My Crazy Family & Me

I'm way too fascinated by the crazies in my family history. Whenever I read about the debate over heredity vs. environment, I instictively jump to the genetic side of the argument. No doubt that's in part because I'm no fan of self-blame, but it's also because the statistics support the hereditary position.

And damnit, it just makes sense. Does it really seem likely that bipolar disorder appears repeatedly in the same families solely because of environmental quirks? Mood disorders generally, maybe: Your childhood & family life are fucked up, odds are good that you will be too, someday, & odds are good that your kids' childhoods will be fucked up, etc., etc. But something as specific as manic depression? That's kind of like chalking cystic fibrosis up to shitty luck.

My family's bipolar branches include a grandfather who drank himself to death years before lithium hit the scene; probably a grandmother, who's undergone electroconvulsive therapy (ECT); probably a sibling; an aunt; at least one first cousin; at least four first cousins once removed (first cousins of my parents on both sides); and probably a great-great-grandfather, who killed himself 26 years after he fought in the Civil War (his family covered up the suicide, so I can't be positive, but it's the only explanation that fits).

Personally, I think the fact that the debate continues has a lot to do with magical thinking: If we wish really, really hard, we'll make the world a place where we're all individually responsible for every aspect of our circumstances in life, or at least a place where we can blame specific people for their misfortunes. The only alternative is to believe that our lives are almost entirely outside of our control -- & that thought scares a lot of people shitless.

Obviously some number of fruitbaskets stand out as the only crazies in their families. But those could be families where the disease just lay dormant, genetically speaking, for enough generations that its presence is lost to memory. They could also be families where the illness is especially hard to trigger. Or they could be families where bipolar disorder expresses itself mildly in most cases -- too mildly to land anyone else a diagnosis or even suspicion.

And clearly environment plays some role in bipolar disorder, but is it anything more than a trigger that sets off sleeping manic depression?

My personal theory of life (for what little it's worth) is that far more shit happens to us than we make happen. Call it the Moby-Dick school of thought: The harder we try to shove fate into the boxes of human philosophy, the more slippery fate becomes. Life does whatever the fuck it wants -- not what we think it should. And that includes sticking us with hereditary ass-pains that mock our need to believe we live in a meritocratic world.