Ages 1-3 Problems: How to Deal With Them?

As I recall it must have been about 1.5 years. The therapy did not start off badly, but got worse after maybe a year.

Maybe more like 2.5 years.

Well, Sannah,

If there were no genetic factors around, I would agree with you entirely. But I think there's a chance that some of this was genetic. And I don't know how much. It could be that if I had had good genes, the way my girl cousins had, I would have had dominant good genes and sailed right past my upbringing. In other words, my mother and her sisters may have been "good enough mothers" for their children with good genes, and just not good enough for those (all boys) who inherited recessive bad genes. I know almost nothing about genetics and would very much like to hear someone knowledgeable in the field opine on my speculations. I think you are correct: "Anxiety develops when a person grows up not feeling secure." And a good part of that insecurity may be inherited.

Take care.

Ygrec, of course genetics are important. I have heard many experts in their fields say that it is 40/40 (they purposely fall under 100%). And I have heard these experts also say that you need both to develop any mental or physical disease. If you don't have the cancer genetics it is very difficult if not impossible to develop the disease. If you have the genetics but take excellent care of yourself then you have a good chance of avoiding the disease.

I have 3 sisters. My dad, my sister and myself were/are all anxious. My mom and my sister are not. This one sister is depressed. I could never be depressed even if I tried. I think this is due to genetics. We all had the bad environment to develop some mental health issues but our genetics helped us to determine which one.

So yes, I do think that you can be genetically predispositioned to anxiety but if you have a very secure environment where your needs are met and you have an awesome family it isn't going to develop.

I have recovered from anxiety. I pinpointed all of my issues which were causing the anxiety and I fixed them. If my anxiety was only genetic I could have never gotten rid of my anxiety. My environment caused my anxiety to develop (along with my genetics).

Ygrec, you may find this article interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/ma...anxiety-t.html

Ygrec, it could be too that your mother's generation was just "female" focused; she and her sisters being only girls, didn't grow up around boys so didn't know how to raise them? And with our generation, it's not like the fathers were that involved in our early lives. I think there could be a lot in the cross-identification thing (boys initially identify with their mothers and then have to "switch" to their father; girls do mother, then father, then have to switch back!)

http://www.healthychildren.org/Engli...-Children.aspx

I have three brothers and my mother died when I was young so I was treated as 'boy" number 4 sort of, for a year or so; my husband has three brothers and three sons. It will be interesting to see the differences in how my granddaughter grows up from her brother. I think my daughter-in-law already identifies more with her son than with her daughter (granddaughter is 6, grandson, 5).

It could be, Perna. You might well be right. In fact, I think you ARE right insofar as concerns post-birth developments. ALL the first children were boys. And ALL the first children were as screwy as can be (I'm one of the first children). So the maternal learning process didn't have much to go on, I suppose. But I'm still hung up on the genetics idea. Or pre-natal chemical effects. More facts: the birth order of the families were set up as follows, with the screwy males in bold, underlined print:

M M M M
M M F M
F M M F
F M

I've heard of DIFFERENT, successive effects of pre-natal chemistry, where first and later children are affected differently, though genetically the same.

Take care!