I’m feeling a lot better lately and with the advice of others (including my children) I am going to at least try dating and search out for a couple new friends to enjoy my time with. The question I have is, when and how would I tell the person I would date or new friend(s) that I suffer from sz? The stigma is so bad out there that I want to make it easy to tell them and at the same time not be judged or scared of. Anyone have any tips or experiences they have had that I could use?
I have dealt with this my entire life. The truth is honesty is always the best policy. I always wait a couple weeks or so, and if they don’t want to be my friend after liking the real me and barring me over a shallow stigma, that’s on them. The media created the stigma to blame on events they can’t control to spread fear, that’s not our fault.
The best way to bash through stigma is to show no shame in your illness. Treat it like its a totally normal thing, as though you’re mentioning you have celiac’s or something. I generally tell people after we have been talking for a little bit. Long enough for them to see I’m not a serial killer. Depending on the person, it might take a few hours or a few days. And then I tell a funny offhand story. “Okay, so I have schizophrenia, right? And I frequently hear songs that aren’t actually playing. So basically I have my own theme music!” As I get to know and trust the person more, I slowly let them in on the less user-friendly stories. There is a lighter side to this illness, and it is easier to break the ice with humor.
This is an excellent post with an outstanding idea. Might have to use that “theme music” line myself.
Then I have to answer the inevitable onslaught of questions patiently and cheerfully, so they can see it’s okay to talk about it with me. It shouldn’t be a big terrible secret. It’s just a facet of who I am.
I wish more people adopted this idea. So many people put this disease first, and identify as a person second. This is a powerful little sentence you wrote. It’s just a part of me.
In my experience, people only stigmatize you as much as you stigmatize yourself. They might be afraid of the idea of schizophrenia, but once they’re presented with an actual, functional person living with the condition, they rarely recoil in horror.
My wife and I don’t talk about my Sz much. If I’m having trouble with symptoms, I tell her, but 99% of our talk is about other things. No one likes being around a person who can only ever talk about their health issues.
Pixel.
Same here. Maybe once a week I’ll ask her what her perception of how I’m doing is. She pretty much never brings it up. In all honesty, considering this is a schizophrenia forum, my level of activity here should not be taken as representative of how much I “deal with” schizophrenia. A lot of it has to do with enjoying the community of all these different personalities on here that I’ve come to know and enjoy.
I agree with the idea of letting people get to know you for who you are, and later you can tell someone you’ve built a closer relationship with about sz. I think the criteria of “will my having sz effect this person’s life?” is a good way to look at it. It doesn’t have to be a part of a relationship until it is part of a relationship.