Hereditary depression

[dave208]

Sorry if this question has been asked before is depression hereditary? I’ve been discussing this with my mother and she admitted she has had bouts of depression, she also went on to say my brother at his last couple of years at school had a nervous breakdown and had to go to hospital apparently due to the stress of course work and exams my mother did not go into that too much as it did upset her. I myself have been diagnosed with depression. I am having great concerns with my eldest son he is twelve and entered puberty early and nearly at the end, I have noticed over the past few weeks he is becoming withdrawn and extremely moody his usual answer to most things is I don’t care even if it relates to him acting in a way that may result in him hurting himself he has also admitted he thought about stabbing himself and self harming I am concerned that if depression is hereditary he may be suffering himself. We have involved psychiatrists (However as I've mentioned in one of my previous entry’s in this forum) they were useless but I am chasing up further help for him. I suppose the next step is seeing my GP to get some diagnoses if he is suffering.

[Sweetpea]

We have depression in our family myself and my 2 siblings suffer. I do feel for you with your son. My sons are all grown now, eldest is 22. I always fear that they will suffer as well. You are doing the right thing in getting help for your son. One thing is we know the signs to look for and can seek help early. S x x x x

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[Zaf]

I'm convinced it is, my mum has clinical depression and I think her mum may ave had as well

Z xxx

[Buttercup]

Hi

I think it does run in families but isn't an inevibility. I also think that your doing the right thing for your son, but it could also be normal teenage behaviour or related to problems at school eg bullying.

Xxx

[nocaph]

There's a lot of debate about this but depression does at least SEEM to run in families, there's the whole nature vs nurture debate, yes, but I've found (as it was in my case) that there's a lot of it in my family and mine was definitely triggered by a highly stressful event.

[bookletters]

From what I have read: Bipolar is a lot more hereditary than depression.
Think depression can be hereditary BUT it is not a case of 100%, far far from it.
When they study identical twins separated at birth, one having depression = the other one having it something like 60% BUT not 100%
Likewise, if you have depression your children has chances of developing it (higher than the rest of the population) BUT not as much as if both parents get it. Even then, with both parents suffering from depression it's probably a case of 80%....
Other factors play an important part: upbringing, childhood experiences, environment, diet and lifestyle etc etc

[bookletters]

"Individuals with immediate family members who suffer from depression have a 15 percent risk of developing depression. Individuals with no family history of depression have a 2 to 3 percent risk of developing depression. The probability of depression manifesting in one identical twin increases to 70 percent if the other twin suffers from depression. Supporting the impact of hereditary factors on depression, children whose birth parents have histories of depression but are adopted by people without histories of depression still have a 15 percent chance of suffering from depression. According to All About Depression, when one fraternal twin suffers from depression, the other twin has a 19 percent chance of developing depression. Identical twins who are raised apart have a 67 percent chance of both having depression."

[Buttercup]

The bipolar rates are about the same 4% to 15%.

As bookletters said there are a lot of environmental factors that play a big part as well.

Xxx

[Beetzart]

My maternal uncle has told me he has always been depressed but doesn't want to see a GP.  Mental illness is a taboo in my family so I don't really know who might have had trouble with depression or not.  It has taken 16 years for my parents to understand. 

[bookletters]

Thanks Buttercup, I don't know why I thought it was a lot more with BD for some reason. My bad!!

Taboo in many family unfortunately!
My dad never talks about it but that's the way he is, my mum has become a mental health campaigner lol, she has an anxiety disorder and has opened up a lot about it. With me having depression now she shuts up people who make comments about people with mental illness and with the amount of ignorance in the village there is a lot of shutting up to! Go mum!!!