Are You Prone to Inherited Depression?

The best way to find out if you're prone to bouts of depression is to ask your relatives. Like other traits, inherited depression can be passed down through generations. But good luck getting anything out of Uncle George or Grandma Nellie. In some families, the word "depression" is enough to make people run for cover!

Some relatives may feel uncomfortable if you poke into the nooks and crannies of your family history -- where all sorts of forbidden stuff lurks (like the uncle who ran off with the babysitter!) If it was your older relatives who suffered from depression, they might be more likely to simply say" "Life was hard back then."

Your family's depression was probably masked by other symptoms--alcohol abuse, eating disorders, chronic fatigue, and nervous breakdown. You may have heard, for instance, that Aunt Lula "went off her rocker" and "took to her bed." Or that your grandpa just got into a lot of accidents, or Aunt Eddye was a chronic complainer and had psychosomatic problems.

To determine where you are more vulnerable to depression, take the following inherited depression quiz.

Did you Inherit Depression?

Answer "Yes" or "No" to the following questions.

Do you have any close relatives who often experienced nonspecific illnesses that may have been symptoms of disguised depression -- like weakness, chronic fatigue, headaches, painful menstruation, constipation, sexual problems, obesity, appetite loss, or sleep problems)?___
Do you have any close relatives who suffered nervous breakdowns, attempted suicide, or were unable to function in some basic area of their work, family, or social life?___
Were any of your close relatives given shock treatments, antidepressants, or antianxiety drugs?___
Is there a history of alcohol or drug abuse (including prescription drugs) in your family that may have been caused by or contributed to depression?___
Did any of the women in your family consistently abuse food or have what would today be recognized as an eating disorder?___
Did your mother, grandmother, or other close female relatives often seem visibly unhappy or discontented with their limited choice? Did they experience multiple traumas such as loss of children, accidents, natural disasters, or major financial setbacks?___
Did your mother, grandmother, or other close female relatives work all or nearly all the time, caring for children, an ill relative, and / or working outside the home, so that they always seemed tired and rarely had any time for themselves?___
Is there a history of physical or sexual abuse in your family?___
Did any of your close male relatives exhibit the typical symptoms of male depressions like alcohol and substance abuse, violent behavior, preventable car accidents, being a workaholic, or denial of all sad feelings?___
Did your close male or female relatives smoke enough to cause them disabling health problems or premature death from smoking?___

Total number of questions answered "Yes"___

You're probably vulnerable to depression if you answered "Yes" to more than one of these questions.

Just because you're vulnerable to developing depression doesn't mean you're doomed to suffer from this disease. So don't despair! Remember that you can learn to manage depression in ways your family could never know or teach you because they never had the tools. You're in a much better position to control your life.

Blues Flag

Be prepared to feel worse before you feel better after you start digging out family skeletons. Recognizing that you come from a long line of depressed people is hard to deal with, and you will probably not like the family members for doing this to you. But these feelings will go away when you learn to accept your past and move on to a better future by incorporating the positive parts of the past and detaching from the negative.