Health Buzz: Complex Genetics Behind Mental Disorders and Other Health News

Deborah solomon regarding mental illness

I have been an avid reader for many years and have read many articles regarding mental illness or phobias. I don't believe it is always easy to diagnose a person's mental state. My mother is one of the most stable people I have known in my entire life, however, as she has aged she has gotten a phobia of being trapped or contained in small or tight places in which she has no control.

I don't ever recall her having this type of phobia when I was a child. Now she always has to sit in the front seat of a vehicle anywhere she travels or she won't go. She gets nauseaus and panics in a small car or if she is sitting in the backseat. She has to be able to have access to roll her window down at all times. She claims that she has struggled with this panic and fear of confinement in small places ever since she was a young girl and she and her sister and two other little girls all got trapped in an outhouse together for several hours on a hot summer day.

My mother is an intelligent person and it's hard to discern how else to deal with the situation as she ages. I guess we all pray for wisdom when our parents begin to age and we begin to switch roles in life.

Frequency of autism and schizophrenia - Non-familial

It is vitally important to see the connection between the age of the father or the age of the maternal grandfather at the mother's birth to understand where non-familial autism comes from. l