My girlfriend has schizophrenia, and she’s an Angel. I’ve never met a more selfless person.
Do you know that song “Butterfly Kisses”? There’s a line in that song that I say to myself everyday: “For all that I’ve done wrong I must have done something right.”
Yes, many. I had a member-position doing clerical work for the Mental Health Association in Los Angeles County. I was allowed to converse with regular members and attend groups and whatnot.
Bruce was homeless and called me his daughter - I loved that guy; he was kind and gentle and very intelligent. He was also addicted to what I assume was cocaine and threw a cup of coffee at me the day he was taken to the hospital to get stabilized. It was weird; the MHA folks stalked him around town until they cornered him at an AA meeting and threw him in the van. I never saw him again.
Jesse was in a group home and she professed to being in love with me. Her parents stayed away though she was only around 19-20. She spent her days busy doing activities at MHA with the young people’s group. Jessica had a chance; she was “slow” but not at all violent or socially inappropriate. Though her situation with her parents and her condition caused her severe depression and she was prone to cutting.
Kendal was a local. The poor ■■■■■■■ had no idea where he had moved – this place frowns severely on diversity. I can make it because I’m just quiet and not inappropriate. His out-of-control mental illness frightened people to the point that they became aggressive against him over and over and then he’d get violent, fire his caretaker, get thrown in jail and then get out so the whole thing would start over. He eventually went way for sexual assault and who knows if it really happened. I tried helping him but his drug problem was not to be reasoned through. He needed time to clean up. The community didn’t want him; he was too loud and too out of control since he drank too much, overdid it on energy drinks and used drugs. His mental illness made him an even larger threat and no one knew how to handle him.
Lyman was my favorite. He was in his early twenties and shared a home with several others. He didn’t work or drive but he was a singer in a popular local band. I’d say it was the most popular local band in the area at the time. I watched in wonder: how the hell did he do that? I could never pull that off. He did it sober, too.
James was a homosexual male hairdresser. He worked from his apartment off and on and sold brightly painted statues of the virgin Mary to anyone who would buy them. He painted aliens that came from his hallucinations and often went to the flea market to sell everything from Smurf toys to old tee shirts. He employed prostitutes that took pills for payment and then he ran out of pills and went into crisis. This became habitual.
There have been a lot more but I knew these people fairly well.
my half-brother has sz. mom says he got it from street drugs.
I also knew a guy who’s been to the psych ward many times, but not sure if he had sz.
but if I met anyone in real-life, I wouldn’t tell them about my sz. I don’t go outside much.
Yes, outside of a hospital I once met a cool dude who also had some form of paranoid sz. At the time I was very delusional and on a lot of meds. He was Catholic, if I recall correctly, and he said he recommended joining the Orthodox church.
He was a really cool dude. Very intelligent but also had some scary delusions.
He said I had “a very brilliant mind.” Probably one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.
Thank you for reading and take care. 
Yes plenty. At a support group on Meetup (now defunct but several of us stay in touch) and also through my local Recovery College I made a friend who is remarkably similar to me.
Their stories are similar too - at least 2 of us pour coffee straight from the jar to the cup without a spoon (which drives others mad apparently). We are all middle-aged women who have struggled with drink and recreational drugs in our teens and 20s. And one lady is from my home town too with a dysfunctional family.
I never had friends growing up. Only one at a time really. But meeting people who have similar experiences has really boosted my confidence in real life and also made me feel less alone in my journey and struggles… friends like this aren’t for everyone but I cherish these friendships very much.
Hope that helps @zeno
Only in inpatient and I couldn’t hold a conversation firstly because I am a social idiot but also because couldn’t keep track of the topic of conversation. I would like to meet someone with around the same level of function as me.
When my sister was a young woman, she dated a paranoid sz man and was living with him for a short while. He was beating her until she took a metal baseball bat to his head. (My sister was as crazy as he was). He ended up in the hospital. This young man finally committed suicide by jumping down a man hole. He came from a family that had ten sz brothers.
You are a crack up @77nick77.
my closest friend was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she was a teen. her hallucinations are only impairing when shes really stressed, maybe shes just schizotypal or something cause she goes through day to day without medicine and shes not employed or anything but the fact that shes not in complete psychosis without meds makes me think its a personality disorder instead idk
the mother of the mother of my nephew (i never know what to call her cause she and my brother were never married) developed schizophrenia (a bad case) after she had a hysterectomy. its really sad to see how bad off she is now
I’ve met some people through support groups.
The people I’ve met with sz where it wasn’t through support groups seems worse off than me.
And like the kind of people who think weed is better than medicines, and don’t understand why their symptoms are so wonky.
I have one sz friend who doesn’t smoke weed. No meds seem to work on him, and he only gets a few hours of sleep a night if he sleeps at all. Claims all the coffee he keeps drinking has nothing to do with it.
Fixates on the negatives and it seems to fill his head.
I checked out the website. There are no meetings within ten miles of me. I don’t own or drive a car so, I can’t attend.
Very fascinating character studies all!
wow what a story…
So no one is going to mention that the reply dates go from March 2017 to January. 2015 and then back to now? 
I haven’t met any that told me they were, but most skateboarders have something strange in them you won’t find in most normies. To get hurt everyday, break bones and fall over and over again just to land a single trick takes a special kind of human so I’m sure many of my friends growing up had issues too they just had a good outlet.
I met a guy in the board & care home who had schizophrenia and we became friends. We used to go to AA, CA, and NA meetings together 5 or 6 nights week. He was cool and a nice guy. When he first started coming to meetings with me he never said he was an alcoholic or an addict; the only reason he went is because he liked hearing the stories from members.
After a year he started claiming he was an addict but never told me what he was addicted too and I figured he made it up. And later he stated claiming he was an alcoholic-addict. I thought it was funny but in the 7 years we were friends he told me only one story about his alcohol and drug use.
I used to needle him sometimes and I told him he was not an addict or alcoholic and he never backed up his claim. I shouldn’t be too hard on him, he was a good friend and we had many good times. I was 32 and he was 22 which was the biggest age difference of any friend I’ve ever had. He was funny and we ended up being friends for seven years. He told me several times that I really helped him but I don’t know how.
I met a city worker one time, he was mowing the pawn at a park and took a break, i was working next door, we got chatting and he said he had sz, we chatted for awhile , then went back to work. He said he took his meds and was able to keep his job
They ex was sz im glad we done. She didn’t even use drugs or drink and she was a bitch she was on meds. All she did was use me for errands and she still owes me 120$ we walked past eachother about a little over a week ago didn’t even act like we knew each other. Oh well she’s a really miserable person. Don’t like her one bit. My best friend has sza and my old friend who died 2 years ago was paranoid schizophrenic. I know about 5 people with sz sza.
My best friend has SZ most likely but he hasn’t gone to see a doctor and he’s had a few breakdowns over the years. But he seems to be doing alright. He got one meds once last year but never followed up. It was just .25mg of Resperidone he got for like idk what? A months worth? But yeah
I met a girl at a job I had a while ago that I’m not sure what she was diagnosed with. But at work she was always crying and always hearing voices. I told her about myself too. I’m not sure what happened to her at that job, cause I was let go for not making any sales. I didn’t like that job and I’m glad I found something better.