Could you say a bit more about what you called the predisposition to depressive illness in your family and where that comes from?

I think it’s just a clinical, it’s a, it is a clinical thing that was with my grandmother, was with my mother and is obviously, with me, possibly has been passed on.

And how did you know about it in your grandmother and your mother? How did that, what was your experience of that?

Well, I saw it. I witnessed it, you know, and I saw, I’ve seen my mother in very, a very, very depressed state actually. She was unhappy sometimes during my childhood but that was, again, to make the distinction that wasn’t necessarily depression. Later on, in her adult life, she found, she just became I think overwhelmed sometimes by her own emotions and by things that were happening in life. And again, perhaps because of her make-up had a predisposition where in other people it may not cause depression but in my grandmother and my mother and certainly me would cause depression because it becomes, yeah, overwhelming.

You mentioned that you had some sort of depressive tendencies. Is there anyone else in the family who’s had mental health.

I think

Issues?

I think, unfortunately, it looks as though this may be a genetic predisposition, which my son has inherited the worst of. My wife, I think, is mildly depressive but not very much so. Her mother was diagnosed with depression in her old age. My father has clearly suffered. My brother is receiving very similar medication to me.

My sister was very depressed for oh, five, maybe ten years but it but she found someone to marry, who shes still with. They’re happily retired in South West France, lucky things, and that seems to that seems to have given her a balance and she can she can deal with things. But her, both her sons have talked of depression. My brother’s eldest I think isn’t a sufferer but his two girls are.

And has anyone else had any serious mental health problems?

I don’t know because my ex-husband’s mum died before I met him and I was given a polished version of her death but the family gossip says otherwise, that was a suicide and she suffered from depression for a while. So I cannot confirm.

But a possibility, yes?

There is a possibility.

Yes.

Yes.

Plus I come from family, where those things were completely, didn’t exist. You did not talk about it. Very kind of different mind set. You just get on with it.

Yes. Yes.

So when I suffered from post-natal depression, in this country and my family was in another country, I didn’t have much help because I couldn’t speak to my mum about it.

Any serious mental health problems, apart from?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, unfortunately, were all rife with it I think. Theres, well, what is it, one in, one in four is they reckon? Yes, my mother was an alcoholic. She had a nervous breakdown when I was thirteen and suffered with suffered with some elements of coping with life and her alcoholism until she died when I was, she died when I was thirty one.

So I kind of grew up with it, which was not very pleasant. My ex-husband has been diagnosed as various things but both my daughter and her CPN think hes probably an undiagnosed borderline personality disorder. I would agree with that, having lived with my daughter I think that’s probably it, and having lived with him for a lot of years, I think that’s a fairly accurate description. But a lot of her behaviours are very reminiscent of his. His, I think there was something quite seriously wrong with his mother but I’m not a professional and I wouldn’t like to diagnose it.

My mother was an alcoholic. She died three years ago and again, that’s a kind of self self-harm and I learnt from dealing with my mum that getting upset about people and begging them to make changes doesn’t work. It has to come from within. You can never influence or force someone to change and that is one of the things that’s helping me at the moment in that I have to be a little bit relaxed about this. I have to just give her every opportunity to get help but I can’t force it on her and I do say this to her that, This is this is up to you. This is your choice.

Let me think – anyone else who’s had, yeah, my sister, shes had depression. My brother’s had anger management. Her eldest brother, who’s a doctor, hes had CBT for anxiety. So there theres lots of cases of it in our in our family so yeah, were quite were quite used to dealing with it I suppose now.

So you’re, theres a practical kind of benefit from…

Yeah, there is.

That in a sense, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

And before I asked you the question, did you make those connections yourself in your head about family experiences and what’s happening to your daughter?

Yeah, definitely, especially after reading on the website that a history of mental illness in the family can also be a factor towards self-harming but weve never had actually, weve never had a self-harmer, apart from like my mum who was alcoholic, no, weve never had a self-harmer.

Yeah.

And I suppose possibly my brother with the anger management I know that I’ve also read that that boys sometimes don’t get diagnosed as self-harm because they will punch things and hurt themselves and it’s not really perceived as self-harm but that, I know my brother definitely did that. And he would he actually broke his hand and busted it up once just through sheer, sheer punching the walls and things. So I kind of classify that as a kind of self-harm too.