How to handle a boyfriend with paranoid schizophrenia

[crazychick1120]

My boyfriend just told me that he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.I knrw that he had something but i couldn't figure it out. I don't know much about the condition but i have researched and found that anger is a part of it. Now I've been with him over a year and he has always been jealous. I would like to know how likely is it that he'll become abusive? He also doesn't take his meds because he doesn't like how they make him feel, can he lead a functioning life without them? He also wants to know what are the chances that his daughter and our future kids will have it? Should I be concerned, and is there anyway to "handle" (for lack of a better word) him when he gets in his angry moods. And how should i respond when he talks about his delusions. He tells me so i can understand and I feel really bad because all I do is sit there quietly because I don't know what to say and I truthfully don't understand because I don't experience them. I love him and want to stand by his side. So what are any tips you can give me on being with someone with this conditions. Are there things i should avoid talking about? I just wanna be supportive for him.

[Jasonsmomma]

Girls, if your boyfriend has been diagnosed with schizophrenia your children have a 50%chance of developing schizophrenia....it's very sad....the medication helps but there is NO cure....it is a lifelong disease that gets worse over time, meaning it is degenerative...because people suffering from this horrible disease have little to no insight into their condition they rarely are compliant with medications...they don't think they are sick and they don't want help! If you are staying in a relationship to help them you most likely have co-dependency and you need to google it and find out what that is...I have great compassion for those who suffer with this horrible disease....my precious son has this! I live a life of pain and grief....but he is my child and I cannot abandon him...if you have a choice to go, then run away as fast as you can...do not make babies with a mentally ill person!!  Even if they take their medicine it often does very little to help them...theirs is a tortured existence.....God help you run!!!

[dpipkin1968]

also btw, i failed to respond to what you posted.  you spoke of being accused of cheating and other things.  its seeming to me, that there are some very obvious similarities with ppl involved with a paranoid schizophrenic.  the being constantly accused of cheating and lying.  i am an honest person, and havent cheated on him or even thought about it one time.  and if i were a cheater, i would not choose this man to cheat on that is for sure.  with a man like this it seems there is never a right answer, as you are never right or honest in their mind.  my guy would and did turn every word i said against me and somehow made me out to be some type of person that i am not.  to me it was just not logical to think the thoughts he would think about.  there was zero logic in them.  but thats the thing, its not logical, its delusional. i would never question most of the delusional thoughts he would speak of.  just listen.  but then it got to where he would accuse me of sleeping with the nxt door neighbor man and even say he heard my voice outside and saw my car which he did not.  thats pretty scarey to me, and i guess to him as well, not to mention the neighbor guy.  my boyfriend later the following day, got himself all workd up with his theory about my cheating with the guy and went over and theatened to kill the neighbor.  he did not kill him or even touch him only because the cops were called and got there really fast. My bf could take anything i said, any text he saw on my phone and somehow connect them to a delusional theory he had come to make everything fit the particular scenario.  i started finding i had no privacy, and he would get my phone and search my contacts and any and everything on the phone just loooking for anything to prove that im a liar and a cheater and that he was right all along,.  believe me, no matter what your not doing or doing, they can make it seem to fit what they are thinking.  and eventually i would lie about small things, after i saw how he would react to things so irratically.  so i thought it just wasnt worth the fight.  and as fighting goes, there was never a fight with me and him.  it was one sided attacks from him, which is not what he tells others.  I could forgive him but i just cannot forgive and be with him when he really isn't taking responsibility for his horrible actions.  he has explained it like it was just at fight that got out of hand with the two of us and thats just not the truth.  Living with this type of man is verrrry hard because while hes so abusive, i have somehow made a million excuses for his behaviors due to his disease, and noone understands and just thinks i am stupid and must like to be abused.  I do not like to be abused for one second but the truth is, abuse is abuse no matter what.  the schizophrenia may cause him to be an abuser, but in the end, dead is dead.  i can continue to excuse this behavior and stay with him and probably end up dead or i can stay away.  Its a very difficult thing to deal with and noone really seems to understand what ive been through. My life has seriously been affected with this man.  i am a different person than i was before him.  i was a woman with a career and i had a good self esteem and knew i deserved good things.  but i managed to stay with him, out of love and guilt and just thought and hoped things would change. i now dealing with the aftermath.  i have ptsd, i am not normal in many ways, which i felt i was before him.  i dont have a history of abusive relationships.  i had a great upbringing and good parents.  i had a wonderful loving father, and all the relationships i had were with pretty good men.  so its not you sweetie and only god knows the right things you need to do to have as normal of life with him as you can,  but just look out for your baby and yourself no matter what.  cause ultimately thats the only things you really have control over is you. and your precious baby.  please if things seem wrong and going in a really bad direction with him, just leave and always trust your instincts and gut feelings.  i ignored mine and almost died cause i iknew after a few times of his abuse that it would not stop.  i just ignored these feelings.  just don't ignore yours.  you can love a man like this but just always love you more.  thats what im trying to learn to do after him.  

[Blackbeauty3640]

Oh my god this is everything im going threw I cry everyday he told me I have sex with my son friends because they all love me but I been living in the same house for 11 years I watched these kids grow up

[PloddingOnAgain]

Similar scenario. Started off well fell in love. Then found out he was cheating ... I was going to work at night and he was having other guys back. But started accusing me. I got sick of the accusations and said I had met someone just so that we could go back to how we were (even though I never cheated!). We got back together and it got progressively worse. We’ve been split for 4 months he’s accused me of meeting guys in hotels giving him false rotas for work so that I could meet guys. Calls me a liar, a cheat said I’ve made him miserable - called me a slag and a *****. Now says that I planned it all for him to end it so I didn’t have the dirty work. I kept in touch with him and he’s adamant I’m seeing someone even tho I’m not. Told me I’m a narcissist and have an audience who think I’m something I’m not and he’s the only one that knows me - this is all false. I too am now suffering with severe anxiety because of how he was. He took an privacy I had but kept all his own. Had a second phone that I found the SIM card for. Even up until last night when I caught him out on a lie. He tried to twist it back as tho I was in the wrong.... I just got so tired of it all and started to doubt who I was. Even contemplated suicide because he made me feel so worthless and that other people didn’t care about me.  I work with prem babies and he would text and FaceTime me in work and when I couldn’t answer hed say it was because I was in a hotel over the road. The hurt I felt is something out of this world. He never told me he had SZ It was only because we went to the doctors and they had received a letter back and I saw it on the computer.  He then told me it wasn’t confirmed that he had it. Told me I manipulated it all for my benefit. When the truth of it is he manipulated my life. My love hasn’t gone for him. I still love him so much but last night was the final straw for me. Look after yourself petal because they may seem like they care and the person deep inside them probably does. But the other person at the forefront is the one they listen to.  Good luck xx

[dpipkin1968]

omg. it is not just you.  i promise.  i have been in a relationship with my boyfriend for 3 years.  i knew that he had this disease, but i am the type who wants to fix everyone. and in the beginning of our relationship, i felt like it wasnt his fault for being this way, and i felt guilty about leaving him, partially cause he made me feel this way.  to make a verrrry long story short, he began being abusive, almost right away.  i have never been around abuse of any kind and thought it was just isolated events.  it wasn't.  he was screaming, ranting, cussing me, choking me, hitting me, slapping me, beat me with belt, or shoes or anything handy.  He threatened to kill me many times and i was just terrified of him, but loved him and each time i left, he would convince me that he was sorry and he was going to get help.  i just kept going back over and over, and at some point, my family tired of me returning back home, then back to him and them getting their lives uprooted and made chaotic by him coming looking for me.  it was difficult to actually hide from him if i would have even tried. I just trying to do any and everything to make sure i didnt set him off.  i kept a perfect house, just did everything to not "make him mad."  I really honestly believed i had more control over setting him off than what i actually did.  just about every type of abuse is what ive experienced.  My guy is now serving prison time for the last incident of horror i had with him.  it came out of nowhere.  no way to anticipate what would happen.  i simply woke him up before he was ready to be woken. he started yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs that he was tired of telling me the same thing over and over and me not listening.  So i walked into the other room to get out of his "line of fire" and he was on me very quickly, slamming my head into a wall, screaming i was gonnna learn to listen and he was going to teach me tonight.  i then endured a 4 hour ordeal of being beat, choked, alot of horrible torture, and tortured additionally by him telling me that i would not be leaving alive and that if he was going to prison, he may as well kill me, cause he is going anyways.  i eventually felt there was zero hope for me and began to pray quietly and just pray that he would not torture me and it could just end already.  i just couldnt stand the fear of knowing i was going to die.  dying would be better.  eventually after 4 hours or so, he fell asleep as he often would do after raging and abusing me.  i tried to convince him that i would not leave or go to the police and against his better judgement, he passed out, and even went to work the next morning, i immediately had my sister come rescue me, yet again, and went immediately to the police station where i filed charges and pics were taken of the countless bruises and results of many hours of torture and then the not knowing if or when i would die.  the pictures did nothing to capture the intense fear i had endured and the feelings i was feeling.  I have just recently broke up with this man, while he is in prison.  i know deep in my heart, that i will end up dead if i dont walk away.  so currently thats where i am at.  part of me feels sorry for him, but scared of him but loving him.  its very hard to deal with so many emotions.  i wonder if him being incarcerated during the break up will give him time to not want to look for me when hes released or will give him more time to think about it.  IDK.  i just dont know what to think because he had shown nothing but completely irratic behavior since we have been together.he is not on medication for this and believes that he  can fight this without meds.  He even acts proud of not having to take meds.  like he is stronger than this disease but i know he is not.  i feel that with what hes done to me physically, if he can't control it and it just happened, then why would he be able to control it in the future and if he could control it and just chose not to excercize an ounce of self control, then he meant it and what would keep him from an attack in the future.  i see no other way but to walk away.  i love him, but i am attempting to love myself enough to choose my life over his feelings.  i know this was a rather lllloooonnnng response to your post and i didn't even scrape the surface on the actual abuse and torture i endured at his hands.  not to mention the humilation i felt.  i am sorry for being long winded but i am trying to deal with this and its very hard.  idk if this helped you or not.  i know there are different scenarios with ppl with this disease.  i happened to end up with the man that was an extreme version.  very unpredictable and extremely violent and dangerous.  i understand that this is a disease that with treatment can be controlled and these ppl can lead a productive, full happy life.  i just haven't had this experience unfortunately.  i have just lived in fear, and teeter tottered back n forth with the fear and my guilt. hope this shed some light on how things may turn out.  i hope not. every situation is different. and one thing i do know for sure is love is not the cure.  and nothing you do will change it.  its not you its the schizophrenia.  i felt i had some control over it.  i did not.  but the positive thing is i am alive so i didn't end up one of the smaller statistics of what can happen with a violent schizophrenic.  good luck.

[Blackbeauty3640]

Wow these comments are so helpful because my heart hurt and I don't no why he doing this to us he is pure evil no heart or emotion

[helpneeded1979]

Hi, I've been with my boyfriend for 15yrs.  Things are getting progressively worse.  in the beginning he was normal.  over the past few years hes becoming delusional.  I asked a psychiatrist and he said it sounds like he suffers from paranoid delusional disorder.  My boyfriend thinks people are following him, that there are hidden cameras in our apartment.  That I'm poisoning him and cheating him.  If I move my foot the wrong way and he hears a noise in the apartment he thinks I'm sleeping with our neighbor.  If I sniffle during a song he thinks I'm hinting that I'm cheating.  He feels he's normal so he wont get help.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I love him very much and don't want to leave him.  He needs help

[CharityGT]

Going through the same exact thing...he thinks I'm sleeping with his mom his sister and his dad....whenever I speak go someone he thinks I'm speaking I'm code...he always thinks people are following him or he's being watched . He feels like the whole world is laughing at him or he feels like everything he sees some how applies to him

[Eva123456]

To helpneeded1979, i too am in the exact same boat as you, i feel your situation is a mirror image of mine almost. My partner and i have been together for 11yrs and i am now 29yrs old. It all started off Mildly, he would accuse me of cheating and if i didnt do things for him to prove my loyalty he would still think im cheating so i do what he asks of me and then 1 day later were back to square one. Then gradually it got worse, he would be depressed and not leave the house for yrs. Then we got our own place and things were good in the beginning but over time he began to use methamphetamines and he thats when it was all about to start. He was paranoid thinking ppl are after him over one little incident and to this day 5yrs later he still believes ppl r after him and it just gets worse. He blames where we lived, so we moved and he blames where we live again. Then he blames me for not buying protection. Then he has had many psychotic and drug induced episodes and still denies that no one is after him. All it took was one stupid incident 5yrs ago to set the bar and now theres no convinvcing him otherwise, he is so set in his ways that ppl r after him to kill him and its sad cause its all in his head. This yr makes 12yrs and im beginning to realise i cannot tolerate the abuse anymore, on top of it i suppport his habit and if i dont he abuses me at work. I know what i have to do but my hearts too big to let him go, if i let him go he will be homeless, im all he has. So i share my story with u to let u know ur not alone and the only way out is to get out of the toxic relationships were in and its up to us to make the move. I know we will grieve and mourn the loss of our true first loves but i hope one day we grow the courage and strength to do whats best for us and look back and say what an experience that made us the strongest ppl we are today.

[BabyMama2337]

I have been with my fiance for almost a year and i am 5 months pregnant with his child. He is paranoid schizophrenia bi polar and sometimes it gets a lil hard to deal with but i love him with all my heart and just try to see it through. The hardest part of our relationship is there is no 50 50 in it everything always has to go his way or we are yelling at each other all day long. I am always having to think about everything i do and whether it will make him mad or not because i am sooo tired of arguing. The worst part though is sometimes we argue over something soo stupid and i seriously believe that in his mind he told me something but never said it out loud and then he is yelling and getting mad at me because i didn't do what he wanted me to and i tell him he never told me to or asked me to do whatever is he wanted me to do and he will call me a liar and i know im not going crazy my memory is not that bad so i seriously believe his mind is playing tricks and causing us to argue. he refuses to take meds or anything he says he has too much pride for that. i truely love this man with all my heart but sometimes it is just too much to deal with and i just want to snap on him and i know i shouldn't. i try to point these things out to him but he just ignores it and counteracts with stuff to blame on me. every time i try to talk to him or point out things it always turns around onto me and turns into being my fault when i know i haven't even done anything wrong. Does anyone else have this problem with there boyfriend or fiance or husband or is it just me...?

[Dontbmadbaby]

Mine too... Kinda makes u question yourself sometimes cuz the repititous insanity

[drifter0213]

what is wrong with your boyfriend is probably psychosis does he see a doctor?