Having Kids and Schizophrenia

So I'm back for more. I have been asked to explain the hereditary nature of schizophrenia. In a nut shell, it's complicated. I didn't feel like the odds would be too bad because I was the only one of 12 kids to get this from my dad (I know 12 kids is crazy as is without adding in schizophrenia). Also I think I got a watered down version compared to what my dad has. Anyway, I talked to a genetic counselor, because I have kids and I was worried about this. Schizophrenia can be genetic or it can show up for no good reason at all. To figure out the likelihood of me passing it down to my kids the genetic counselor had to take into account all the varieties of mental illness that show up in my family tree and he kind of ranked them depending on how closely related to me they were and how severe the mental illness was. It gets ever more complicated the farther back you go because back then things were sometimes diagnosed as a 'breakdown' and that was it. He included alcoholism and drug abuse and this uncle I have who is a hermit and just can't deal with people. Well this genetic counselor did this fancy bit of magic with smoke and mirrors and a rabbit (or science/math, whatever) and came up with the magic number that each of my 5 children have about a 5 % chance of getting this from me. I felt like those were descent odds, especially since they are the best thing to ever happen to me. They are so funny. And it's not like this is a death sentence (usually).

There have been times I would have wished to not be alive or have to live with this, but things get better. There are things to help. If we lived in Africa where everyone thought I was possessed and there was no one to help me, I'm sure I would still wish for death and wouldn't risk even a 5% chance of giving it to a child. I would probably be homeless and starving if I lived in Africa also, because they don't like people who are possessed by the devil. But how things are now, I feel like I can happily take that risk without guilt and have some happiness in being a mom. There's a 95% chance my kids wont have Schizo-affective. Of course since they are my kids there is a 100% chance they will be weird, but I would have to disown them otherwise.

People generally cringe at the idea of the combo of schizophrenic parents and children. That isn't because the kids will get schizophrenia, it's because schizophrenics often have a very hard time taking care of themselves, let alone a child. So the child is often neglected, inadvertently abused, or ends up being the parent. This doesn't happen to often though because a person who is this sick doesn't hide it well and the kids are taken out of that situation. I am very lucky. My family took care of me and my kids when I was at my worst and we didn't know what was wrong. I am also lucky in that I don't have to deal with hallucinations daily like some people and my delusions aren't to hard to live with in general, now days. Also it's hard to be a parent with schizophrenia if kids stress you out a lot. For me, kids are mostly just entertaining. Once in a while if they are all fighting and I'm starting to get to stressed about it, I go in my room and close the door and let my husband deal with it. That's another critical thing. I have basically never been a parent by myself. Even as a single parent, I lived with my parents and they kinda took over when I couldn't deal. I think mostly kids don't stress me out because I grew up around so many kids and a lot of kid chaos. That was the norm.

With that out of the way, I wanted to pass along a funny thing my 11 year old said. We were watching Gnomeo and Juliette. They loved it. I thought it was boring, but whatever. One gnome says to another, “You illiterate.” The second one says, “I'm not an illiterate, my parents were married.” Then my 11 year old says, “Well Duh, everyone's parents are married.” I thought this was especially amusing because I am no longer married to his dad. I didn't say anything to him. I was thinking sheltered vs. didn't put much thought into that.

Another Funny thing. I am sort trying to potty train my 3 year old, but he is a bit developmentally delayed so I'm still not sure we are committed to it. Anyway, I had him sitting on the toilet and he started explaining to me how his penis was similar to his water gun (prized new toy he just got). I just about died laughing but I was really impressed that he was capable of such abstract thought. In some ways he's really smart and in other ways he's behind.

My 8 year old said this when he was 5, “Papa, I want an ATM machine for my birthday.”

Grandpa asks, “Why do you want that?”

“To get dollars.” (Duh!)

I said, “Me too! I want an ATM too!”

I passed a sign on the street that made me smile. It said. "Choosy mom's choose Jiffy Lube." :)           (I wonder how long before they get sued, but I liked it.)