I am so thankful for the stories and discussions found here. I work in healthcare and so have “learned” about sz and have worked with some group home patients with sz. But that is way different than living with a loved one and navigating life with them. There are many aspects that school didn’t cover and, work doesn’t deal with. I have one friend who has a family member with sz so it helps to talk with her when my bf and I are having issues. This site is nice though because there are many things that I didn’t realize were a part of sz and I just thought they were simply his way of doing things.
My family members and other friends are a varied level of supportive to downright mean about my being with my boyfriend. The ones who are the most supportive are the ones who know him the best and the ones who are more negative are just scared for me out of their lack of understanding.
I’m at risk of losing my best friend since middle school because she doesn’t understand and isn’t making any attempt to understand sz. In the beginning of my relationship with my boyfriend, I had made the mistake of venting to her a couple times about him when he would have a bad day, and she looks at the mean or frustrating things he said and decided he’s an evil person who puts on an act of being nice. Which is so not the case. Then because she doesn’t like him, he doesn’t like her. So he avoids her and ignores her because he is worried that he will say something mean to her because he knows how much she means to me and he doesn’t want to hurt her. Which she then takes as him not trying and being rude to her, and says she’s the only one trying because she will be polite nice to him, and he says nothing to her, or walks away.
My dad is worried that I will waste my life taking care of my boyfriend. I got around their fears for awhile but not telling them how serious we were but now my boyfriend and I are buying a house together. So it’s obvious to everyone that we are very serious.
Ugh, thanks for being here. Thanks for the support. Thanks for your stories that I can relate to, that help me understand my boyfriend better.