3 ms·

I took the parent comment's point to be not (just) that you could be at risk of slipping back into suicidal thoughts and acting on them, but that this might hav

I took the parent comment's point to be not (just) that you could be at risk of slipping back into suicidal thoughts and acting on them, but that this might have genetic causes and you could end up passing these tendencies to your children. At least, I know I've thought/worried about this quite a lot.

skissane 5y ago
I get that concern. Our son is only 8, but he already has a psychiatrist, and a lot of his symptoms are similar to mine (ADHD with significant autistic traits.) Our daughter is 4, she hasn’t been diagnosed with anything yet, but I can see many of the same traits in her, so I would not be surprised if in a few more years she acquires some of those labels too. So definitely I have given them some of the negative aspects of my own genetics. Added to that, I think I am still learning how to be a parent, and so is my wife, and both of us sometimes wish we could go back in time and do things a bit differently with our son, since we worry some of our parenting mistakes may have aggravated his problems. On the other hand, it is good that they exist, even if they aren’t the world’s most genetically privileged individuals. It is not like they could have had different genetics than they do-either they exist with these genes, or they would never have existed at all. And not all of my genes are bad - our son has inherited my ADHD, my autistic traits, my anxiety - but he’s also inherited an above-average IQ, which gives him an advantage over many other people which partially makes up for those disadvantages. He is in the 3rd grade but he does 9th grade mathematics - most 3rd graders don’t have the genes for that, he does. Our daughter has so far not been so precocious, but I still get the sense from talking to her that she is smarter than the average 4 year old, so I think she has a bright intellectual future as well. And I think a lot of my problems have been not just due to my genes, but also due to my own lack of self-understanding, and my parents’ poor understanding of me. Even though I can see how I inherited these traits from my parents, my parents possess them in a more attenuated form, and they lack self-awareness that they have them. By contrast, being very well aware of my own traits, and seeing the same traits in my children, I’m hopeful I can give them guidance on how to manage them which nobody ever gave me when I was young-and beyond guidance, empathy-I never felt my parents really understood what it was like to be me, I feel like they wanted to be empathetic but lacked the imagination (theory of mind?) to really do so. I hope I can do better, and our kids might avoid some of the life problems I have faced. We will see.
- 7sidedmarble 5y ago
  This is the single most hacker news comment I have ever read

skissane 5y ago

I get that concern. Our son is only 8, but he already has a psychiatrist, and a lot of his symptoms are similar to mine (ADHD with significant autistic traits.) Our daughter is 4, she hasn’t been diagnosed with anything yet, but I can see many of the same traits in her, so I would not be surprised if in a few more years she acquires some of those labels too. So definitely I have given them some of the negative aspects of my own genetics. Added to that, I think I am still learning how to be a parent, and so is my wife, and both of us sometimes wish we could go back in time and do things a bit differently with our son, since we worry some of our parenting mistakes may have aggravated his problems. On the other hand, it is good that they exist, even if they aren’t the world’s most genetically privileged individuals. It is not like they could have had different genetics than they do-either they exist with these genes, or they would never have existed at all. And not all of my genes are bad - our son has inherited my ADHD, my autistic traits, my anxiety - but he’s also inherited an above-average IQ, which gives him an advantage over many other people which partially makes up for those disadvantages. He is in the 3rd grade but he does 9th grade mathematics - most 3rd graders don’t have the genes for that, he does. Our daughter has so far not been so precocious, but I still get the sense from talking to her that she is smarter than the average 4 year old, so I think she has a bright intellectual future as well. And I think a lot of my problems have been not just due to my genes, but also due to my own lack of self-understanding, and my parents’ poor understanding of me. Even though I can see how I inherited these traits from my parents, my parents possess them in a more attenuated form, and they lack self-awareness that they have them. By contrast, being very well aware of my own traits, and seeing the same traits in my children, I’m hopeful I can give them guidance on how to manage them which nobody ever gave me when I was young-and beyond guidance, empathy-I never felt my parents really understood what it was like to be me, I feel like they wanted to be empathetic but lacked the imagination (theory of mind?) to really do so. I hope I can do better, and our kids might avoid some of the life problems I have faced. We will see.

7sidedmarble 5y ago
This is the single most hacker news comment I have ever read