Conclusion to the Mumford Family Research
I have found the journey into the past, following the trials and tribulations of my ancestors to be fascinating, eye-opening and thought-provoking. I started this project to investigate the possibility of any hereditary psychiatric illness and to find out whether the coldness and aloofness experienced by this branch of the family was due to nature or nurture. I may not have found any concrete answers to my questions, but I have now probably gained a greater insight and understanding as to why family members were how they were.
This research has heightened my awareness of the social deprivation and struggles my ancestors had to endure just to enable them to survive. It has helped me to appreciate the fact that our generation and our children's generation have 'never had it so good'. My ancestors have had to overcome great difficulties just to stay alive and facing unknown pain, suffering and mental anguish was part and parcel of everyday life. Our petty whinges when we've had a bad day at work pale into insignificance in comparison to a time when an average working day was 14 hours, 7 days a week, often working in dangerous conditions and for very little pay.
When we complain of a headache or feel we are dying when we have a cold, we need to remember a time when it wasn't just the old that died; when the average life span for middle to upper-class males was 44 years, 25 for tradesman and 22 for labourers and fifty-seven of every 100 children in working class families were dead by five years of age. We need to remember a time when families were split by death - men from work accidents, women from childbirth and children from diarrhoea. Mill workers were vulnerable to tuberculosis, bronchitis and asthma due to the cotton lint and dust in the air and everyone was susceptible to respiratory diseases such as bronchitis, influenza, and pneumonia and infectious diseases such as small pox and scarlet fever. Men would marry again and women would have to beg or rely on help from relatives, sending their young children to work just to keep their family together.
When we complain that someone has left the toilet seat up, or one of the male members of the household have 'missed' the toilet, we need to remember a time when up to 100 houses shared one 'privvy'; when human and animal waste were mixed with drinking water and sewage overflowed into the cellars where a large number of workers lived and when the whole family shared the same bath water in a wash tub.
Even after the turn of the century when working life began to get easier and public health reforms improved the longevity of working people, the 2 world wars led to families being torn apart and people suffering the unknown horrors and torments that are brought about by war. Even in the years between the 2 world wars there was widespread suffering and deprivation with rampant unemployment as the industrial age declined.
I can hardly begin to imagine how Nana coped with losing her mother at the age of 3, how she coped with her father leaving her to go to war, her sweetheart leaving her for 2 years to look for work and then travelling around a strange continent with a young family in tow desperately searching for work. These experiences must have affected her and could have led her to suppress her feelings, resulting in her appearing to be rigid, formal, cool and distant. These behaviours could then have been learnt by her children, who then brought up their children in the same controlling and distant way.
But I do not believe that this is the whole story. Many millions of others have suffered similar or even more severe traumas, but have come out the other side relatively unscathed. Although I believe that these life experiences did contribute in some way to Nana's quiet and distant emotional state, I also believe, given wider family traits that alongside these social and environmental influences, there could also be other hereditary factors involved. Traits such as insomnia, depression, obsessive disorders, eating disorders, stress related illnesses, psychosomatic illnesses, and even autistic spectrum disorders have affected different members of our family over the years. Although these traits may appear to be a hotchpotch of unrelated conditions and disorders, there is one common thread that pulls them all together and that is our emotional state; relating directly to our personality and our demeanour.
Some families tend to suppress feelings and any emotion then tends to be expressed by physical symptoms, and this has certainly been the case in our family. Children can learn this behaviour which may continue into adult life and this can, in turn be learnt by their children. Our emotional state governs how we deal with unhappiness, anxiety and stress and in turn can lead to the manifestation of illnesses and physical symptoms. Illness can be due to many factors and can occur as a result of social or environmental factors and it may also happen as a result of genetic or hereditary reasons.
When researching possible genetic links to our family traits, I found that a mutant in the human serotonin transporter gene had recently been discovered. This gene affects how the body uses serotonin, a chemical that is linked to emotions and mood, and the results of this can culminate in a range of obsessive disorders and related conditions. Whether this is the case in our family will never be known, but it is widely believed that our personality is a major factor in determining which illness we may develop. For example, some people who tend to be ambitious, impatient, and set themselves high standards seem to be more likely to develop heart attacks. Quiet, introverted individuals, who tend to conceal their feelings and fears and to suppress emotions, may be more likely to develop cancers.
This would certainly explain the links between my Mum's and my sister's personalities and their subsequent illnesses, but where did I fit in? I worried that I may also have the same personality traits and suffer the same fate myself and this was the overriding thought in my mind when doctors discovered that I had a lump on my ovary, only days after my sister died. I could not see past the family links and felt that my own destiny was totally out of my control. When I was a child I was a worrier (and still am), I had to be shielded from extreme emotions, as I would invariably be sick. For example, if we were going on holiday, Mum and Dad would have to keep it secret from me and even pack the car while I was asleep, otherwise I would be sick. If Mum was arguing with my Gran, I was sent out of the room and they were told to stop, otherwise I would be sick. Whenever I knew I was having an exam at school, I would be physically sick all day. This, it seemed, proved that I suffered the same condition as my Mum and sister.
But I had to learn from the unfortunate events that plagued my Mum's and sister's lives, and I realised that the one big difference between me and my sister was that I was open about my idiosyncrasies, acknowledged my shortcomings, and most importantly talked about them openly. We all need to take a rain check at times and remain level-headed and remember that nothing is as bad as it seems. 'Life goes on' and 'pick yourself up, dust yourself down and start all over again!' are slogans that many of us need to follow. Thinking about how others have triumphed over adversity and how relatively paltry our problems really are, and talking them through with others instead of bottling them up should help to put everything back into perspective and allow us to move on, thus helping to prevent subsequent emotionally-related illnesses and hopefully help to see us through a long and healthy life.
This research has heightened my awareness of the social deprivation and struggles my ancestors had to endure just to enable them to survive. It has helped me to appreciate the fact that our generation and our children's generation have 'never had it so good'. My ancestors have had to overcome great difficulties just to stay alive and facing unknown pain, suffering and mental anguish was part and parcel of everyday life. Our petty whinges when we've had a bad day at work pale into insignificance in comparison to a time when an average working day was 14 hours, 7 days a week, often working in dangerous conditions and for very little pay.
When we complain of a headache or feel we are dying when we have a cold, we need to remember a time when it wasn't just the old that died; when the average life span for middle to upper-class males was 44 years, 25 for tradesman and 22 for labourers and fifty-seven of every 100 children in working class families were dead by five years of age. We need to remember a time when families were split by death - men from work accidents, women from childbirth and children from diarrhoea. Mill workers were vulnerable to tuberculosis, bronchitis and asthma due to the cotton lint and dust in the air and everyone was susceptible to respiratory diseases such as bronchitis, influenza, and pneumonia and infectious diseases such as small pox and scarlet fever. Men would marry again and women would have to beg or rely on help from relatives, sending their young children to work just to keep their family together.
When we complain that someone has left the toilet seat up, or one of the male members of the household have 'missed' the toilet, we need to remember a time when up to 100 houses shared one 'privvy'; when human and animal waste were mixed with drinking water and sewage overflowed into the cellars where a large number of workers lived and when the whole family shared the same bath water in a wash tub.
Even after the turn of the century when working life began to get easier and public health reforms improved the longevity of working people, the 2 world wars led to families being torn apart and people suffering the unknown horrors and torments that are brought about by war. Even in the years between the 2 world wars there was widespread suffering and deprivation with rampant unemployment as the industrial age declined.
I can hardly begin to imagine how Nana coped with losing her mother at the age of 3, how she coped with her father leaving her to go to war, her sweetheart leaving her for 2 years to look for work and then travelling around a strange continent with a young family in tow desperately searching for work. These experiences must have affected her and could have led her to suppress her feelings, resulting in her appearing to be rigid, formal, cool and distant. These behaviours could then have been learnt by her children, who then brought up their children in the same controlling and distant way.
But I do not believe that this is the whole story. Many millions of others have suffered similar or even more severe traumas, but have come out the other side relatively unscathed. Although I believe that these life experiences did contribute in some way to Nana's quiet and distant emotional state, I also believe, given wider family traits that alongside these social and environmental influences, there could also be other hereditary factors involved. Traits such as insomnia, depression, obsessive disorders, eating disorders, stress related illnesses, psychosomatic illnesses, and even autistic spectrum disorders have affected different members of our family over the years. Although these traits may appear to be a hotchpotch of unrelated conditions and disorders, there is one common thread that pulls them all together and that is our emotional state; relating directly to our personality and our demeanour.
Some families tend to suppress feelings and any emotion then tends to be expressed by physical symptoms, and this has certainly been the case in our family. Children can learn this behaviour which may continue into adult life and this can, in turn be learnt by their children. Our emotional state governs how we deal with unhappiness, anxiety and stress and in turn can lead to the manifestation of illnesses and physical symptoms. Illness can be due to many factors and can occur as a result of social or environmental factors and it may also happen as a result of genetic or hereditary reasons.
When researching possible genetic links to our family traits, I found that a mutant in the human serotonin transporter gene had recently been discovered. This gene affects how the body uses serotonin, a chemical that is linked to emotions and mood, and the results of this can culminate in a range of obsessive disorders and related conditions. Whether this is the case in our family will never be known, but it is widely believed that our personality is a major factor in determining which illness we may develop. For example, some people who tend to be ambitious, impatient, and set themselves high standards seem to be more likely to develop heart attacks. Quiet, introverted individuals, who tend to conceal their feelings and fears and to suppress emotions, may be more likely to develop cancers.
This would certainly explain the links between my Mum's and my sister's personalities and their subsequent illnesses, but where did I fit in? I worried that I may also have the same personality traits and suffer the same fate myself and this was the overriding thought in my mind when doctors discovered that I had a lump on my ovary, only days after my sister died. I could not see past the family links and felt that my own destiny was totally out of my control. When I was a child I was a worrier (and still am), I had to be shielded from extreme emotions, as I would invariably be sick. For example, if we were going on holiday, Mum and Dad would have to keep it secret from me and even pack the car while I was asleep, otherwise I would be sick. If Mum was arguing with my Gran, I was sent out of the room and they were told to stop, otherwise I would be sick. Whenever I knew I was having an exam at school, I would be physically sick all day. This, it seemed, proved that I suffered the same condition as my Mum and sister.
But I had to learn from the unfortunate events that plagued my Mum's and sister's lives, and I realised that the one big difference between me and my sister was that I was open about my idiosyncrasies, acknowledged my shortcomings, and most importantly talked about them openly. We all need to take a rain check at times and remain level-headed and remember that nothing is as bad as it seems. 'Life goes on' and 'pick yourself up, dust yourself down and start all over again!' are slogans that many of us need to follow. Thinking about how others have triumphed over adversity and how relatively paltry our problems really are, and talking them through with others instead of bottling them up should help to put everything back into perspective and allow us to move on, thus helping to prevent subsequent emotionally-related illnesses and hopefully help to see us through a long and healthy life.