Genetic Preponderancy in my Family Heritage

On my mother’s side there is Dysthymia or chronic depression. With dysthymia, the common symptoms of depression can linger for a long period of time often years at a time. Changes in the normal chemical balances in the brain are usually a cause and the dna coding for this imbalance can be passed down in genes making this a depression that is created not from life or situations but genetically. A history of Artists and Scientists also goes back at least six generations, the artists’ primarily graphic artist, though a few played an instrument, and the scientists ranging from botany, dentistry and chemistry. Sociopathy which is actually often found in this side of the family, symptoms being, superficial charms, intelligence, irrational thinking, lack of remorse, social reclusion, pathologic incapacity for love or attachment, lack of empathy and high levels of manipulation of others. Chronic social anxiety, or the fear and discomfort of situations that submerse a person with strangers, and antisocial personality disorder or a disorder characterized by the disregard or violations of social conduct and people in general also appear several times.

 On my Father’s side there is a strong genetic line of bipolar affective disorder, also called manic-depression, this disorder causes intense mood swings and alternating patterns of depression. As ‘mania’ worsens, individuals begin to react very impulsively, often making poor and even contradictory decisions due to unrealistic and distorted ideas about the future ( known as psychosis) , this problem can even cause great difficulty with sleep.  As with most personality disorders there are also ‘pilot fish’ disorders that seem to appear in a lot of the  family members who suffer Bipolar, those being generalized anxiety disorder which is a spastic and sometimes irrelevant reaction to stress or sometimes it only appears in the form of periodic anxiety attacks which are periods of intense fear and panic suddenly onset  most last roughly 10 to 20 minutes, these anxiety attacks are commonly caused from little to no reason and can happen at any time, and Obsessive-compulsive disorder which is repetitive behavior that can vary from hygiene, hoarding, nervous rituals such as knocking on a door a certain number of times, and even obsessions with order in their personal space, such as rooms or homes. Hypertension, also known as high blood pressure, which can cause damage to the heart and capillaries, Irritable bowel syndrome which is a functional gastrointestinal affliction which causes a ‘spastic colon’ and sleep apnea which is  condition in which breathing pauses during sleep causing an instance of short panicked breaths called hypopnea and snoring. Sleep apnea can often be treated by polysomnograms although the members who suffer in my family found the test gave them no such help.

Those are the significant conditions, disorders and diseases that run in my more recent family’s genetic heritage. -TH