Like other posters before me, I too was having a difficult time coming up for a topic for this blog post. It seemed almost too easy, as science must play a role in all of our lives on a daily basis without us even realizing it. But I couldn’t think of anything in particular that I wanted to write about. I have definitely reaped the medical benefits of science in my life – I would be legally blind if I didn’t have my glasses or contacts, and I most definitely would not have been able to successfully run a marathon this past fall if I didn’t have my albuterol inhaler on me. But these things didn’t seem “science-y” enough to discuss. (Although now that I think about it, I could have written about the mere fact about what makes an issue be deemed “science-y” enough to write about. Hm.)
Anyways, I decided to take a step back and look at my family as a whole. I then realized that the entire nature / nurture debate that we have been discussing in class is extremely apparent when comparing my two uncles. Both my Mother’s brother and my Father’s brother have Schizophrenia. They are now both in their mid-50s, both live in group homes, both were diagnosed with the illness when they were in their early 20s, and both have many of the same behaviors. When I was younger I remember being told by my parents not to bring up certain topics around Uncle Jim and Uncle Brad. I didn’t understand why, other than I knew it would make them very upset. I knew that my Grandma hates the movie “A Beautiful Mind” for how it portrays the mental illness, and still hates Russell Crowe because of it.
But to get back to the main point, despite very similar traits, my parents believe that my Uncle’s illnesses have different starting points. My mom believes that Jim has had Schizophrenia his entire life. She believes, as Pinker would probably agree, that the root of the problem is and always has been in his genes. She tells me that growing up, Jim always acted a little “off”. He always separated himself from his other 5 siblings. When he was diagnosed, it was almost a relief to be able to give his illness a name. While Schizophrenia is not something you ever want to hear that your brother has been diagnosed with, identifying it also legitimated Jim’s behaviors for my Mom’s family.
Brad, on the other hand, acted like a completely normal kid. He was always social. Unlike Jim, he never had problems in school or issues relating to other people. He did however, do a lot of drugs. If you ask my parents why Brad has schizophrenia, they will quickly pinpoint its root to this time in his life. The markers of being a schizophrenic didn’t show up in Brad’s early childhood, they only became obvious after his period of heavy drug use. For him, Schizophrenia was not something seen as embedded in his genes, but something that he caused through behavior.
Brad’s case cannot exactly be explained by “nurture”, as his drug use obviously chemically altered his body. It is however, different from Jim’s. At least in my family, his mental illness is the result of things that he did in his own life, and was seen as something that could have possibly been avoided. Jim, on the other hand, is viewed as one practically destined to get the illness, as his genes didn’t leave him any other option.
I really enjoyed reading your blog. It's interesting to me, as a CSCL and psychology major, that your grandmother hates how "A Beautiful Mind" portrays mental illness (especially as we watched that film for my AP Psychology class in high school!). There's a certain stigma that films seem to attach to mental disorders, even when they are trying to present people who have them in a positive light, and I think this really plays into how people - consciously and unconsciously - think and respond to others who carry labels like schizophrenia.
ReplyDeleteI understand where your grandmother is coming from in disliking movies that depict schizophrenia the way the popular media does. Up until two years ago I had not come in contact with anyone that had schizophrenia (that I know of). When I found out my boyfriend's uncle had it, and I would be meeting him for the first time I was a little freaked out. In the end everything went well and he is a nice guy, he reminds me of how you described your uncle Jim. I started to think about why I had the reaction that I had, and realized I was making judgments based off of the movies that I had seen.
ReplyDeleteI also really enjoyed your entry. Having been a psych major for the first two years of college, I came to realize that the debate between "nature" and "nurture" crops up in nearly every new topic discussed in psych classes. This argument, it seems, plays a large part in science as a whole. I find it interesting that you have a situation within your life where you can see both ends of the spectrum with the same illness.
ReplyDeleteMy father worked on the twin studies here at the university and would tell us stories about the people he would be working with, and the debate of nature vs. nurture was constantly being brought up throughout the studies. It is crazy to think that people with the same diseases can have such different lives and therefore realizing that pinpointing a specific cause, as neurologists, psychologists and scientists often try to do, is a lot more difficult than it seems.
I too thought a lot about the fact that your grandmother hated the movie A Beautiful Mind, and, like Mary, I understand her dislike of the film. It is hard to watch something that you deal with everyday being portrayed in a simulated environment - it can be both infuriating and upsetting.
Thanks for sharing your story!
ReplyDeleteSchizophrenia has always intrigued me, because so many people grow up seemingly "normal" until the symptoms begin to appear in their 20's, like your uncle Brad. I am also intrigued by the strong connection in many cases, between the disease and drug use. From what I have picked through on medical sites and in studies, most who study the disease recognize a connection, but can't seem to agree on what it means.
Some say that people can be genetically more prone to the disease and environmental factors like drug use can trigger it.
Others argue that the disease is purely biological, as Pinker would say, and that at the onset many affected people try to use drugs and alcohol to self-medicate.
Still another group argues that sometimes the long lasting after effects of drug addictions can be misdiagnosed as schizophrenia because they are so similar but are different because of their cause.
I'm sure one could make a solid argument for nature, nurture, or a combination of the two using both Pinker and Lewotin's ideas. A lot to think about and very relevant to what we've been talking about in class!