Posted by Adam on February 5, 2000, at 13:11:30
In reply to Re: Depression and procreation - Adam, posted by Deb R on February 3, 2000, at 0:11:28
Thanks for your words, Deb.
The sad truth is the birth of my neice was totally unplanned, and
my brother was completely unprepared at the time to have a child.
I won't go into the details of his life or troubles. It sounds like
a terrible thing to say, but when I first found out about the
pregnancy (I had to find out through my sister b/c he was too terrified
to tell anyone, esp. my father) I was horrified. The thought of him
bringing a child into the world filled me with dismay. Obviously, it
was as much depression talking at that point as the reality of his
life, and I did have a tendancey to catastrophise (is that a word?).
Anyway, things turned out better than I had feared they would, my
brother and his girlfriend finally got married a little while ago, and
my neice is a little angel.In a way, having the responsibility of another life to keep him on the
straight and narrow has done more to help my brother than anything else
I can think of, but there are still a number of things that he says and
does that fill me with a lot of anxiety and concern for her future.
But she is a very happy-seeming toddler right now, and I'm hoping like
crazy that everything turns out all right.I don't know how else to say it: My family is a mess in a number of ways,
and I fear sometimes it always will be. If there is one good thing that
came out of the death of my mother, a severly depressed person herself, it
has been the opportunity to have formed a relationship with my stepmother,
which, bless her, is probably the best thing that ever happened to me in
the realm of family. How she puts up with my dad I will never know, but I
am grateful for her presence in my life. I think she has had a lot to do
with the success my brother has had so far.It's a scary thing. The generation before me grew up in a mill town in the
hills of Maine, all sons and daughters of French-Canadian immigrants who
seem to have been fleeing something. Alcoholism, abuse, other clear signs
of mental illness are everywhere you look. Some distant relatives have
committed suicide. One of my hardest memories was being left alone after
my mother's death at my maternal grandparent's house. My grandfather came
home in a drunken rage and went after my grandmother who had to fend him off
with a knife. I mean, it's a horror show sometimes. My father used to smack
me silly when I got out of line myself, and I guess he got pummelled as a
kid worse than I ever dreamed of getting.It's not the greatest heritage. I look back at it all, and, not to pat
myself on the back too hard, but I don't know where the hell I came from. I
am the only person in the last three generations to complete a college degree,
I am the only person I know of to have recieved successful treatment for
depression, the only person to have left Maine. And I did it all pretty much
by myself. Someone grudginly paid my way through school, but that's it. I
have glimmers of hope sometimes that I can somehow free myself of some
inexorable fate or some inevitable replay of my family history, but I'm
really afraid at times that some things are just too much out of my control,
such as genes, which I can't imagine haven't contributed to the troubles of
my family.I've often thought it was my responsibility to society not to allow even the
risk of such a replay to occur. Of course, that comes at the cost of my own
future relationships and perhaps happiness. Are such sacrifices warrented?
Do I dare presume that I can break the chain in any other way than being
the last link?These are the thoughts that keep me up at night, sometimes. I don't think any
antidepressant can cure this stuff. I wonder if anything can.> Hi Adam
> I think you mentioned in your initial post that you have a little niece? So, it follows a brother or sister of yours has had a child...what about talking with he/she about how they felt etc. My Mum is Schizophrenic and I have three kids of my own. Very, very occasionally I think "what if" but I have great faith that the environment kids are bought up in can far outweigh any genetic pre-dispositon to (say) Schizophrenia.
> My kids are great, well-adjusted young people. Sometimes they are regular horrors too, but thats part of the whole deal, which makes up "my best work" - my children...
>
> I wish you all the best in the future!
> Deb.
poster:Adam
thread:20155
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000128/msgs/20562.html