Is Suicide Hereditary?

Is suicide hereditary? If a young male adult attempts suicide could his children be at risk when they become young adults? My father committed suicide when I was 10 years old.

I am not a geneticist but after some study this is how I understand it to be.

Suicidal tendencies are probably not hereditary in the way that blond hair or blue eyes are hereditary. What is hereditary is the predisposition to suffer from depression, anxiety etc.

You must ask yourself, does this subject cause you any anxiety? The most common cause of suicide is depression. Do you ever feel depressed?
Are the children of a suicide or attempted suicide victim at risk? Possibly yes but more as a result of the environment in which they live rather than a genetic factor. The very fact that a parent was lost to suicide has an extremely traumatic effect on a child which is associated with depression in later life.

It is good that you want to understand these things given your fathers history but whatever you do, don't worry about it.

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