• Uriel238 [all pronouns]
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    1 year ago

    Meh. I have really smart genes, but am also a product of childhood neglect and family dysfunction, hence a lifelong diagnosis of major depression and a recent diagnosis os ASD with symptoms showing when I was ten years old.

    My mom’s whole family is both smart and crazy. Is this a matter of pure genetics? That’s one common hypothesis. Another one recognizes we shifted over a few generations from extended family homesteads in an agrarian economy to nuclear families in an industrial economy, and our kids grow up bright but need a lot of engagement, what is not afforded to kids when both parents have to work.

    Since the 1950s forward dysfunction due to poverty, precarity and underdeveloped family models were common contributors to childhood trauma. We might not know if a given kid might have grown up functional in a better environment because toxic environments are normal. Commonplace. So much so, we often fail to see the toxicity, and we fail to recognize the mental health issues that they commonly cause.