schizophrenia, depression and cancer: my parents

23 years ago, my parents divorced. there was a lot of drama. my father never wanted to divorce at all. my mother, a then-undiagnosed schizophrenic, simply snapped.

my father's reaction was as any loss. i remember him in denial, and anger, and bargaining.

my mother took my sister and i far away from where we had been, and though my mother allowed us to write our father, the letters never reached him. she was abusive, of course, but that is not the point of this.

13 years ago, my sister found our father. he had eventually remarried, but was dying of a cancer that, had he surgery, he would have stood a decent chance of surviving. as i understand it, he claimed that it was on religious grounds.

my stepmother, a nurse, has our family name, where my own mother threw it away. my stepmother, when i last visited, was kind enough to drive my sister and i to our father's grave; my mother refused to go at all.

3 years ago, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. last i heard, last month, this cancer had reached stage three, but her last antibody count had shown a drastic decrease in cancer antibodies.

it might be that i will soon have lost both parents. my feelings on the matter have ranged from bitter, angry approval of poetic justice to apathy to what i suppose is a mild envy.

because of all of this, i have decided that i never want children. whether or not i am a good parent is not the issue, but with all the mental health and autism issues and cancer genes, i feel that it is simply best that i do not reproduce.

My grandmother was the most important person in my life as a child. She was actually my mother's foster mother. My grandmother had been abused by her mother, and her mother had some kind of mental illness. My grandmother decided she would never have children for reasons very similar to yours. My grandmother was considered a special person by everyone who knew her. Her philosophy in life was one of unconditional love. I have never known anyone like her. My mother was so lucky to have been given a home by my grandmother. It was during the depression, and my mother's own parents could not afford to care for all their six children. You always have options in life even if you don't choose to have your own biological children.

EDITED BY MOD

WARNING NUMBER 2