What are my chances of developing a mental illness?

In bipolar disorder, you will have 80% chance of having the trigger that may lead to bipolar disorder. Few of the environmental triggers that leads to bipolar disorder are alcohol or drug exposure, abuse, head trauma, certain illnesses, unusual wake/ sleep cycling, diet and unknown environmental factors.

When you develop a mental illness or disorder it shows..the symptoms are there all over and there is no doubt left that the person is having a problem..you relatives and ancestors really had a problem and so their life ended in a bad way ..this is the reality.. you can call it a problem when it severly interferes into your everyday routine like indoor activities, social interaction, relationships, workplace etc...but when you can see that you are leading a normal life you have got nothing to worry..probably your family stories have gone deep inside and affected you and you feel that you will be the next victim..the ultimate truth is that people who think they can/will have schizophrenia will never have it because its only fearful thought running through your mind...whatever will happen to you will come to you head on and you will not need to invite it in anyway..its something like this..there are people who only fear an epileptic attack but never have had it in their entire life and the people who have epilepsy dont even know that they are about to get an attack..so its only a running fear that is dominating your mind...as long as you have nothing coming in the way of your relationships and work, there is nothing to worry..

the chances of you acquiring it genetically depend upon the following factors

1 whether you are the first or the second child or what is your rank if you have lot of siblings

if you are the first child then you have more chances of inheriting traits from the paternal side than from the maternal one..so it wont be problem since the trait of mental illness is on the maternal side..but if you are the second child then there are chances but the chances are still very low since your mother does not have it ..now if you are any many sisters/bros than you need to see your order and rank..meaning are you in the first half(higher order) or in the second half (lower order) of your siblings and the rank means whether it is even or odd...if you are having an odd rank like 1, 3, 5 etc your traits are paternal and if you have you have even rank like 2nd child, 4th child, 6th etc then you are favoured more by your mother..this only happens when genes are distributed alternately..however order always takes precedence over rank...this means that even if your rank is 5th among five children(which means you are the last child), you are still more on the mother's side since you are in the lower half or lower order....so it depends where your position lies...if you are the first child of your parents then you are lucky ....anyways you dont care about it ..there are meds these days and i hope docs are doing a good job ...good luck

There is a site called www.schizophrenia.com and a section where people pose questions. Someone asked the likelihood of a person getting schizophrenia;

"Population statistics on the heredity of schizophrenia estimate that a child with one diagnosed parent has about a 10% genetic risk of developing the disease themselves (this is compared to a 1% risk in the general population). The risk goes up significantly if a grandparent (or other close relatives) also has schizophrenia."

NOW if a parent has it, there is a 10% chance. SAnd if a parent AND another relative, the chance is higher.

You have a second cousin--which lowers the likelihood.

Usually schizophrenia shows up by the age of 22, if it is to show up at all.

Bipolar is a whole other disorder--and if there is no family history, it is VERY unlikely that you'd get that disorder. It is due to brain chemistry being off--and is inherited genetically. It has nothing to do with schizophrenia at all.

Oh! Dear

If we look at the situation genetically then the chances are that you will not suffer from any mental ill-health.

You seem to be worrying too much.

Negativity is the mother of all stress that leads to ailments of sorts.

Stop worrying and stay healthy

Take care..

You sound ok. Try not to worry but you may need to be extra careful with your mental Health through out your life.

Eat sleep and exercise , have good network of people around you that you can talk to and avoid drugs and alcohol . You will have a good life as you are obviously very intellegant and can avoid mental health pitfalls such as drink and drugs.