ADHD help ? Mental health

[Peanutbutterplease]

Is mental health something that runs in families or is it just what some people have and some don't?

Mother and Her mother both had mental health .bipolar mainly grandmother worse being sectioned self harm etc Mother quite frankly was crazy.

Is it something Mother can pass to her children ? I guess we all have our own things we do what other people don't like or have ways of doing things but I wonder because two people Mother and daughter both suffered will her offspring too?

[STEM_Dad]

Yes, my understanding is that mental health struggles can be passed from parent to child. It doesn't mean that they will be, but it does mean that there is a higher chance of a child developing mental health issues if one of their parents has experienced them.

The mental health issue might not be the same between parent and child. For instance, I've read about a study that found there is a higher likelihood of a child to develop ADHD if their mother has had depression. (I'm a bit hazy on the specifics, but I believe that study found that connection if the mother was depressed shortly before or during pregnancy with the child, so it was suggested to be an epigenetic factor, not a passed behavior.)

Fathers, too, can pass epigenetic factors to their children. It's known that if a father is a smoker at the time their child is conceived, their child has a higher chance of developing ADHD.

Inherited mental health issues can skip a generation. Parents might not exhibit any mental health issues, but children are still at risk of developing them if any of their grandparents do have mental health issues (such as bipolar, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, addiction disorders, ADHD, etc).

Again, just because a parent, grandparent, or other older relative has a mental health condition does not mean that a child will develop a mental health condition...just that there is a higher chance that they will, compared to a child whose family does not have a history of mental health issues.

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I've also heard that the tendency of passed issues is towards less severity from one generation to the next...such as a parent with bipolar disorder having a child who has depression, but not bipolar depression.

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Then again, a child can spontaneously develop a more severe case than the parent (s), as in my case. I have mild-to-moderate ADHD, while I think both of my parents have subclinical ADHD; meaning that they each seem to have some ADHD traits, but not enough to be diagnosed with ADHD themselves. (My mom also has bipolar II.)

[STEM_Dad]

Positive mental health (meaning a lack of mental health issues) also tends to run in families.

I think that what this implies is that a family with no mental health issues for generations is much less likely to have a child develop any form of mental health issue, compared to families with a history of mental health issues.

The statistic I've heard is that 20% of the population will experience some form of mental illness at some point in their life.

• Note that ADHD makes up 5-10% of that figure, and that 80% of people with ADHD will have one or more comorbidities, i.e. other mental health conditions in addition to the ADHD.

• Many other persistent mental health conditions are usually estimated at 1 or 2 percent of the population (e.g. borderline personality disorder is estimated at 1%, people with narcissistic personality at less than 1%, etc.)

• Anxiety and depression are usually touted as the most common forms of mental health issues

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Here's the hope: detection and treatment continues to improve. Early detection and treatment tends to lead to better outcome.

The most beneficial thing that we as a society can do is to destigmatize mental illnesses, and normalize getting help...just as we have done for other health conditions such as diabetes and epilepsy.

[Mamamichl]

it definitely depends on the mental health condition. AlthoughPTSDisnt genetic, it runs in families because people with trauma usually push trauma on their loved ones. ADHD, ASD and bipolar have some genetic components, but can be mediated with good homes.

I know for sure my parents both have mental health issues that are undiagnosed. My brother has adhd, schizoaffective, and bipolar. I learned I have ptsd, adhd and anxiety. I’m pretty sure my dad and daughter are both ocd, and I’m starting a journey on finding my daughter help on learning to be flexible. My mom is probably adhd since she has a lot of Impulsive behavior. Both parents don’t believe me with my diagnoses, even to the point of misnaming them (mom said she doesn’t care about my abc disorder). I’m learning that the generations before see mental health issues as a weakness and don’t believe in them. In their years adhd was seen as a spoiled brat parenting issue that kids needed to be spanked more.