Create a Mental Health Family Tree
Like heart disease or cancer, mental health issues can run in families. For example, manic-depressive illness is a familial medical condition and addressing its genetic component can reduce the feelings of shame and blame that often accompany the disorder. In reality, most mental health issues are the result of multifactorial inheritance or a combination of multiple genetic and environmental factors. Creating a mental health family tree can lead to quicker, more accurate diagnoses and better treatments.
By examining behavior patterns in yourself and your immediate relatives, such as being unable to work, extreme irritability, having legal or substance abuse problems, out-of-control spending, racing thoughts, and/or exhibiting extreme amounts of energy with a decreased need for sleep, you can gain valuable insights into your family’s mental health history. Information usually is collected for an individual’s first (parents, siblings and children) and second (grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins) degree relatives.
Families for Depression Awareness has a simple questionnaire that maps behaviors associated with depression or bipolar disorder within a family and creates a printable, easy to read Mental Health Health Family Tree, which can be shared and used to start conversations with relatives and/or medical professionals. The process is completely anonymous and your personal information is not saved. To create a family tree, visit http://familyaware.org/familytree/.
Mental Health Family Trees can help individuals identify behaviors and warning signs associated with particular mental health conditions and allow them to better realize that depression and other disorders are treatable medical problems and not shameful family secrets. If you or someone in your family shows symptoms of a mental health disorder, make an appointment to talk with a professional. It is important to remember that those with depression or manic-depressive illness, etc. often cannot recognize the conditions in themselves.