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I'm thinking that it's both environment and brain wiring. Different individuals have different results from growing up in the same environment.
I agree - my sibling and I both grew up in a dysfunctional family. I have chronic depression (dysthymia) but she has rarely had a depressed day in her life and we are both middle aged now. There is a history of depression on both sides so maybe I was the lucky one. Add to that becoming a widow and then being diagnosed with cancer eight months later just added to the fun. :-(
I had been doing pretty good lately, got off my anti-depressants six months ago but now my youngest has moved out (he's 28) so my finances are going to take a hit plus I won't be seeing my grandchild very often. Most people can snap out of these things quicker than a person who deals with depression regularly.
I think conversely, there are people who suffer from mental illness who had none of those experiences and who, actually, were born with both social, educational, and financial advantages. It's an interesting issue.
Personality disorders aren't the same category as mental illness (in this context). I've heard PD are "made" but mental illness is "born". (of course there can be comorbidity)
I'm not trained to have an opinion btw. I posted because in my family mental illness is genetic and regardless of the advantages, good parenting, even the high intelligence of the parties involved - the mental illness manifested and destroyed anyway.
I don't know any cluster Bs in my family though, but one might be suspect. He's a dick but it wasn't due to his loving and spoiled upbringing as far as we can tell, and he isn't like his siblings at all.
Actually BPD can be passed down genetically, it's the 3rd most inherited personality disorder and 40% of people diagnosed with BPD are suspected to have had the condition inherited from a parent, bet ya didn't know that smarty
I was involved with a NPD/BPD man whose father was BPD (diagnosed, I assumed he was "worse" than that). The consensus from their POV, the bf was disordered based on being raised by the disordered. His mother left him and raised his brother away from his father. His brother is awesome and doesn't suffer the same. Really loving to his brother who took the abuse so he could be sheltered from it.
This is anecdotal only of course. It just worked for me logically. I never read it could be genetic but some traits maybe? *shrug* just yapping, not proclaiming any "facts"
I agree - my sibling and I both grew up in a dysfunctional family. I have chronic depression (dysthymia) but she has rarely had a depressed day in her life and we are both middle aged now. There is a history of depression on both sides so maybe I was the lucky one. Add to that becoming a widow and then being diagnosed with cancer eight months later just added to the fun. :-(
I had been doing pretty good lately, got off my anti-depressants six months ago but now my youngest has moved out (he's 28) so my finances are going to take a hit plus I won't be seeing my grandchild very often. Most people can snap out of these things quicker than a person who deals with depression regularly.
Can I ask why, if you have chronic depression did you go off medications?
I agree about nurture, and siblings is a great example of how everyone turns out different.
There is a history of depression on both sides so maybe I was the lucky one. Add to that becoming a widow and then being diagnosed with cancer eight months later just added to the fun. :-(
Yes. Just one sibling may have blue eyes and another brown, the genetic load for all traits varies within one family. As does the environment, since no two people have the same experiences or are treated exactly the same within one family. Nor, as you pointed out, do siblings have the same later lifetime experiences.
Schizophrenia has a lot to do with genetically driven. I know one who has a brother on a mental institution, with both schizo and BD 1. The person is schizo and bipolar 2.
Others not so much. In reality personality disorders are mental illnesses as well. BPD is a personality disorder but it is also a mental illness, because your personality starts with the mind, same thing as BD, mental illness but it is classified as a "mood disorder".
I think both factors are relevant, depending on the problem, one more than the other.
Last edited by skywalker2014; 03-25-2016 at 11:44 AM..
I think too disorders (such as Borderline PD) are classified differently because meds don't help
Personality disorders are classified differently because they are long standing character traits and ways of coping; enduring patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that are relatively stable over time and are often resistant to change. Most people with personality disorders don't seek therapy; they don't think that anything is wrong with them. Often those who seek therapy are people who live with or work with a personality disordered individual.
Some people with Borderline Personality Disorder do use medication to treat symptoms like anxiety, impulsivity and depression. Treating BPD
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