My story and psychology

I wrote this paper for my psychology course and thought you guys might want to read it. (It got a 100)

I know a little girl who witnessed her mother have schizophrenic episodes and suffer from bipolar disorder. From an early age this little girl was exposed to this disease and watched her mother refuse medication. This little girl would, and still does, as much research about the disease as possible. It was her greatest fear, becoming her mother and refusing the one thing that would help her because she didn’t realize there was anything wrong with her. This little girl would read and slowly learned that she herself could end up with this disease one day. Her genetics allowed this to be possible and there was nothing she could do about it.

That scared her most I think, that she couldn’t do anything because if you get it you get it. You can take your medication but you can’t be forced to, but this girl learned something else. That being raised by her mother would have increased the likelihood, and she was raised by her father. The problem with genetics is that they are very hit or miss, you can get the good ones or the bad ones. Then you have to question how much of it was socially influenced, how much of a mental disease is decided on by the way you live your life.

This is the real question. This girl’s mother was addicted to drugs, an alcoholic, and refused help, so how much of this influenced her disease? Was her disease caused by drugs or was it genetic? And could this girl still get it? What if this girl never did drugs or drank, would that keep her clear of it? This is the problem with genetic diseases, it’s very hard to see where and why the genetics started and what is really genetic. Schizophrenia is terrifying and really detrimental because schizophrenics never think something is wrong them, but would her mother have gotten the disease if she stayed away from drugs? The girl isn’t schizophrenic or bipolar, so is there still a chance of her becoming one or both? If her mother would have avoided all of the things she had done, would she have gotten so bad? This is the problem with pin-pointing behaviors to genetics; because I’m that girl and I’m nothing like my mother. So do I just not have the genetics, or was my mother’s disease caused by drug abuse? It really isn’t known, and probably won’t be known unless I get it, and even then I could have the gene and it just never came out.

-J <3