Can the stories we tell ourselves, and the legends we pass on to our children, instill a sense of control, resilience, and even heroism in the face of disease and hardship?
You wrote: “I have seen family ailments that are as much genetically determined as they are dysfunctional patterns of symptom interpretation, and a legacy of reactive dread learned from the time we were children.” Forgive me please if I suggest that the order be reversed? “I have seen family ailments that as much dysfunctional patterns of symptom interpretation, and a legacy of reactive dread…as they are genetically determined.” This seems to me to better state your case. It really doesn’t say what I believe you meant to say, when written in order you used. Love your columns, and this one thing really grated when you first quoted it in today’s post.
Hi Phoebe - thank you for your careful reading of this post, and for the editorial wisdom in your comment. Now that I consider the sequence of ideas here, I can see how you might pick up a note of medical gaslighting perhaps… which is totally unintended so I made the changes I think you suggested. Does it read better now?
By way of example, I was thinking of anxiety primarily. To use myself as a case in point, like many others I come from a long line of worriers. I believe there is much genetic basis for this as well as learned behaviors from listening to all the stories along the way, from struggles in the coal region to all the way back to Ireland. Hope that makes sense, as we both try to write some strength into our worlds!
Thank you so much for not taking my nitpicking personally or taking offense. Your Substack was recommended to me as much for its eloquence as for its medical and scientific ideas. So kudos to you as I won’t read any writer who doesn’t bother or maybe doesn’t know how to write well. That said I’m curious what makes you believe there’s a genetic basis for anxiety. I’m glad you didn’t write as you did above about illnesses being genetically determined as few truly are. I’m thinking Huntingtons and CF but genes rarely are the whole picture and a gene “for” XYZ rarely determines the destiny of an individual. Case in point I was once genetically tested for a variant of Lyme disease that leads to severe arthritis. Well I have this gene but while I suffered a severe case of tertiary Lyme disease not a single joint was involved and to this day (I’m almost 72) I have no arthritis at all.
You wrote: “I have seen family ailments that are as much genetically determined as they are dysfunctional patterns of symptom interpretation, and a legacy of reactive dread learned from the time we were children.” Forgive me please if I suggest that the order be reversed? “I have seen family ailments that as much dysfunctional patterns of symptom interpretation, and a legacy of reactive dread…as they are genetically determined.” This seems to me to better state your case. It really doesn’t say what I believe you meant to say, when written in order you used. Love your columns, and this one thing really grated when you first quoted it in today’s post.
Hi Phoebe - thank you for your careful reading of this post, and for the editorial wisdom in your comment. Now that I consider the sequence of ideas here, I can see how you might pick up a note of medical gaslighting perhaps… which is totally unintended so I made the changes I think you suggested. Does it read better now?
By way of example, I was thinking of anxiety primarily. To use myself as a case in point, like many others I come from a long line of worriers. I believe there is much genetic basis for this as well as learned behaviors from listening to all the stories along the way, from struggles in the coal region to all the way back to Ireland. Hope that makes sense, as we both try to write some strength into our worlds!
Hi Ryan
Thank you so much for not taking my nitpicking personally or taking offense. Your Substack was recommended to me as much for its eloquence as for its medical and scientific ideas. So kudos to you as I won’t read any writer who doesn’t bother or maybe doesn’t know how to write well. That said I’m curious what makes you believe there’s a genetic basis for anxiety. I’m glad you didn’t write as you did above about illnesses being genetically determined as few truly are. I’m thinking Huntingtons and CF but genes rarely are the whole picture and a gene “for” XYZ rarely determines the destiny of an individual. Case in point I was once genetically tested for a variant of Lyme disease that leads to severe arthritis. Well I have this gene but while I suffered a severe case of tertiary Lyme disease not a single joint was involved and to this day (I’m almost 72) I have no arthritis at all.