Know Your Mental Health Family History with Christy Walton

Stories in Our Roots  00:03

Welcome to the Stories in Our Roots podcast. I'm your host Heather Murphy. In this podcast, we dive deep into how knowing the stories of our ancestors can make a difference in our lives. Today, discovering our family history is more than a hobby. It is a way to connect deeply with ourselves, those we love, and the world around us.

Heather Murphy  00:26

Hello, this is Heather Murphy. Welcome to another episode of Stories in Our Roots. Today's podcast is a continuation of my discussion with Christy Walton from the previous episode. But in this episode, we talk more about mental health and family history, from understanding your mental health family history, to understanding environmental factors that cause certain family members to act in certain ways. And then those patterns of behavior are passed down through generations. This is a great conversation, and one that is coming up more and more in relation to family history. And I'm glad that Christy and I had the opportunity to talk about this. Here is the interview with Christy Walton about mental health in our family history. Now I'd like to kind of shift gears and talk to you about something that's related to family history. And that's I'm a big fan of and that is family history and its relationship to mental health. And we touched on a little bit before, but why is this important to you?

Christy Walton  01:34

This is so important to me, for a lot of reasons. One big thing that I always say is, you know, when you go to the doctor, they say what's your health history, and you say, Oh, my grandmother has diabetes, you know, my father has high cholesterol, or whatever it is, and then it ends there. But the it doesn't include your mental health history. And that is so important. That is so important. Because the longer we study this, the more we realize that mental health is in our genes. Yes, there are environmental factors, of course there are, you are more susceptible to mental health conditions based on your genes also. And if you don't know that, and your family doesn't share that mental health history with you, you are so not equipped to be able to handle it or to be accepting of help, or medication or meditation or whatever it might be. So I worked at a treatment center for troubled teens for six years. very severe cases, suicide, self harm, addiction, you name it, it was there, really bad cases, these poor kids, a lot of them went through environmental things. But because of the history of how people handle mental health over the last 100 years, and even further, these kids are more open to talking about mental health, which is great. But their parents in only a generation back. They're afraid to talk about it, which makes the kids feel icky. You know, it makes them feel different and wrong. When we really need to put a stop to that. Over the last 100 years. You can look at the names people would call people that had mental health problems. So I have a story. I have a story for you. My grandmother who's still alive, she's 102. I was doing some of her family history. And I was asking about her father's I think it's her father's family. And I was naming all of her aunts and uncles. And I got these names from the census, by the way, and the youngest child was named Anna. And I said tell me about Anna. She said, Anna, like there's no Anna. Like, yes, there's an Anna. She's like, no, I would doubt there's no Anna. And I said, well, the census lists all the people in the family. And there's one someone named Anna and she goes, there's no Anna. She's like, that's the wrong one. I was like, No, this is the right one. And she's like, I don't know, I've never heard of her before. And then she disappeared from the next census. And I said, Well, that's weird, like, Did she die? But I couldn't find a death record. So I found other census forms. She was put in a mental hospital in Washington. I thought, well, that's interesting. And I followed the censuses. She lived her from in her 20s until she died. She lived there her whole entire life. They actually have a cemetery. It's an old hospital. It's still running. They have a cemetery there. That's where she was buried. I wondered, what's the story of this? Why was she there? And it took a lot of paperwork talking to this hospital. And it's I still they still still kind of sketchy because I still say there's there should be more records but they're out of place like well find Please. But they did, they did find some papers that said she was, quote, melancholy, which would be kind of like depression, but that she, it sounded almost like someone that was a little manic depressive, someone that would have outbursts, you know, and be really angry or be kind of in depression sounded, that's what it sounded like. It sounded like she originally went in because she had a falling out with some guy, I don't know. But basically what happened was her parents put her into a mental institution and left her there. And then they swept her history into the rug, no one knew about her, not even my grandmother know about her. I just was thinking like, this poor woman, like just shunned away for her. But then also, it's important to know that manic depressive, it could be in my family. And guess what, guess who else was manic depressive. My mother, my mother was manic depressive. We didn't know any of this when she was alive. If she were alive, I could have told her like, guess what this is in your family. This isn't just you, because she thought it was just heard. Like just she was some random case of men, you know, and it's, it's harder to accept that if you think you're the only one. I wish I could have told her like no this friends in our family. And there have been other people in our family, that same line that have issues as well. For me, that means knowing that that runs in my genes that I am so susceptible to that, that means it's the same as when someone says, you know, you're prone to diabetes, if your grandparents had diabetes, you're prone to it, okay, that means I needed to take better care of my health, I need to eat better. And be aware of that and be checking on that. It's the same thing with mental health. Now, I know that I'm susceptible to mental health issues such as manic depressive, same thing, that means I need to take care of my brain, I need to take care of stress. And if needed, I need to be accepting of help of meditation and of medicine. It's the same thing with physical, pre existing conditions or same thing with like a physical Family Health, history, mental health is just as important.

Heather Murphy  07:13

I talked to one woman who says she had severe anxiety as a teenager. And then finally, like in her mid 20s, her parents said, Oh, yeah, this family member has it in this family member hasn't. And she's like, all those years, I felt thinking I was so isolated, and and abnormal. And it turns out, I was normal within my own family.

Christy Walton  07:37

Exactly.

Heather Murphy  07:38

She wished she would have known that earlier.

Christy Walton  07:40

Yeah, I mean, it's not something to be ashamed about. It needs to be more normalized. And I know over time, it will be but I think it's important we talk about it and not be ashamed of it. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. I mean, a lot of this is you are born into it. Like I said, of course, there's environmental factors. But even if you were raised in a totally great situation, and all of a sudden you are having severe anxiety or depression, realize that this is not your fault. It's the same thing, why people all of a sudden have high cholesterol. It's just you just need to take care of yourself and be accepting of help and not feel ashamed of it. I think by learning your family history, like I did, in finding some of the mental health problems, same thing, it makes you feel like, oh, okay, I'm not alone. This is normal.

Heather Murphy  08:34

And I think also in learning your family history, you do also learn those environmental things that contributed to maybe not a clinical diagnosis, but why people behave the certain ways and, and had maybe not clinical depression, but were depressed often or who turned to addiction. And you can see how the environmental factors and how their life was and different things that happened could contribute to that and kind of help explain your family story?

Christy Walton  09:06

Well, definitely. I mean, they say that I've read so many articles about research, for example, children of Holocaust survivors, and they by far have way more chance of having anxiety or depression, even though they did not experience it, and their parents did or their grandparents did, they are still feeling the effects of trauma. And that trauma can be passed down through our genes. And so like you said, If, for example, your grandmother went through something terrible, awful, even just one instance or throughout her life, your genes have that memory and could be kind of expressed in that way. So environmental things do affect it. And like you said, also, sometimes people turn to addictions or poor coping skills. And so if you find out for example, your grandfather was a really, really big drinker. Well, why? Why was he really big drinker? Was there a situation in his life that caused him to do that? And maybe there's a history of addiction, you know, and maybe, obviously, addiction can be also harder for people to break, of course, but what are the life? You know, happenings? What is going around that. And I think knowing that also helps you make good decisions, too. If I know my family has an addiction problem, then I know I'm more prone to that, too.

Heather Murphy  10:31

Yeah, my husband's family, we're Irish immigrants. And that line has bipolar disorder and alcoholism. While I don't know how far back that goes, I can't help but think this family comes over right at the end of the potato famine, the father of the family dies, right around that time that they come. And so you have these older children that are pretty much on their own? And how does that play into these four or five generations that have these effects of something that somebody experienced? What seemingly so long ago.

Christy Walton  11:09

Definitely, I think it's very empowering. Knowing that you can be a huge factor in breaking that cycle. Or you can be a huge factor in continuing that cycle for your posterity. I've looked at some research about, for example, there was a study done with mice, and they taught mice to be afraid of the smell of cherry blossoms. So every time they would expose these mice to cherry blossom smell, they would shock it over time, they didn't need to shock it anymore. They just let them smell it. And you can see that the mice were very, very afraid. After a couple generations, I think it was like the grandchildren of that mice who never went through this test at all, none of this, when they exposed the grandchild, the smell of cherry blossom, the mouse was freaked out. That's so crazy to be that that fear was carried on through the generations of the mice. And I think they said it lasted about four generations, or four or five generations worth, until finally, their posterity, we're afraid of smell anymore. And there's lots of histories of this with different kinds of animals in different studies. And why would we be any different? Right? If your family who experienced loss and fear of you know survival and all this stuff? Why wouldn't it be, you know, part of your genes and this more anxiety having more anxiety, right? And I think that's important to see, like, why do I for example, if it's anxiety, why do I have more anxiety than someone else? It's not a you shouldn't feel guilty about that. It's probably something your family went through. But I think by taking care of yourself and knowing that you're all the better for you and your posterity,

Stories in Our Roots  13:00

This podcast is brought to you by my signature service and one on one program, Resilience in Your Roots. Do you find yourself overwhelmed with stressors and responsibilities of life, increasing your resilience, that ability to get back up when life knocks you down, helps you live your best life, Resilience in Your Roots will help you in four areas to increase your resilience, self awareness and self care, purpose and goals, connections and relationships, perspective and optimism all as you learn how to research your family tree and absorb the lessons that are contained in the stories in your family. If this sounds like the perfect program for you jump on a call with me at heathermurphygenealogy.com/nextstepcall.

Heather Murphy  13:44

Yeah, like my sister, she has this fear associated with water that never made sense to her. But then she learned a story about our great grandfather. And she's like, well, maybe that's what I'm carrying with me.

Christy Walton  13:57

 That's super interesting. Yeah, yes. Things like that. And like I said, the more you research your family, the more you're like, Oh, that makes sense. It's important to research your family history.

Heather Murphy  14:11

And I think that's why it's really important that Well, yes, there are times to hire someone to do the research for you why it's important for you to do the research, because that's when those things come up. And that as you're thinking about it, and as you're discovering it piece by piece, your brain kind of fills in the holes in between the time that you're researching and you ask more questions. And that's just part of the process of researching your family, not just reading a book about them.

Christy Walton  14:41

Definitely, I totally agree with you. And like I said, feeling that connection. And I do feel like when you work on your family, it's very inspiring. And I feel like you are inspired while you're doing the work to find those answers that are just for you that maybe it was like a tiny detail. That wasn't even a big deal. That to you makes like so much sense. But maybe if you hired someone, they wouldn't even put it in the writing because they thought it wasn't a big deal. And you would miss that.

Heather Murphy  15:11

Yeah. Or even saying, oh, and Jennifer does all the research, and I don't need to do it, because that's all done. You're missing out on learning things that make sense to you and no one else.

Christy Walton  15:22

Right. Totally. I totally agree with that. I know, I know a lot of people that don't do genealogy, they say like, Oh, well, it's already done. I was like, well, this isn't a done thing, you can't really be done. Even if there's a lot of information there. This is for you. This is for you to learn about this is for you to learn about yourself, not just complete a project. This is a project for you mentally and spiritually and physically. Even if aunt Louise did it. She gots probably something out of it. But this is for you to learn about.

Heather Murphy  15:59

Yeah. So it's not about having a full pedigree chart. It's about learning about yourself. I think that's why we research our family history is not necessarily because we're so interested in who came six generations before us. But because we want to understand ourselves better.

Christy Walton  16:17

Definitely, totally. And I definitely have learned a lot about myself, like I said, my great aunt that was in the mental hospital for all of our life. Let's say if it was someone else in my family doing the research, maybe they would have thought like, oh, that child probably just died, and would have known the whole story. But now that I've gotten the whole story, my entire family is like, Oh, that makes so much sense. So you got to do it yourself. Because I do feel like you'll be pulled in certain directions to find answers for yourself fluently.

Heather Murphy  16:49

One thing I've been studying and learning about is learned optimism that people can either learn to be pessimistic or they can learn to be optimistic, and you can shift between the two, and that the more pessimistic you are, the more likely that you are to be susceptible to depression. And so I think that's one of the great things about family history is it gives you a broader perspective, you can see that people had hard times like we were talking about before, you see people struggling, and you can see that it's not just you, these things don't happen to just you. And that can help you not get the thing so heavy when you realize that that's just part of life. And these people worked through it, and you can work through it, too.

Christy Walton  17:33

Oh my gosh, definitely. I think that when we learn more about the struggles, and also the successes, too. So for example, you'll see all these, you'll see these stories about family that lost their job, and you know, had to live on very little for a while until they moved. And they moved to a whole new state, for example, and they were able to find their lasting home there. I feel like even just something as simple as that has really helped me. So currently, right now, I don't live near any of my family. And we don't live there my husband's family. And I feel like some friends of mine, and like some people I know would say like, Wow, that's really hard. But then I think this is nothing compared to ancestors that had to move from their home country to a brand new one. Sometimes, like you said, their father died and they have to do it as children, figure out how to survive. If you want to contact any family, you got to write a letter that's going to take weeks, when I'm here in Texas, I can just get in my car and drive if I want to. I can FaceTime someone and talk to them on the phone. Having those perspectives really helps me in difficult times thinking like I need to just like not be a worse here. If they can do it. I can do it. It is hard, but it's not impossible. You know, and I think your attitude over life makes your life it's gonna make it hard, or it's gonna make it easy. Overall, I'm very optimistic person to the point where I can be very annoying, because I tend to like just always look on the brighter side or the positives. My husband is the very opposite. He's very pessimistic. He always thinks the worst is going to happen to the extreme. And I'm like, Okay, come on. That's not gonna happen. I would rather live my way. So I feel like you kind of can choose looking on the bright side of things or not. It's hard for some people, it's easier for some people. My dad was always the growing up, to be honest. I had I had a rough childhood. My mom, like I said was manic depressive, but she had a lot of physical problems choose bedridden a lot. And my poor father now that I'm older, my poor father had to basically raise two girls. While my mom was sick all the time. We had to hire Help. You know, I had a nanny that was from Sweden, nicest lady in the world. And my poor father had to go through all of this, but I never heard him complain, like ever. And his attitude was always, yeah, it's just the way it is. And I've kind of adopted that attitude, which I'm so thankful for. It's like, yeah, it happens. That's it, you know, there's not much discussion on it. And, but through that, I've had a lot of positive experiences. Because now even though for example, I'm not Swedish at all, but now I feel connected to Swedish culture and stuff, because my nanny would make a Swedish meatballs, you know, and things like that. So but I do think, looking at family history stories, and their trials, or and their successes gives us a lot of perspective, and helps us to be more optimistic, for sure. Yeah.

Heather Murphy  20:51

And I do think people, we need to be careful not someone can say, Oh, well, my thing isn't as hard as there are things. So what's wrong with me? And try not to do that and just look to the ancestors for inspiration, not as a signal that you're not doing well enough, or that you couldn't do what needed to be careful and, and look for inspiration, not not as a judgment call on yourself.

Christy Walton  21:19

Right, exactly. All stories of past present and future have, it's not supposed to be a comparison, it's not supposed to be a judgment, it's you use them as inspiration. If they can do this, maybe I can do this too. Even if you struggle, and even if you feel like you can't, you've got to pull stories from your family and your ancestors, to find motivation, at least, to handle things.

Heather Murphy  21:49

And I think another part is to look the other direction as well. And think about what story you want to pass on to future generations. And maybe that can be helpful in tackling things that would be hard otherwise, like not just doing it for yourself, but doing it for the future so that somebody can be inspired and be helped. generations later, I'm sure our grandparents didn't do their things because they thought, oh, someday I'm going to be this inspirational person for just surviving, essentially. And now we look at them. And we say, Wow, that's so inspirational. So maybe our lives are going to be inspirational if we just stick with it, and keep plowing the row.

Christy Walton  22:33

And I do think there's different ways of being inspirational, for example, like you might have a grandfather that sat in the chair and watch TV all day long. But maybe they were just really great about being excited to see you. And you remember that like, Yeah, I remember my grandpa, he always made me feel like the only person in the room. It could be as simple as that. Or maybe like I like my great grandfather. He built houses from the ground up with his own hands by himself. And maybe he wasn't actually that active with his grandkids, you know, but maybe in that way, he was inspiring. There's different ways of being inspired. And like you said, You don't always realize that at the time, yesterday, I was building my daughter a, like a bed. And I wasn't even thinking just putting it together. And my youngest, who's three, she was just watching me. And she said, Mom, I kind of just think you're the best. And I was like, why? And she just kind of was like looking at what I was doing. I was like, Oh, thank you. And I wasn't even thinking about it. You know, it wasn't in my mind. I didn't feel like oh, I need to build this to be inspirational. You know, I'm just building a bed. I do think keeping in mind what you want your story to be left for your posterity what you want people to say about you. And like I said, it could be as simple as just being happy to see people.

Stories in Our Roots  24:00

 Well, thank you so much for talking with me. We've gone through this conversation, we started off with really heavy clinical diagnosis of mental health throughout generations to just how you feel during the day and family history and it's different ways can can help us understand those genetic things that have been passed down as well as just courage to get out of the bed sometimes. It's amazing how family history is so adaptive to your personal needs and your personal situations and it changes over time. So while you may need help with a clinical diagnosis one day, two years later, it might just be help with your perspective of your teenager. Thank you so much for talking with me about this and sharing your thoughts and your experiences.

Christy Walton  24:46

Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

Stories in Our Roots  24:50

Thank you for joining me today for Stories in Our Roots. Please help this podcast grow by subscribing, leaving a review, and sharing it with your friends. If you have feedback or would like to recommend someone to share their story head to storiesinourroots.com and fill out the form. Thanks again for listening and I look forward to being with you again next week.