I’ve been reading a lot of different stories on here recently and I didn’t want to share mine but I don’t have anyone to talk to about this and so this might be helpful for me to share with strangers at least. My boyfriend well as of last night he’s my ex because he broke up with me again. He’s been diagnosed sz and has been hospitalized three times since we began dating back in Dec of 2023. He had been on a steady medication for a while but decided to change it because he said it was affecting his sexual performance. About a month later he began saying things about the masons and how his life was like a real life Truman show because the masons have been making his life miserable. I went through it all with him including the secret service getting involved because he trespassed in DC and getting himself fired the same day. He got a bit better after he was hospitalized but then it was right back to it a few weeks later. We didn’t live together and I wasn’t educated on this enough to keep a better eye on him at the time. Anyway, he began having horrible thoughts of me being harmed in my house during the night while he was too far away to do anything. He said I refused to confess to him what has being done to me because they’ve threatened me and my family. I told him this is not true and I have showed him evidence. He broke up with me because he can’t be with me while he works through it and with the trauma of it all he said he can’t be with me. He regretted it after a couple of days but I didn’t take him back right away until I saw improvement in how open he was with taking his meds and staying consistent with therapy. He was better for a little bit again and then those thoughts came back and he told me he was sorry and he knew nothing happened but he can’t move past it and broke up with me again. This time his episode lasted much longer. We were broken up but I still tried to check in with him but we lost communication for about a month. Then he seemed to have gotten much better during that time and we started back up but as friends and very slow for fear that it would happen again. This was in December and he was doing amazing. I even began imagining moving in together and finally being happy with everything under control. Sadly though, he started having those thoughts again and his behavior became very flat this past week after going from being extra romantic and sending me flowers all the time at work and couldn’t wait to talk to me 24/7. He confessed to me that he told his therapist he envisioned his life with another girl who hasn’t been harmed like me and he’d probably be happier. That really hurt so I asked for some space to gather my thoughts. We were supposed to talk about it two nights ago but I was a mess and so I said last night was better…Well he broke up with me for the same reason… again. I went from having an extra loving and extremely caring bf to being without him again. Today was the full day we didn’t communicate at all and I’ve had more breakdowns then I care to share. I have no one to blame but myself for diving right back in knowing this was a possibility. Today’s pain is gonna get better one day at a time. I just want him to be happy and taken care off even if he doesn’t want it to be me.
If you are only this far in with him, my advice would be to move on. I have been married for almost 30 years and the hell my wife has put me through has absolutely wrecked me, my life, my job, everything. I know this is hard to hear but you have a chance not to get in too deep and have your life destroyed. Please hang in there. It will get better.
You are not alone. My boyfriend was the same exact story dang near. He insists now we cant be together- he will ignore me - reach out when HE wants to- but then go silent. Kinda baiting me…he knows i love him. I was there through the hospitalization and the delusions and everything. He threw the meds away and spiraled - his parents let him move bk home and let him live there unmedicated and not paying for anything (rent- bills- food) and its a sick cycle.
As hard as it is- we must just go forward for ourselves… they are not healthy. Im very sorry youre going through this
I’m so sorry you are experiencing this. My advice is to seriously consider moving on. That may be a difficult reality but this disease is not for the weak and it will consume your entire life. My family has been dealing with my sister’s illness for 20+years and the stress of it really took a toll on my mom and she died way too soon. Please seek counseling for yourself and seriously consider your next steps and what you want your life to look like in the future. God Bless!
I agree completely. Your life is too short and precious to sacrifice it for someone with this disorder who is not high functioning and accepting treatment. Even then, it’s not always easy and unlikely that you will have a normal future with family, careers, friends, etc. This disease literally consumes the afflicted and those close to them. Just review some of the past posts on this board and you will get a taste of what people experience with schizophrenic loved ones, esp. those refusing treatment.
I also left an on-again off-again BF after witnessing him in full-blown psychosis. I loved him but knew it was for the best. We are back in touch now decades later but only as online friends. He took meds when he was younger for about a year but then got off them and blames them for everything - which is very common. In moments of insight, he told me in detail about the hell he’s gone through over the years. It really is a terrible, horrifying disease that ruins many lives.
We want to love them - because we know theyre going through things they dont understand- amd thsts what love is supposed to be …thick & thin…BUT …at some point - we have over extended ourselves and we end up just hurting ourselves…the sick cycle never ends …as much as it hurts- We have to end it for ourselves and our mental health
Save yourself some future heartache and break up with him for good. You can still have him in your life as a friend.
I say this as someone who was married to someone with paranoid sz. We divorced, I moved away, and we remain close friends, by phone.
I hate to say it, but I am often grateful when I can just hang up, and don’t have to continue to listen to a haranguing rant when he is unwell. I relish the peace.
Welcome to this site @Etherealrain . I am very glad that you posted, even though you’ve been reading on the site for awhile, it is different when you post. Keep coming back and keep posting and reading, as it IS a lifeline.
This illness causes regular unpredictable havoc for the person with schizophrenia AND for everyone closely involved in their lives. The destruction spreads outwards until, if and when, one of two things happen. 1. Medication works to restore sanity or 2. We distance ourselves from the ill person. We want to help them win over their illness, but it causes such pain to us when the hallucinations and delusions of this disease make them act out. Medications don’t always work well, and as you saw, sometimes the ill person won’t stay on a medicine that DOES work. It seems there is a pattern here: he broke up with you already several times in the past few years, and broke up with you again now. It seems that this will be a painful repeating process in your future if you stay in a romantic relationship with him.
Be kind to yourself while you are grieving: take walks, eat well, go to an art show to look at beautiful things, etc. Find some happiness, you deserve it.
Thank you for this. I know this is it for me because although I love him beyond comprehension, the delusions that cause him to withdraw from me and cause him to distrust me are never going to leave. I was so confident about how everything was going starting December. He’s getting the arepiprazole shot every month and has been doing excellent and even landed a really good job. He’s still doing mostly okay but lately he started to say things here and there that started to raise some alarms in my head. For example, he said that if I became pregnant he was going to be rewarded 30 thousand dollars after the baby was born but couldn’t tell me from who. Then he told me that all his coworkers are masons and that the masons have always conspired against him. The last thing I noticed was his flat mood and going from extremely loving and attached to distant and then leading to a break up because he can’t be with someone who he knows was “harmed” and he didn’t do anything about it (he tells me that he believes I was raped at my home by his brother, whom I’ve never met by the way..and I refused to tell him because I was threatened.) this all just started back up about two weeks ago. Would this mean his meds will most likely need to be adjusted to keep this from happening as often or at all or is this normal and do delusion and hallucinations still happen occasionally with meds? Anyway, sorry for the rant. I’m getting ready to go on a hike to keep myself from losing my mind from how much I miss him. I’m taking things one day at a time by taking care of myself more. Thank you so much for your response.
My personal experience with AP meds isn’t lengthy because my son would never take them.
What I would like to address is the delusions and how the delusions build up and grow stronger- the longer our family members are in relationships. Mike’s psychiatrist said he was not unusual at all in that in any work or personal situation Mike was in, he would eventually develop delusions about the person or persons he encountered regularly.
For many of our family members, the longer they are in a situation the delusions grow stronger. Delusions can become fixed. This is why some of these relationships insidiously worsen as time progresses.
We found that moving Mike to a new living situation would “reset” him. He would find peace and happiness until the delusions about the new situation invaded - usually about 18 months when he was younger, 2-3 years when he was in his late 30’s.
His work as a ride share driver worked well because the nature of the work had him working with different passengers each time he worked.
Glad you are going on a hike @Etherealrain .
To answer your question about delusions and hallucinations, yes, they can continue on meds, but are often toned down in intensity. My daughter still has them, but thankfully they are no longer about me or her step-father, making life at home wonderful for years now. If the meds hadn’t released her from the delusions about me or her step-father, I would not have been able to tolerate having her live with us as it was almost unbearable, including many police visits to our home to calm things down.