Moving this to a new thread to stop taking the old one off topic.
All I can say to this is I’m nothing special. There are others here who are smarter than me, better looking than me, healthier than me, etc. The only advantage I have that I’m aware of is that I’m absolutely relentless at achieving a goal when I’ve decided on it. I’m basically stubborn as a mule.
The fact is that if I can pull off the level of recovery I have, plenty of others here should be able to as well. The biggest reason that so many don’t – and this is my opinion – is that they’ve convinced themselves they can’t. So they give up before they even try. Such a waste of potential.
Trying to achieve a life similar to yours @anon82948922 is very difficult especially when a schizophrenic man fears disclosure of their mental illness to their employer, a potential girlfriend, to friends and to family.
I am not there yet or if I will ever get there to where you @anon82948922 have the confidence of your wife, daughter, employer and friends.
I’m a positive person. Even at worst I see positives. Yeah it’s held me back in relationships where I wasted time on people who didn’t deserve it but it paid back when it worked.
It’s like a glass half full or a glass half empty. They are the same glass but I’m glad there’s a drink in it…
I’ve always been very blunt with employers. Yes, I have this health condition, no, it won’t pose a problem for you because I manage it well enough. It’s a case of, “you wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t told you, but I’m not the type of person who will deceive you and I hope for the same treatment in return.” Employers generally like it when you’re square with them and don’t play games.
With my wife, it was by the third week where I said, “I really like you and want to keep dating, but you need to know about these skeletons in my closet right now. Because I think in another month it will hurt too much to lose you.” And I spilled the beans. 23 years later and she’s still mine.
The nice thing about being honest is that it never gets me in trouble.
@anon82948922 has a good point. We all have baggage. For me that is sz. I got married after getting on meds later in life and it worked for a while. My wife had two previous relationships and a daughter…Those are big things to some people. For me it worked well and I still talk to them both. It’s the same as you age…we all have baggage. For me it’s sz.
Oh, my ex from when I drank was something else. She actually tracked me down and tried to latch onto me again after I got married. She’s a big part of the reason I rarely use my legal name on social media now.
Yeah, I have no experience with being married or being divorced so I don’t know. But the majority of schizophrenic guys here on the forum are similar to me where we haven’t even gotten close to getting married. Most of us are all single since I remember there was a poll many months back that the results of us guys are mostly on this forum.
Yes @yinyang. Up to getting on meds and diagnosed I had some serious issues with latent paranoia. I didn’t get married till I was medicated. I actually can have relationships now because I am not thinking weird thoughts and living inside my head.
I got married after diagnosis and lived overseas for 2 years. Everyone can find their circumstance change.
I should be so lucky. My ex and I were both alcoholics and addicts and had a very unhealthy relationship where we treated each other like complete garbage. She (ex) found me on Facebook after I had been clean and sober for some time and learned from my profile that I had gone to school and was now a network engineer for a Fortune 500. To her that meant I could resume paying her partying bills and she tried to move back in. She also went after my wife and tried to drive a wedge between her and I by sharing old stories. It’s hard to describe just what an uncomfortable mess that was. Luckily my wife already knew where I had been and nothing was a surprise. Honesty, right???
It eventually worked out, but I no longer use the name people are familiar with on Facebook or elsewhere.
Yes, I have been there where I was living inside my brain and having weird thoughts. Circumstances can change for a person depending on the odds of a possible outcome. Again, probability & statistics will prove an outcome of not just yourself but a group of people similar to yourself which is schizophrenic men. You got married as a guy schizophrenic which is a rarity out of the rest of us schizophrenic men.
I am on the left proportion of the bell shaped curve whereas you @rogueone are on the right side.
Wow, quite a good summary of your love life. Glad that your (ex) did not ruin the relationship with your wife. Otherwise, you would not have had your daughter. Anyhow, applaud yourself of what you currently have since many of us guys here strive to be similar to be in your situation.
My past acquaintances with women were not as long or as detailed as yours but I was trying and failed.
