Should the mentally ill have children?

I'll preface this by saying I'm a 42 year old bipolar and this subject has weighed greatly on my mind for decades. When I was diagnosed bipolar, knowing that it's a genetic illness and that genetic illnesses are passed down from generation to generation, I was horrified as to my future prospects. I've always had a strong, sometimes insane, sense of moral responsibility. "What SHOULD I be doing?" has been one of the questions of conscience I ask myself in many situations, some frivolous, some very important. "Don't sweat the small stuff" is an mantra that I have a lot of trouble incorporating into my lifestyle. Small stuff could mean getting cottage cheese with fruit at the grocery instead of pizza. Eating pizza would make me fat. Is fat an immoral thing in the context of being out of shape because out of shape means poorer functioning and poorer functioning means more of being a societal burden? This is how I often think so you can imagine how the issue of whether I should have children or not weighs on my mind. I have a few other genetic quirks that I won't mention here that would also (in all likelihood) be passed down. To me, the moral point lies in two directions.


MY NEEDS: Do I want to have children? I would have to regress in my thinking to when I was around age 18 before my bipolar diagnosis threw the proverbial monkey wrench into the situation to analyze it properly. As a 20 year old, At 18, I had not been diagnosed with anything nor felt the major effects of illness yet. At that point, I lived in the moment and didn't think of the future, which is probably normal for most people that age. My attitude was more "If it comes, it comes. If it doesn't, it doesn't." That was my mantra BUT I had no doubts deep down that it would come. I hadn't done anything to hurt my chances and I had no reason to think that any kind of illness would get in the way. My parents and aunts and uncles had married, right? One of my aunts was the "crazy" aunt and was pretty well ostracized from the family. I didn't think on her situation or consider it important. I knew nothing about psychology at that time but, I think like most people, I knew certain traits were hereditary. We talked about that in science class with Mendel and the peas (I think it was peas.) It came as a shock when I started exhibiting signs of extreme anxiety at age 17. I had always been an excellent baseball player but, at this time, I started losing control of my throwing. I had a very difficult time throwing straight, a skill that had been an unconscious breeze for year. I would overthrow it or throw it in the dirt. As I was on my baseball team, this caused CONSIDERABLE anxiety for me. Looking back, I feel that was the onset of bipolar disorder. Up and down, can't be straight. Still, I succeeded on the baseball field in spite of my problem. Once my baseball career was over, I felt very relieved. I had lost it and I was done with it. So I blazed forward confidently into college. After half a year, I was showing symptoms of overwhelming anxiety and depression. Being diagnosed depressive was a major blow. Depression is hereditary. Would I pass that on? My mental philosophy was "It was a chemical imbalance, I'm not crazy." That was the angle my therapists preached. I became in denial about genetics. It was full steam ahead again. Then, after very out of character behavioral problems plagued me, I was diagnosed bipolar in 1995. This was a very devastating blow. Bipolar was one of the "bad" illnesses, like schizophrenia. It was a stigma illness. A lot of people had depression. Not many had bipolar disorder. I felt branded. "Full speed ahead" could never happen again. Now, I was a thinker and a brooder, even more than I had been naturally. What the heck does a person with bipolar disorder do? I had never been around a bipolar person. I didn't know what "they" were. In fact, growing up a conservative due to my father, I made fun of "crazy people" as genetic inferiors. Now, the tables were turned. I was the "inferior." Then came a staggering period of traumatizing and attacking myself. The jerk who say others as genetic inferiors was still there and that side of my hated the newly diagnosed bipolar side. I was two people now, opposites. Though certain realities were sinking in slowly, I was still in denial. Frankly, I couldn't cope. I had no real support and no education and adjustment as to what I was. I was alone in the dark. As my life prospects narrowed, my outlook narrowed as well. I was minoring in political science and wasn't averse to running for office one day. Can't do that when you're bipolar. I wanted to be as functional as possible and I wanted to take on the world. A bipolar can't do that. The stress would break me down. Around the time I was diagnosed, I dating stopped. Why will always been an mystery to me. I believe that part of it was due to my struggles. I was fading from "full speed ahead." I was losing, falling behind the Joneses. From there, my life has been an exercise in coping with illness on a daily basis, like an HIV or cancer sufferer. I have given up on having children in a moral sense. That I'm 42 is making it look like that is a certainty. I have wanted to date for some time and I want to get marries. I'm doing the starving artist thing right now, writing a book, and I don't have an official job. That's another reason why having children isn't a good idea for me. A father needs to have money. I have none of it. I feel the need to have children. I visualize it and it makes me happy. However, I do not consider it realistic and that leads me into the second direction.


THE CHILD's NEEDS: I can't give a child much at this point in my life and I might not be able to give them anything at any point in my life. A normal life for the child is impossible. They would have at least a portion of the genetic quirks I have. That means the child will be attacked and persecuted at school for being different. Can I subject a child to that? Can I subject them to that knowing ahead of time that it will happen? In my eyes, it would happen. Schools are schools and bullying and hate exists in both public and private schools because I've been in both. I would have to be sadistic to put a child into that environment. I have though about home schooling and that would be an excellent option. That's an option that gives me some hope that I could have a child one day. The hardest part would be seeing the child struggling internally. It also seems sadistic to birth a child that would struggle on a daily basis just to get up in the morning. That also seems a sadistic thing to inflict upon a young, innocent person. Love and care only go so far. I could never take my child asking me why I had he/she if I knew they would have to struggle every day in life because they would be right. I could love them every day but I his or her life would be painful and difficult. To me, it's too much to ask of young person to be birthed by me. It's also too much to ask a normal, healthy woman to lay with me. She would be idiotic to subject her child to the likelihood of genetic illness if she doesn't have to and I can't expect that. I feel I have to take the higher road. It may kill me down deep but I have to do what I feel is best for all involved. That includes a greater societal responsibility to not produce someone that would be a drain on the system's resources. As I have grown into a blatant non-materialist, this seems the least important factor but, as someone with a conscience that is concerned with the greater good, it is a factor nonetheless.


CONCLUSION: This is a deeply personal issue to the potential parent with a mental illness. My conclusion is that it's a subjective perception. There is no absolute "yes or no" to the idea of a mentally ill person having children. The most severe illnesses, such as bipolar and schizophrenia, should garner the most thought as those problems would create the greatest potential for the most severe future issues for all involved. Financial matters are very important. A wealthy mentally ill person would be able to best treat a youth with a genetic illness thus producing the best chance for future success and happiness. Should a mentally ill person suppress or ignore the biological need to have children due to the above factors? If a mentally ill person chooses to have children, many realities much be confronted. The question must be asked of the individual sufferer: "Is this a good idea?"

What is sadness? Internal and external influences with an emphasis on mental illness

As a follow up to my posts on happiness, I'll attempt to provide insight into the often extremely powerful emotion of sadness. I think there's a difference between sadness and depression. Sadness is caused more by external factors. Depression can be existential. It's often chemical, caused by an imbalance. You can be depressed sitting in your home alone for no reason. I don't consider that sadness. Granted, it's splitting hairs a bit but I think there is that difference. Sadness is defined more by things that make us sad. Failures in the material world, failures in love, failures at things that are important to us cause sadness. That comes from our expectations. If we have a more fragile brain chemistry, what are typical, normal, unescapable life events that trigger sadness can shift into the dark, black moods of depression. As a bipolar person, I know that feeling, the transition of sadness (like being pushed to the edge) from depression (which is falling off that edge.) Social standards often play a huge role in sadness. In a given culture, what is valued, what garners pleasurable rewards, or what produces a general sense of self-worth and self-esteem (sometimes all three combined) create our views of what is good (that which we've come to internalize as valued) and what is bad (that which is considered socially out of step.) It is possible (and does happen) that, due to mental illness, specifically emotional illness, a person can internalize "crazy" ideas of what is valued and what is not. Unless a person lives in a society where the mentally ill have dominant influence (and that really doesn't exist), the person can become sad because what they tend to value, which can become very distorted, is not valued by the culture. Even worse, the person with a mental illness is presented with an ultimatum by his/her peers: Either go to a psyche clinic and/or take drugs or you will be ostracized from the culture, a culture which often produces the stigma that a mentally ill person can trigger in ignorant non-sufferers. This can make the sufferer very, very sad. The mentally ill person is a victim of illness but it's an illness that makes the majority of people very uncomfortable. The societal perspective on mental illness is the more sufferers, the more accepted it is. Depression and anxiety, and those that suffer from them, are relatively accepted. They're considered as "not that bad" as far as social condemnation goes. Many famous people have depression and anxiety so this stigma is lessened. Bipolar disorder is much less accepted. Bipolar is much more alien to the majority and much more feared. "Aren't those people violent?" the majority asks. Even those that suffer from depression and anxiety can come to condemn the bipolar. In their need to be accepted by the majority, they can attack bipolar people with as much ferocity as "normal," healthy people do. "We have depression and anxiety but we're not as bad as those people!" they say. I have experienced such things. The sadness that comes from being a member of a marginalized group becomes worsened by being a marginalized person IN that marginalized group! Poor schizophrenics have it the worst. They suffer enormously yet are reviled by the general public. "We know those people are evil!" they say. Serial killers, both real and fictional, are branded as violent schizophrenics. Schizophrenic sufferers, already bombarded with nightmarish delusions and hallucinations, are finished off by the ignorant hate of the general public. These people are murdered inside and out. Being a bipolar person (who has had hallucinatory and delusional symptoms triggered by depression), it makes me VERY SAD to see people suffering worse than I. A strong moral center based on compassion can be both a credit and a burden in this way. The pain of others can exacerbate the chemical fragility of the brains of the mentally ill. This "weakness" adds to the cycle of sadness. This sad worldview, a very real reality to the mentally ill, thus becomes a further descent into the grave of pessimism already dug by the progression of illness. The only way to cope with this existential, ever present sadness is to try and change our perspective. To minimize sadness, one has to destroy or change the views internalized early on by majority opinion. We learn things from our normal peers in school. This is often to hate what we feel inside ourselves. Crazies are evil, we're taught, so we come to hate ourselves because of what we see as that "evil" brewing inside us as we get older and more stressed. We shove dark thoughts down deep, hoping that they'll go away. That we have these symptoms is another source of sadness. We, often fueled by ignorance even in our own family members, thus making our support systems counter productive, come to blame ourselves. We're "evil" and we "know" it. One has to grow cognitively and learn new perspectives or face complete oblivion. It's the only way the sufferer can broaden his/her horizons and gain relief from the total sadness of feeling like a societal burden without mentally detaching (escaping) from reality. Cancer patients are justly pitied; the mentally ill are blamed and loathed. This is how it has been. Will it change in the future? Will we, as a majority, come to see the truth and to accept our mentally ill population as sufferers and not perpetrators? Time will tell. Thank you for reading his far. I'm sorry if I repeated or lapped myself.