I come from a family of 4. The 4 of us have a total of 9 kids. All but 1 of the!

I come from a family of 4. The 4 of us have a total of 9 kids. All but 1 of the 9 have mental illnesses. Why?

I don't understand why this is so. Our father had an undiagnosed mental illness, showing a lot of anger, rage, and abuse. But our kids did not grow up the way we did.. why are we 4 mostly 'normal' and our kids are not?

more recently, scientists have been able to track many mental illnesses based on genetic make-up (schizophrenia, manic-depressive or bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, etc).

it appears that what a person inherits from their parents predisposes them to be more vulnerable to having mental disorders, and often generations can be skipped. in addition, even though all of your family might have some predisposition to have a mental illness, it often takes a trigger or environmental circumstances to bring out these deficits.

it could be that the 4 of you are better at dealing with stressful situations, or that your environmental stress has been low enough for you all to remain more functioning than the children. additionally, there is a tendency for people who have genetic links in mental disorders to marry others that often have similar deficits. this could also increase the risk for all the children to have more problems than the original 4.

for some more information, check out Kay Jamison's book "Touched by Fire", which talks about the link between manic-depressive disorder and great artists/creativity. She discusses how many of the famous poets/writers/painters have had long genetic links to depression and mania and how they are linked through generations.