Joined: 31 Mar 2005 Posts: 5 Location: Switzerland
Mental Illness runs in my family Posted: 03-31-05 17:08pm
I repeat my message, seems to have been
deleted. My mother was affected of
bipolar 1 which turned to bipolar 2 during
the last 3 years of her life, after the
death of my father. She got a manic
episode and then a major depressive
episode, and died shortly thereafter of a
heart stroke.
Her 2 sisters have suffered all her life
also of this "depressions" and married
alcoholics, a brother of hers was also
alcoholic, and a cousin of mine killed
himself with less than 30 yo.
I have myself had interpersonal problems
all my life, and now ask myself if this is
due to my background as a child in a sick
family, or if I am also affected. Could
be that i've had several depressive
episodes, but not as bad as to not
allowing me to function. However most of
my problems arise from my interpersonal
hypersensibility, from being extremely
insecure at times or superman at other
times, from taking excessive risks or
being unable to take decisions at other
moments. All this would sound rather
familiar, I guess.
Most of my life i've been a loner, have
never had a job that lasted more than 2
years even I am a 45 year old qualified
veterinary surgeon. I've had an unquiet
life, have travelled a lot and made 50
different jobs, from sailor in a merchant
ship to research surgeon (my actual job).
During the last 8 years i've been forced
to mantain more stability (i married and
had 2 children, 10 and 3), which is in a
way a conflict for me, as I have always
the impulse to move and leave the job as
soon as I get into conflicts with people
or dislike something.
I am actually in separation from my wife
since 2 months ago, which triggered a
depressive episode (first strong one in my
life) that forced me to take stjohnswort,
which helped a lot to float again. :?
This is the worse personal crisis i've had
in my life, and is forcing me somehow to
try to find a solution for a situation
i've never really faced before.
The nice side of the thing is expressed
too, as I am a practicing musician since
more than 20 years ago, playing in the
swiss music circuit. 8)
so my mother was so diagnosed post-mortem
shortly, we had no idea of that. Until
before that we considered the whole simple
depression...
My brother is now under lithium. His
doctor says prophylactically during 1
year, as he has tendency to depressions.
And he says too that this family history +
a low blood lithium level is enough to
initiate the lithium therapy. What do you
think?
I wonder if I am just affected
psychologically from my childhood
experiences, or clinically affected.
I decided to perform a family
constellation therapy soon, in an attempt
to solve my problems. I don't know if it
would be adviseable to visit a
psychiatrist. My brother advices so
doing. How about that? I've read that
there is no chemical test to diagnose
bipolar; possibly magnetic resonance, but
not in subclinical cases... What do you
think? What would you advice?
