Should people struggling with mental illness have children?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's up with all the eugenics lite and ableism posts/threads lately?

Whose bot did this?

It me!

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

This is a hard one. I had experienced mild anxiety that I was briefly treated for prior to my pregnancy. After my son was born I had PPA, immediately sought treatment, and it was resolved with CBT and medication. I decided not to have another and we are all healthy and happy. My sister who had bouts of eating disorders and depression had treatment resistant PPD for a full year after the birth of her first child. She did have another child, but this time she has not been able to recover from PPD (second child is now 3). She is unable to work, and some days she is not able to get out of bed. She hasn’t given up—she continues to see new treatments—but mental health can be hormone sensitive in a way pregnancy can throw off kilter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a hard one. I had experienced mild anxiety that I was briefly treated for prior to my pregnancy. After my son was born I had PPA, immediately sought treatment, and it was resolved with CBT and medication. I decided not to have another and we are all healthy and happy. My sister who had bouts of eating disorders and depression had treatment resistant PPD for a full year after the birth of her first child. She did have another child, but this time she has not been able to recover from PPD (second child is now 3). She is unable to work, and some days she is not able to get out of bed. She hasn’t given up—she continues to see new treatments—but mental health can be hormone sensitive in a way pregnancy can throw off kilter.

That is terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a hard one. I had experienced mild anxiety that I was briefly treated for prior to my pregnancy. After my son was born I had PPA, immediately sought treatment, and it was resolved with CBT and medication. I decided not to have another and we are all healthy and happy. My sister who had bouts of eating disorders and depression had treatment resistant PPD for a full year after the birth of her first child. She did have another child, but this time she has not been able to recover from PPD (second child is now 3). She is unable to work, and some days she is not able to get out of bed. She hasn’t given up—she continues to see new treatments—but mental health can be hormone sensitive in a way pregnancy can throw off kilter.

That is terrible.

PP here-yes it is. She has always loved children but is unable to be the mother she wanted to be to her own kids. I do hope she will find relief at some point and my parents and I both spend a lot of time with her kids (including overnights) and give a lot of support, but she is not the same person she was before kids.

[Anonymous]

I struggled with periodic depression and suicidal thoughts since age 9. I decided as a preteen not to have children. I have never regretted that decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where do you draw the line? Why stop at mental illness? Should people with genetic defects have children? Who gets to decide what counts?

This is what I don’t get. There are more devastating diseases than anxiety or depression. Unlike many diseases, mental illness can be treatable and people live normal lives. I think a lot of people who had miserable mothers or fathers like to blame it on mental illness when in fact they are just miserable abusive people.

Mental illness is so complex. Consider a married mother in the 1950s who seemed despondent, unmotivated, and uncommunicative. She'd be sent to a doctor, who would diagnose her with something like "hysteria", prescribe barbiturates, and tell her husband that if it doesn't get better, he might consider institutionalization. That lady was just depressed, and somewhat justifiably so, as she had little agency in her life, was probably pushed into marriage and motherhood regardless of her personal desires, and likely not treated very well by her husband. But instead her perfectly understandable mental health issues would be pathologized as psychosis. She *did* have mental illness, but it was treatable. However society had no space for her, so she was ostracized.

My husband had an uncle who was deemed mentally ill by his family and disappeared from their lives entirely when he was about 20 years old, only to resurface when he died. Folks, he was gay. He lived a perfectly normal life as a gay man (though with financial difficulties due to struggles with employment and likely the fact that he had zero support or help from his family of origin), had a partner of multiple decades, owned a home, etc. This man was not mentally ill, he was abused and mistreated by his family and society. I'm sure he had mental health issues as a result of that history, but does he carry some genetic predisposition for mental illness? No.

My own parents both have mental health problems. They also both grew up in abusive homes with alcoholic parents, like a TON of boomers. WWII sent a lot of men home to their families with severe PTSD. Were all these people genetically predisposed for mental illness OR is severe trauma sometimes really freaking hard to overcome, especially when society doesn't understand it and you get limited support or treatment?

Even the people you know with really severe mental health issues like untreated bipolar disorder or narcissistic personality disorder? In many cases they may have had more run of the mill mental health problems combined with abuse, neglect, rejection by their family or church or community. I'm not saying this justifies the negative behaviors such people engage in, but just pointing out that in many cases, mental illness is not some static thing hard coded onto your DNA. Some limited number of people may be born with a condition like schizophrenia, though even that we don't understand well.

People who cannot care for themselves and who dont' know how to care for children shouldn't have them. But the idea that a person should avoid having children because of some history of mental illness in their family is absurd. There would simply be no children. I guarantee your family has some history of mental illness in it. You might not be aware of it, your family might not have called it that, it might have presented in a way that allowed them to call it something else, but I guarantee it's there. Your genes have been through wars, famines, migrations, oppression. I guarantee you someone in your family dealt with it in a dysfunctional way at some point. It's human.

This is too lovely and thoughtful for DCUM.

[Anonymous]

No. Get your head straight and stay stable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I struggled with periodic depression and suicidal thoughts since age 9. I decided as a preteen not to have children. I have never regretted that decision.

We personally know 3 families struggling with the aftermath of a parents’ suicide while the kids were small. All 3 families suffered immensely (in different ways).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It should be discussed heavily before doing so. If you suffer from depression or anxiety, it’s 10xs harder so the expectation should be that you may struggle parent vs the breezy social media posts we see.

You can develop mental illness at any point. If a woman had post-partum depression with her first child should she not have any more children since the risk is very high for a recurrence?

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It should be discussed heavily before doing so. If you suffer from depression or anxiety, it’s 10xs harder so the expectation should be that you may struggle parent vs the breezy social media posts we see.

You can develop mental illness at any point. If a woman had post-partum depression with her first child should she not have any more children since the risk is very high for a recurrence?

Yes.

+1

[Anonymous]

The 2 primary risk factors to consider appear to be:

- hereditary nature of many mental illnesses and

- risk of other harm (including physical) from having a mentally-ill parent.

[Anonymous]

It depends. I have bipolar 1. I’ve had a single manic episode that was caused by a series of devastating life events occurring in rapid succession. I have never had another episode and have been in remission for 5 years. I’m a great mom and if you knew me, you’d never suspect I have a serious mental illness. I live in a nice suburb, have a lovely spouse, and a very successful legal career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends. I have bipolar 1. I’ve had a single manic episode that was caused by a series of devastating life events occurring in rapid succession. I have never had another episode and have been in remission for 5 years. I’m a great mom and if you knew me, you’d never suspect I have a serious mental illness. I live in a nice suburb, have a lovely spouse, and a very successful legal career.

This is interesting, thanks. When did you formally receive a diagnosis? What do you do to manage your condition (if you don't mind my asking)? Glad you've navigated your way to the life you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends. I have bipolar 1. I’ve had a single manic episode that was caused by a series of devastating life events occurring in rapid succession. I have never had another episode and have been in remission for 5 years. I’m a great mom and if you knew me, you’d never suspect I have a serious mental illness. I live in a nice suburb, have a lovely spouse, and a very successful legal career.

This is interesting, thanks. When did you formally receive a diagnosis? What do you do to manage your condition (if you don't mind my asking)? Glad you've navigated your way to the life you want.

I was 30. I take lithium and an antipsychotic medication at a low dose and I meet with my psychiatrist quarterly. I also prioritize getting at least 6 hours of sleep every night no matter what. I am very fortunate to have a spouse that handles 90% of the night wake ups for our kids. I do other general wellness stuff (maintaining an organized daily routine, weight training, eating well), but I don't know how much of a difference that makes. From the outside, I'm sure I look like a lot of other Type A moms with a demanding career. Candidly, I don't really think about my diagnosis much day to day.

A lot of people assume this could never happen to them, but I think we underestimate the extent to which grief can really consume us. In a period of four months leading up to my episode, I had two miscarriages, lost an immediate family member, and then lost a beloved grandparent.