Hi, you are still so young and like me the girlfriend (I am now married) so I want to share my story with you. I live in the UK.
I was 20 when I met my husband. We both worked in the same place and went to the same University on different courses. There were signs now and again something wasn’t right, paranoia and mild delusions and suspicions of mutual friends. Very occasionly he would react to something strangely and he had very bad social and communication skills. But there was loads I loved about him even if others didn’t see it. His heart was in the right place.
Soon after Uni we moved in together and he proposed. He struggled with job interviews and also his paranoia got bad working in offices. I assumed he probably had Anxiety. One time he left work after some sort of violent hallucination or what seemed like a very real dream where he imagined he had attacked someone (he hadn’t and was scared). Took him to a doctor that night. They gave him a leaflet for counselling (with a looong waiting list) and of course he didn’t do it. He didn’t hallucinate again until years later so I thought it was a one-off. Doctor was useless.
Then one year a lot of bad triggering things happened (in the news nationally and personally) and his behaviour, paranoia, suspicions and delusions become dramatically worse. I was in my mid-late twenties and I didn’t understand or know what a psychosis was or Schizophrenia.
I KNEW something was not right. We were both not happy at work and my dream had always been to travel, not his but he agreed to move to China with me to teach English. Weeks before the flight things got really bad, he was like a scared animal, not a human. He was convinced assassins and government spies were after him. I took him the the emergency department at the hospital in an ambulance and the local doctor but everyone told me I was wrong and not a medical expert. They gave me antidepressants and sent us away. It wasn’t until the third day of taking him to doctors he was so ill and a danger to himself and others that the police took him away and he was sectioned in a mental hosptial.
This could have been avoided if doctors had listened to me and done something sooner - and of course if he had been willing to take meds and get help. Taking someone to a doctor for psychosis when they do not believe they are ill is incredibly hard. They have rights to deny consent for me to speak to doctors etc which is what happened. Also after he was released from the mental hospital he never truly forgave me for getting him ‘locked up’ and to this day we argue about it. I am now filing for divorce because it has taken over my life and I lost my youth. I never moved to China, I gave up my dreams for a sick man who is too ill to understand my sacrifice and what I gave up, it is a very thankless job helping someone with SZ. I am struggling with indecision whether to go through with it, but that’s another topic all together.
For you however, you are still young and it hasn’t crept up on you slowly over years like me: you are seeing stronger behaviour at this stage. When I was in my early twenties I did not have to text and phone him every day, he still had much independence which is why I married him. That dependence on me came when we were older and I now put my foot down and give boundaries. You cannot keep up what you are doing forever it is exhausting. If you want to stay with him you need space for it to work. Once you finish your studies and work you will not have the time to have so much contact with him.
Sorry I don’t want to sound negative but that is not a healthy relationship for you, and it won’t get better unless both of you change which is incredibly hard to do. You would need to create boundaries or rules and make sure you have your own life and friends separate from him. He would need to seek medical help and work towards depending on you less, also being respectful towards you and not making such accusations. You both need to trust each other.
I have gone through the same behaviour you have but I had been with him years before it got bad so there was history and I knew what the ‘old him’ was like. It took me packing my bags and leaving to finally get him to see he was too dependent on me and I didn’t have a life anymore. Caring for him took over. He has made a huge effort to stop phoning me all the time and to try and become more independent and look after himself. If I get back with him things will have to be different.
This is quite a long reply sorry! But your situation and age struck me. Just remember to look after yourself too and that you should be able make new friends and have a life x