Is it normal to fear that i will inherit bad behaviors from parents?

I took psychology in college this year and I learned a lot about psychological disorders, behavioral skills, and learned or inherited behaviors. My professor told me that it all depends on the environment and what you're exposed to is learned. I feel terrible sometime because my mom is diagnosed with bi polar, depression, anxiety, anemia, and arthiritis. I know as individuals we're all different but it scares me because my mom raised me and my dad was never around and I feel like since my mom raised me and my siblings, we've learned her behaviors. I sometime wonder if this will affect the relationships that I'll have with friends and my boyfriend. I sit back sometime and think about what I do or done and wonder if it was right or wrong. I do not want to make the same choices as my parents did. I look up to my mom and I never feel like i want ot do not want to be like her..I just don't want to carry on the learned behaviors into my lifestyle and relationships.

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Based on 27 votes (26 yes)
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Comments ( 12 )
  • MacG

    If your prof really said its all based on environment, he or she isn't very good. both genetics and environment play important roles in many personality traits and in mental health.
    As you grow older you will find that you're more like your parents than you could ever imagine when you were in college. And you'll probably find that much of it is good, much more so as compared to what you think now. All us old farts have been there.

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  • Justsomejerk

    You are doomed to a life of arthritis.

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  • EndlessSuffering

    At least you lived a fucking good life.

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  • jocyjocy20

    Yea I have, she's been through a lot and suffered some traumatic things as a child and she hasn;t gotten a chance to get over them and to add on, losing her dad lastyear and a divorce months after and all those disorders and anxiety. My mom say that she's glad that i'm not like her because she's a pushover and never did what she wanted to do with her life and that i say what's on my mind and not hold it all in. My mom pretty much raised me and my two siblings alone so she is overwhelmed whatnot.

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  • My mom's a lazy bitch. Lol i sure as fuck dont want to be like her at all but, it's hard when she's the only parent i had for 20 years.

    I went to military school when i was 16 and got in great shape. But im kinda slacking lol it's hard to break but it's not impossible.

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  • dalmationUntoyourSoul

    all those disorders are just a different way of processing the world, you can do what you wish with the information you receive and find better ways to deal with things because you've seen firsthand what your mother's life has been like. i'm not downing your mother at all. it helps me to think that my brother and i are the generation that will abandon the bad habits and reactions that psychological disorders cause, and so far i think we've done alright. good luck to you. stay on top of your thoughts, not the other way around.

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  • You can fight it. Strengthen your mind and become your ideals... That way you will become something else entirely

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  • jocyjocy20

    my mom got diagnosed with arthiritis after her huge gastric bypass surgery, she never had it before

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  • jocyjocy20

    @justsomejerk I'm trying to unlearn them. I'm 19 and I have room and years for change but living with her make it hard because i have to go by her rules and how she is as a person. Fyi everyone else, I'm not doomed and i don't try to fight it, I'm my own person

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  • Wendell

    You can't fight it..

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    • dalmationUntoyourSoul

      what do you know? she's not her mom.

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  • davesumba

    yep. i've picked up all my dad's bad traits after 21 years of living with him, and now im trying to unlearn them, but i did pick up my mom's good traits.

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