I’m afraid to get too attached at this point, because idk how she will react when I tell her. She likes me quite a bit, she might already love me, so maybe she would stay with me. I need to tell her, just nervous so I’m venting about it here.
I would approach this by telling her your symptoms first then the diagnosis later. It’s completely private really so you could even say you have a personal diagnosis that you wish to keep private if she doesn’t mind
If she truly cares for you and likes you a lot and maybe even loves you, she will be understanding of your dx. I have a feeling she will be very understanding of it.
I feel for you, @freakonaleash . I consider you a friend and I care about you.
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Man…I don’t know
I would spend some time with her, so she can see that I’m fine and not dangerous, and afterwards I would reveal the sz bomb
It’s a tough one. I believe in you. I think you’ll be able to navigate it.
Maybe reveal it in parts so you can get a sense of what she’s going to do in response
Like maybe just talk about your first experience or onset without talking about DX
Yea, that’s a tough one for sure @freakonaleash.
Maybe you can preface it by saying you’ve had some mental health challenges throughout your life and you’ve come out on the other side stronger because of them.
Your girlfriend sees you working hard, living your life, going to concerts, and most importantly: being a good guy to her. All those points are super important and help paint a picture of you that is worth way more than some diagnosis.
Wishing you the best ![]()
That’s a tough one, dude @freakonaleash I’m not very good with stuff like this lol but I think you’ve received some good advice in this thread
If you decide to tell her, I think she will be accepting. She already sees you’re a good dude to her
What has worked best for me is when I slowly ramped up to my official diagnoses.
“I have some mental health challenges.”
To:
“I have a condition that makes me experience the world a little different.”
To:
“I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, and it’s managed well.”
My advice is to be calm and open to answering questions about it. The bigger deal we make the reveal the bigger deal people we’re telling make out of it.
An intense reveal leads to an intense reaction, and in my experience saying it like you’d say it’s a sunny day out has given me better reactions.
I dont have any advice, just wanted to wish you good luck.
Maybe you could just tell her you have mental health issues first without detailing and when you feel ready try to educate her about schizophrenia/schizoaffective(I don’t know which one you have) when you tell her your diagnosis
I hope everything goes Ok for you
Keep us updated
Just say that you had ptsd and some psychotic depression when you were younger … and that they gave you meds to make sure it will happen again …
Then tell you were abused … (sorry I’m mention that)
Wait until marriage
This one is hard one for sure. I would gradually and slowly tell her. Maybe tell her that you are completely normal but medicated because you’ve had trauma.
She knows I see a psychiatrist, let that one slip recently, and she knows about the anxiety and depression, doesn’t know about the psychosis and bipolar cycling. She has seen my shoulder tattoos, though.
Over my left shoulder blade I have the Greek letter psi, for psychosis.
Over the right one I have comedy and tragedy masks. Based on the masks she probably has the bipolar stuff figured out. She asked me once, weeks ago, what that tattoo is about, and I just told her it’s personal and I’d have to know her better to tell her.
I doubt she would suspect I live with chronic psychosis to an extent. I figure I’d emphasize that my last severe psychotic break was in 2008, been a very long time since I was so terribly bad off.
Its a tough one to call @freakonaleash but ultimately I believe that people will stand by you if they like you or love you enough. Its a risk you must contemplate.
Just spend some month where you and you’re girlfriend get closer. And later you just tell her a little bit about you’re mental struggles caused by your condition. I’m sure she’ll not drop you then.