What's it like loving someone with sz?

Family
1

This is more meant for partner care givers and not parents. I can understand how a parent can love their child unconditionally. It’s right there in blood. This is mine. I made this. The idea gets fuzzier when I try to think about how romantic partners stay with a loved one who is sz or sza. I’m not saying a parent is easy but there is a well defined reason. This is my child. I wonder what partners think when we try to meow back at the cats at the pet store. What is your reasoning? How does your love last? There’s a built in fifteen - eighteen odd years worth of memories before the kid goes nuts (usually) when you’re a parent. A romantic partner doesn’t have all those memories. Your memories are them trying to glue pants to the walls.

Someone on here recently (I went back and looked but I couldn’t find that post) commented when were were all telling this one person they should leave their sz partner saying that we just don’t know what it’s like loving someone with sz.

I started to think about that for a while and I honestly have no idea. It really makes you wonder what love is. Some people can’t stay together because they can’t stand the way the other person chews or drums their fingers on the dash board but other people can stay with someone and still love them even after they go through your phone, find a conversation with someone of the opposite sex, take photos of the texts for reference, leave you before you wake up to go back home, and then call you screaming and crying saying something was going on when you had just sent a smiley face. (Yes, I actually did this, but to be fair we don’t live together and I had to go back to my parents house the next day anyways).

What makes you stay? What makes you not just say ‘nope, done with this. This is the fourth time you’ve dug up the yard looking for leprechauns’ and just leave. (I didn’t do that one).

I guess I mean what are your feelings? What makes it worth it?

I have a fiancee and whenever I ask him he says ‘I saw you and knew that you needed someone to stay with you, so I stayed with you.’

He was with me when I was at my most crazy and hasn’t budged. I just wonder why? How? If one of my friends had been dating someone like me I probably would have told them, she’s nuts. I haven’t gotten as bad as a lot of the loved ones partners come on this site to ask for advice on, but I’m just wondering maybe we’ve all been too hasty. In other words, if you had to say. Where’s the line? and What makes this worth it?

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e(Y)e’m Jus Gonna Put An Answer To Your Thread Title … ,

So What’s it L(Y)Ke Falling In Love With Someone With a “mental” “disease” … ,

and Surprisingly Tha Worst of Tha Worst , Tha “cancer” Of “mental” “illness” … ,

e(Y)e Can Say Thus , When You Are Together , It’s As if Thee Entire Universe Goes To Sleep and You and Your Friend Is Happily Aware Of Such a Chaotic Mess Of Reality … ,

It’s As If You Are Dancing With Each Other As Tha Universe Is Littered With Sleeping Explosions … ,

As That Fire and Brimstone is Taking All Of Those Pointless Creatures Far , Far , Away … ,

but Sometymes Dreams Do Disappear and Well , You Gotta Wake Up and Face Tha Bitter Truth of a Senseless Reality That Hangs us Upon Hooks During Their Midnite Hours of Tha Disk-Hush-Ting … ,

As Truth Would Say , " THEY ARENT THA ONES WITH MENTAL ILLNESSES " …,

and We Really Aren’t . but Folks L(Y)Ke Us Don’t Point Fingers , So ,

" So There " …

3

When the heart loves someone, it’s for who they are and not anything else, no reason to leave, they simply adjust to the current situation.

If the heart doesn’t love someone, the minute the other person stops being what the spouse needed them to be, everything that person does, will annoy them, to the point they find any excuse to leave.

For the record, I’ve been dx’d Sz, been married-and divorced with an un-dx’d MI spouse, married currently to a semi-normie, been a caregiver/am a caregiver for both MI and non-MI.

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Some people are just steadfast and reliable no matter what. If the ingredients of romance are there I recommend that you hang on to this person. Don’t be a masochistic person who craves rejection and abuse. Believe me, there are a lot of people out there who are far worse than your partner. When you find a good person hang on to him.

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I can tell you for me its been the hardest relationship I’ve had David is the most loving and attentive man, but he went off his meds and is in a downward spiral.he Is no longer my bf but I’m still his friend, and yes I’m still in love with him.

What kind of friend or woman would I be too run out on him. He’s missing right now for six days now and I can’t do a thing about it. So if you’re lucky enough to someone who loves you enough to stick around keep them close, and let them know you love them when you can.

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I was hoping you would comment, sherrih but I didn’t remember your username. You seem very dedicated. I’m the one with sza (bipolar) and I’m engaged to a healthy man, C. Sometimes I wonder though if I’m putting him through too much and should call it quits. I’m not like that right now but after I get into one of my ‘moods’ or ‘freak out’ I just wonder if I’m hurting him too much and what would make someone as wonderful as him choose someone like me. I wonder what makes it worth it for him sometimes.

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This is an interesting question coming from someone who’s afflicted. The answer is hard to give and for me personally, it would depend on the day.

My wife came down with sz affective after giving birth to our child at 38. Her case is extremely rare with this late onset sz (mix in some lack of insight for good measure).

The first 2 years after she came down with it were spent trying to figure out what it was. Her family believed her and not me…I was demonized as her delusions centered around her thinking i was sleeping with my ex g/f (wasn’t true BTW) and got steadily more paranoid.

Got her to the psych and he said she has post partum psychosis…went on meds, then came off them. Eight months later, she has a total psychotic breakdown…eventually ending up in hospital for two months. Friends and family were telling me to leave her, she’ll never get better…so I filed for divorce when she was in hospital…but it didn’t feel right to be doing that. She eventually got on right medication, got out and was fine. I had second thoughts and decided to cancel divorce (I later found out she was dating another patient while in outpatient care). Everything went well for 8 months, she now has had doctor reduce dosage to ineffective levels.

So thus she’s starting down the delusional path again most likely headed for another hospital stay…and I ask myself…why am I doing all of this? I do love her and I’m not sure what to do…I know that I need to protect my daughter and I will do that…but daily life is quite difficult with her. We are barely on speaking terms.

I guess I can say that for me when I get to the point where I don’t care if she’s dating and I’m really ready to move on from these crazy delusions and the false accusations…then I will. Until then, I just have to suck it up and deal with her altered reality. This forum is a tremendous blessing and giving me great knowledge on this illness.

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There is this video about a fictional relationship and the guy hosting the video explains that nice guys don’t always finish last, because girl’s genuinely like nice guy’s affection. That being said, there is a girl out there who I love, she is probably the most affectionate person I’ve ever met. And I’ve fallen in love because of that. For reasons, what happened between us won’t be explained, but this girl has schizophrenia. While our time together was short, it was great. And a person once explained to me to love more. It is true, she seduced me into doing what ever she wanted if she would ask. Sometime’s it’s tricky loving a person with schizophrenia, some things (more so in a relationship like this) don’t always make sense. But the positive things people say to you, the hugs, the commitment, makes it hard to look at the horrible things in life. I can get any woman I want, just by being nice. Does that mean men want to get every woman? No, as long as the person treats you well, people stay together. Just try, you will make your partner very happy, and in turn, they will love you back.

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Parents don’t always love their sick child unconditionally.

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You’re right. From experience, parents ignore their sickness or even positive outbursts, creating a negative in the relationship. That’s what is getting worked on in the father-son relationship with my daddy-o.

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My dad choked me out a couple weeks ago and has been pretending I don’t exist ever since. Fuck him.

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That’s heart breaking.

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I was physcially abused by my biological father when I was about 10 too, he ended up having me placed in a psych ward so he could justify the abuse to the courts. He wanted them to tell the judge that I was a problem child and it wasn’t his fault. I was diagnosed with PTSD after that.

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As others know, my brother is diagnosed with Sz, and through him, I met a guy who is also living through this illness.

The guy and I dated for nearly a year and a half. I sort of fell hard. I think what kept me attached was the belief that seeing and knowing a bit about Sz through my brother, I’d be more then abel to handle a boyfriend who also had this illness. That wasn’t the case.

The good times were amazing. He was funny, and different, and saw the world through a very different perspective. Other guys my age, there’s a lot of posturing and pick up lines. Guys my age have their buds around and do things not to loose face with their buds.
He didn’t have that. The times I didn’t have myself together, he was Ok with that. When things didn’t go well in a date, he didn’t seem to notice.

There were a lot of amazing talks about the universe and life and it was never boring. I should have recognized when he was sliding into a psychotic episode. I know what triggers my brother, but my boyfriend had different triggers and different things going on that I didn’t pick up on.

The bad times were a bit scary. I wasn’t under any illusion that I could cure him, but I was really hoping that with enough love and support he might be encouraged to give up street drugs, give up drinking and work towards being med compliant and work towards recovery.

I should have remembered that the want of recovery in any addiction and illness, comes from within, and at this point in his life, he still wants to do what he does.

Eventually we called it off. He has a few other girlfriends who are more fun then I am. I realize that I can’t help him start the path of recovery. I can encourage, I can be a friend, but I can’t force anyone to do anything. It was a hard lesson.

Thank you for letting me post

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Rielly, nice to here from you, seems like a long time x

sorry it didnt work out with this guy,

i dont really know what to say other than to say guys like us or a lot of us guys are not the best boyfriend material,

i hope you find someone a lot more better suited to your personality, have fun and just laugh about things,

take care

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@daydreamer

It’s nice to be back.

He has a lot to work through and some drug and alcohol addiction to overcome. No one is relationship material when they have that on their plate.

Hope all is going well with you too.

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think you are lucky if you are clean and sober in this life, so many temptations :unamused:

you just need a nice guy with lots of money to sweep you off your feet lol

i’m ok, i’m at college again lol

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I’ll speak to this from the view of someone whose spouse is/was a non-compliant bi-polar with schizoaffective disorder.

What’s it like living with someone where the best times you have is when they are in another room, preferably sleeping?
What’s it like cowering with your kids, not saying a word, hoping that your partner will be to involved with their delusions to lash out at you?
What’s it like having the person who knows all of your vulnerabilities use them as weapons against you?

Now on top of all of that and more, you love the person, you want them well, and you want your family back to what it once was.

It’s the kind of love that tears your heart apart and spits it out on the cold asphalt. It’s the kind of love that makes you tear your hair out. It’s the kind of love between a victim and their abuser.

/Wanted to point out again this is about being with a non-compliant individual.

1 Like
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I know saying this doesn’t do anything but I just wanted to say I’m sorry this happened to you. This is exactly why I asked this. I’m bipolar schizoaffective and I’m just so scared that one day meds will stop working and I’ll get like that. I’m completely compliant but I’m just so scared that I’m going to cross a line (and not realize it because I’m so sick) and hurt my fiancee. I just wonder how to justify putting him at that sort of risk.

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My kids and myself went through a lot of difficult situations with my ex. I don’t think any of them was really the deal breaker though, not the emotional abuse, not the physical abuse, not the calls from my son saying that his mom was drunk and screaming at him, not the multiple incidents of infidelity, etc… The thing that destroyed the relationship was her inability to be compliant. Not just refusal, but constantly sabotaging treatment plans for a more or less continuous 4 years.

I wouldn’t look at my post as something that is going to happen to you. From your posts it seems like you are understanding of your illness and are willing to accept treatment. That is a huge step, and it makes it easier for the non affected partner to seperate the illness from the person. Take a look at posts by several of the functioning sz patients here, like Pixel and Jay. They made me believe that it was possible for an ill person to live a functioning life if they treat their illness. I was just very unfortunate to be married to a person who would prefer to subject herself to delusions than to accept treatment and become a functioning member of the family.

I didn’t want you to take away the idea that you should give up on your relationship, which is why I bolded non-compliant in my post. I think you have found an incredible guy, and you should do everything in your power to maintain your treatment plans. Not just for you, but for him as well. I just wanted to add a persepective that I know other people have experienced, but may not want to talk about it.