially in the past, some become parents or have additional children in spite of their own preferences.) In terms of natural selection, genetically-determined attributes that make it difficult for people who would otherwise be physically able to reproduce to do so, such as, say, very severe autism, would eventually disappear, since those born with those traits would constitute an ever-decreasing proportion of the population, and those born without those traits an ever-increasing proportion. That apparently hasn’t happened with SCZ, however, despite that fact that it severely limits reproductive fitness, especially with respect to fatherhood, and despite its strong heritability component. That being paradoxical with respect to natural selection, the conclusion is that most SCZ mutations are appearing spontaneously or that unaffected family members are passing the traits on.
My brother-in-law is extremely guarded about his diagnosis, as he finds it embarrassing/humiliating. He is worried that it will affect his ability to get a job, as well, although we are trying to get SSDI for him. Given a choice between being labeled drunk or crazy, I wonder how many with SCZ would choose the former.
The sharing of some, but not all, characteristics of a genetically-conferred illness between affected and unaffected siblings might not be unusual. One of my spouse’s other siblings complained to me about one of the SCZ-afflicted brother’s mannerisms that he attributed to SCZ, and I realized that my spouse often did the same thing. No idea whether it’s related to SCZ at all. I did relate it to my SCZ brother-in-law, something that he found quite amusing!
I am just a carrier for a physical illness that is extremely debilitating and that used to kill sufferers well before adulthood, but, after wondering whether another diagnosis in the same bodily system might be related, I looked it up. According to recent research, people with my particular genetic expression do indeed escape the really terrible illness, but suffer from my much-less-severe illness at greatly increased rates. Who knows how many other illnesses might follow the same pattern, in which those with an extremely mild version can seem normal by comparison?
Curious as to whether those affected in your family look alike, having read some time ago about a concept called gene clustering, in which, say, little Billy, who looks like (“takes after”, perhaps) Uncle Billy who had SCZ, also has SCZ, because they share a cluster of genes that may or may not determine both. That is one reason that we are worried about the nephew, although the main reasons are similar behaviors such as social withdrawal/extreme shyness. Have read, also, that, as in some illnesses (such as, most notably, Down Syndrome) sufferers definitely have distinctive facial features, although usually not so distinctive that a lay person would be able to discern them. A slippery slope, that…
My husband and his brothers do look alike and they resemble their mother quite strongly.
My family has rather diverse appearances, 6 kids with the same parents - two blue eyed strawberry blondes, two light brunettes with blue eyes and two dark brunettes with brown eyes.
Mom is a dark brunette with brown eyes and a heavy dose of anxiety and bipolar. I look like my mom (except she was a beauty) both of my boys look like me and my mom. My son with scz has the striking looks of my mom, he resembles her closely. He is quite high functioning with his scz, highly paranoid, and quite brilliant. He has been fortunate to retain his cognition, he is unmedicated. My other son who has autism is high functioning and quite brilliant. My brother who also resembles our mom, has been diagnosed with bipolar, its a pretty severe case and has continued to worsen as he ages.
It interesting that my son who resembles my mother and has scz, has a very similar sort of scz as my husband’s mother and aunt. My family’s looks, his family’s version of scz.
My dad’s immediate family has a couple of members with bipolar type behaviors. Dad’s was pretty bad, I don’t know what his actual diagnosis would be, he was highly paranoid, anxious and given to angry outbursts. Two of my siblings are much deeper on the bipolar spectrum -both are heavy into self medication. Growing up, we just thought it was how people acted. When my brother’s bipolar was diagnosed in his 50’s - he wanted to talk with me because he knew about my son. The first thing he wanted to say after being hospitalized for several months was “Did you know that things in our family aren’t normal?” He was totally surprised.
On my husband’s side, the nephew who has non-verbal autism, is the spitting image of his paternal grandmother.
I am eager to read more of what @Maggotbrane has to say, I knew he would be interested in the subject.
One of the things that has been interesting to me is that our family members with scz tend to be highly intelligent AND attractive.
Of the family members’ “before” pictures that I have received through private exchanges - there has not been an exception.
They say that attractiveness is actually based on facial symmetry. When you compare the two sides of a person’s face, the more alike they are, the more the people are seen as attractive.
Agreed that SZ does appear to be a cluster of diseases, but some affected are definitely suffering much more than others, and some aspects, not least the early age of onset, curtailment of the life span, relatively low quality of life for many sufferers, and the negative effect on the lives of others, should make genetic treatment a priority. Specific sites of gene duplication and/or deletion have already been identified. Although some aspects of gene-altering technology are still problematic, it’s not unreasonable to believe that those will ultimately be resolved, and it’s the sort of thing that, once perfected, whether for Alzheimer’s, cancer, you name it, will likely be applicable to much more than the original target.
Agree with your observation about the complex interaction between environmental and genetic factors. Wish that more were known about that.
Our SZ relative looks young for his age. Wondering whether the flat affect has anything to do with that. He is highly intelligent, as well.
Vertical facial proportions have a lot to do with perceptions of attractiveness. Having roughly equal height for three sections of the face, the bottom of the chin to the bottom of the nose, the bottom of the nose to the top of the eyebrow, and the top of the eyebrow to the perceived beginning of the hairline, is apparently the most desirable configuration across multiple cultures and racial groups.
My 50-year-old son had a LOT of ear infections as an infant.
My son’s grandfather on his father’s side was had sz. I was 17 when I had my son, it was a difficult birth. I was in labor about 36 hours, my sons heart rate dropped I had an emergency c-section. He then had difficulties, cried continually, would not sleep. Did not speak until after 3. He received special help, speech therapists, cognitive therapy and so on. They suspected autism. This was the 80s so autism wasn’t well known. As a toddler he’d become extremely agitated if a strange person came to visit, he’d put his blanket over his head and hide under a chair. He rarely slept. He had a few ear infections but my second son had many more and he is fine. My sz son was also extremely odd thoughout school, he’d walk around the outer school yard non stop while the other kids played. Everyone in my city talked about him and they were cruel He was a bed wetter and was often terrified at night about aliens. It’s been a hard road…
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