04-28-2013, 06:50 PM
Families do experience intergenerational transmission of illnesses (which makes sense with genetic predisposition and lifestyle transmission/learning) and there is also a kind of 'ritual' that gets passed down. This happens in mental illness, too... some sort of distortion gets passed down and an implicit rule is developed whereby having an illness becomes a rites of passage or bonding or whatnot. Seems to happen more often with same-sex parent-child.