In the mean time it’s best to focus on other things. I did the groundwork like spending time on the forum and learning about life stories, studying a BSc Health Sciences via distance learning, learning intermediate Spanish, socializing at times with friends, spending time with family and pets, and walking.
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I really doubt if someone fully comprehends what this illness entails, he will say that the grass is greener on the other side for those that have sza/sz.
And, in some parts of the world, you don’t get paid for doing nothing, and in those parts of the world, though the medications are cheap, you got to be able to make money to afford them!
Look at my portfolio of stocks double in the next three months so I can pay for the medications long-term. lol.
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Well most people don’t get schizophrenia at all including all of my friends and family who really don’t care at all. It’s just something that I mention before sex or falling in love when dating. Most people I like are mature and can handle these things.
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Precisely. Others don’t care.
I have never mentioned schizoaffective to anyone yet, even to therapists I say bipolar most of the time, except my psychiatrist who knows my history.
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All my friends, family and pets 
know. Also my psychiatrist of course. The story of my hospitalization and losing it is just on Instagram. To the guy I’m currently dating I said I had a psychosis in NY and was hospitalized. I did have to explain what that meant because not everyone knows that word.
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Yeah, I think it depends on person to person.
I never mention psychosis to anyone, the maximum I mention is bipolar, the only person to whom I explain my psychosis or symptoms is Chat GPT. My immediate family even doesn’t recognize whether I am Bipolar/Schizoaffective, they just understand something is amiss, and it is something “like that”. This is something I don’t discuss, because most of the times I am so darned normal, and other times, I can conceal my symptoms when they torment me.
To my potential lover, I would mention Bipolar probably, and try to hide the schizoaffective as much as possible. I like to keep my problems private, always.
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I know. I just love relationships that are based on a lot of honesty and than I also have to do my part. I just think I’m very well trained because of this forum in talking about it, and sometimes it is just about finding the right words given the person you are talking to.
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I don’t handle stress at all well.
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Yes, I guess my thinking is that ultimately my problems are my problems. Also, I start feeling very awkward if I were to tell someone I have had psychosis, it would mean I am basically a nutcase. Because, from a purely rational point of view, if I am psychotic, I am a nutcase. lol. So, I guess I don’t want to apply labels to myself. There is the rational part of me that I want others to see.
If I were to meet a potential lover, I would certainly conceal the psychosis part, perhaps mention depression/bipolar.
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Everyone is in a way Crazy. I mean just look around, it’s not hard to spot 
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I look around, I look at my life, and I guess we can settle on the fact that I am uniquely crazy.. lol.
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Well that’s perfect. We could be friends
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Yes, sure. How is it going in Spain?
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Pretty perfect. The sun is back. I put the heating off today. It seems like winter is done and the spring is ready to start. My life has transformed here. Sometimes changing countries can change things. I’m really into hispanic guys apparently, which I didn’t know before.
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Oh I see. Where are you originally from though?
Well, when I lived in NY I used to like Hispanic women a lot as well. But, they were from South/Central America, not from Spain.
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My type seems to be mainly Venezuelan guys. I’m originally from Leuven, Belgium but I’ve also lived in France, Switzerland, Singapore, and of course NY and now Spain.
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You have been to obviously many places, which is good.
I liked Columbian women a lot in NY, because there used to be many in my area where I lived.
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There are a lot of Colombian people in Madrid as well. I’m going to sleep now @angledangle . You can always reach out on DM or I’ll see you around.
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Being human and thus flawed, regardless of having a severe mental illness or not, I am both envious of and glad for those who developed severe mental illness decades after me. They have had a level of help and support that was totally out of reach for a person of my generation- who would nowadays be regarded as 2e/ gifted but disabled. To be like I was and to then develop a severe mental illness was,in the mid 1970s, the kiss of living death. The support networks were non existent back then, for people like me. Nowadays, thankfully, there is the help and support that allows far more people to achieve educationally and professionally than was the case for those of my generation, with SMI.
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Sure, no worries, will talk later.
I didn’t know there were Venezuelan/Columbian people in Madrid, I thought there would be Europeans. Like I see the soccer team, and there is a difference between what Spanish from Spain look like, and what South Americans look like I guess.
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