I have a history of mental health disorders on both parents sides of my family. My mother has two cousins with schizophrenia who have been living in an inpatient facility since I was a little girl. They won't ever be able to live on their own. My uncle has bipolar disorder and is also an alcoholic. On my father's side, my father himself has severe mental illness but has always not only refused to seek treatment but also refuses to admit he has an illness. Whatever he has includes some malignant narcissism as well as probable psychosis and a rage disorder. His mother was addicted to heroin when she was pregnant with him. Interestingly, he has never had a drug or alcohol problem, but he definitely has mental illness. I was no doubt born with mental illness. I've felt different and behaved differently from as far back as I can remember. I've been seeing a mental health doctor in one form or another since I was 5 years old (I'm 40 now). One doctor I saw at age 5 diagnosed me with "manic depression" (the old term for bipolar disorder) and wanted to put me on lithium, and my mother chose to stop taking me to psychiatrists at such a young age, so we stuck to therapists, counselors, and psychologists. My mother decided to leave it up to me, once I became an adult, to seek out care with a psychiatrist if I wanted to. She did the best she could with the knowledge available to her in the 80s and early 90s. Growing up was a struggle. Looking back, she wishes she had taken me to a psychiatrist once I hit my teen years. There were several instances where I probably should have been hospitalized, but even that wasn't something that was done in 80s/90s Alabama. My mother was in way over her head with me and, unfortunately, she had two other daughters she had to raise, as well. Thankfully, if there is some kind of genetic component to mental illness, it didn't affect my sisters or my children.