There’s an interesting blog titled “Family skeletons detrimental to healing” posted on the ScienceBlog website that set me to thinking… Genealogists seem to love to drag out the family skeletons. Good old adultery, lying, cheating, stealing, and even a murder now and then all seems to get the true genealogist all fired up to find more of these “black sheep” in the family. One of my most popular lectures is called The “X-files,” and deals with family scandals. I get mine out and rattle them around a bit. I start the lecture with a cartoon that I call the Meitzler Family. It shows one lonely white sheep in the midst of an entire flock of black ones. That’s my family, and I’m proud of it. Based on the latest research on the subject, I should handle disease well – and live a long happy life. The following is a teaser from the ScienceBlog.
Family secrets such as alcoholism, abuse and unwanted pregnancies are quite common and an obstacle to healing when disease strikes,
according to Marie-Dominique Beaulieu, a professor at the Université de Montréal’s Department of Family Medicine.
“I see it in my practice,” says Beaulieu, who also holds the Dr. Sadok Besrour Family Medicine Research Chair. “Family secrets lead to feelings of guilt, anger and helplessness. These feelings have a considerable impact on health, specifically on the capacity to adapt and find a balance in times of disease.”
American actor Jack Nicholson discovered in the newspaper that his maternal grandmother was, in fact, his mother and that his mother was in reality his sister. Not everyone carries such dramatic secrets, yet difficult family situations are quite commonplace.
