Reconsidering the Genetic Component

 

I know a guy who has been through a lot of shit. Yet, outwardly at least he doesn't appear depressed. He is witty, highly intelligent and works hard but I repeat, he has been through a lot of shit. This stoicism must come at a cost surely? I wonder to myself, why hasn't he had a nervous breakdown? Why isn't he depressed? Wrong headed thinking on my behalf. Comparing Mental Healths? Talk about keeping up with the Jonesessss. "He's on more opiates than me, it's not fair"

When somebody goes into their GP with a list of their symptoms, they have between 8 and 10 minutes (if they are fortunate to get a face to face consultation) to persuade the Doc that they are to be taken seriously. You've been preparing your script, you know that something isn't right. You look in the mirror and adjust your cravat before sauntering down the avenue swinging your umbrella to be greeted by a big sign on the surgery door. "Closed due to patient abuse" Oh dear my fellow patients have not been very patient.

Mental 'Fackin' Health mate!!! We all suffer from it, with it? Surely? Or maybe not.

I have been merrily convinced since my World Beating Diagnosis in January 2006 of Bipolar Disorder that it was caused by the environments that I had been living in. The dog eat cat, neo liberal, capitalist council house buying utopia that Thatcher ushered in, in 1979 when I was 13 years of age. The age that I distinctly remember that something went wrong. The clockwork workings of my childhood teddy bear being had been given a shake and I wasn't the same after that.

My confirmatory bias says that we are living in toxic, insane societies that make us ill. Nature or Nurture? I have always been on the nurture side of the debate but having heard the life story of this guy, it appears that there is something in his genes that stops him from reacting to life and world events.  

Now we can all go off on one and fetch the family history out of the drawer. Go and draw those lines of relationship from Great Uncle Tarquin or Great Auntie Henrietta from Chicago and then we can put a pin or sticker on the name that we consider 'the weakest link. This is the person who has weakened our blood line. They are long gone however and what are you going to do with this information? It might be comforting to think that none of this is your fault. The mental patient records for such and such an asylum would have no mention of you three to five decades down the line. Blood is thicker than water bruv and we don't drink enough water.

So this little Wednesday morning ramble is me fessing up that there might be more to the genetic component of mental illness, emotional distress, depression and anxiety than I was first prepared to admit. I still blame Thatcher but maybe the blood lines of larger families also have to be given serious consideration.

Here endeth the lesson