Home→Forums→Relationships→My codependency with schizophrenic ex-boyfriend
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February 9, 2017 at 9:23 am #127111CrystalParticipant
Sorry in advance for long post! I don’t even know where to start. For the last 8 months I was in a serious relationship with a paranoid delusional schizophrenic. I have serious codependency problems that stem from my father’s suicide when I was 16 and although I thought I had worked through them, the fact that I dove into this relationship headfirst tells me otherwise. He is so much like my father and I know intellectually I am trying to save him when I could not save my father and needing my boyfriend to not abandon me the way my dad did. I put my ex on a pedestal and worshipped him as my savior (not the first time to do this in a relationship).
I UNDERSTAND everything in my head but what I’ve been put through is more than I can handle emotionally and I think I am now having PTSD and am seriously depressed. Been suicidal for the last couple months since he “broke up” with me 2 days before Christmas. After he told me we couldn’t be together romantically anymore because we are just not quite at the same vibration, we proceeded to spend the next week and a half together because he felt it would be a nicer way to move forward than to just break it off cleanly. He told me that he will always love me and I am the best woman he has ever known. We are soul family and he will do anything for me. He is forever grateful for everything I have done for him and we both helped each other grow and learn deep lessons. He said I am beautiful and perfect and that I need to own my power. These things are all true and wise and what made me trust in him completely, even when he said “I’m not leaving you”. But guess what? He did.
I have always carried shame and unworthiness like a disease and looked to everyone else to fill up the void and tell me who I am. And every one of them has left me. I feel so deeply flawed and can’t even connect to God anymore. Can’t meditate – can’t use any of the spiritual tools that I deeply believed in a few months ago, and it’s mostly because now all that reminds me of him. He is a deeply spiritual person but as I sad – he is sick. Schizophrenia is the scariest thing I have ever seen. He doesn’t believe he has it. He truly believes the voices in his head and what they tell him to do and thinks this has led him to awakening and enlightenment – so much that he’s the only one who can really understand what’s going on at that level (his words). I see the narcissistic qualities in him. I see the many, many ways in which his thinking is flawed (no doubt spurred by his condition) but I bought all of it. The CIA chasing us, the tin foil hats (not kidding), the time jumping, the energy scrambling so “they” can’t pinpoint us – all of it. And I really started to believe everything he said so much that I still cannot decide what’s “real” and what’s not. Who’s to say? And all the while I kept / keep giving him my body and sobbing and telling him how much I will miss him. He says it’s hard for him too. We have both shed a lot of tears.
I do know that this relationship would kill me in the end so I should be grateful it’s over. But the thought of not having that “excitement” in my life and not being able to talk to him anymore has literally made me throw up a few times. I get so anxious to the point of dizziness yet can’t seem to make myself move to do dishes, etc. I can barely get to work and skate by. I’m seeing a new therapist who wants me on Prozac and an anti-depressant. I tried one but the energy of it all felt so wrong I just couldn’t do it. I have no urge to numb out. I need to get through this without being clouded.
I’m so lost and have no idea how to move forward. I want to learn to love myself and have read everything and talked until I’m blue in the face, but I don’t seem to be able to digest any of it. I can’t see what’s in the future even a minute beyond right now. It looks like a big blank. Thanks for listening. There are a million more things I want to say but I’m getting lengthy…
February 9, 2017 at 9:51 am #127112AnonymousGuestDear Crystal:
I think that you would have done anything and everything possible for you, and that you would have pushed yourself beyond the possible, to prevent your father from committing suicide. I think that his suicide meant not only the end for him, but for you. I think you still fear the same, your own ending, and that is the “big blank” you referred to in “It looks like a big blank.”
Truth is, it only feels this way, like the end. For him it was, for your father. But it was not then, and it is not now, your end. It only FEELS this way.
Truth also is that it feels as badly as if it was true. Please, say that to yourself: It only feels this way. This feeling will not kill me. I survived this feeling for years and I will continue to survive it for as long as it takes.
Please do post more-
anita
February 9, 2017 at 11:09 am #127116CrystalParticipantThank you, Anita. I appreciate that and do realize it’s only feelings. They won’t kill me but it certainly feels that way. My therapist tells me to sit with the feelings but at this point I’m not even sure what I feel. I think anger is part of it but I don’t feel I deserve to be angry because of his illness – how can you be mad at a sick person? So many things I’ve been through with him. Driving down the highway at 2am doing 110mph with the lights off and throwing salt out the windows because it’s protective. Ripping all the UPC labels off everything in the house because they can track us. Taking a shower in cold dirty standing water then wearing his clothes – don’t even remember why at this point. Him backing me into a corner and poking me because negative energy was coming through me and I had to release the demons and get my “people” (apparently the Muslims) in check so they can understand the deeper meaning of love. Creating these strange electrical devices and moving them around to scramble the energy. And the hardest, not mentioning details about anything – but I never got the rules quite right about what I could and couldn’t say or ask so most of the time I was just quiet. He is so full of rage and fear himself and wants revenge on those he feels abused him, but he says he will take them down with love. I really don’t even know what that means, but in his mind it’s going deeper and deeper to be at the level of awakening that no one else can achieve and fight some war involving aliens and technology that we’re bring controlled by. Anyway – I’ve been sufficiently brainwashed to the point that I have no idea who I am anymore. I BECAME him and now I’m lost and trying to figure out how to move on in my life with no direction. Again, thanks for listening.
February 9, 2017 at 11:20 am #127118AnonymousGuestDear Crystal:
I think you have the right to be angry with him even though he is mentally ill because really, no one is that well, mentally and so, no one has the right to be angry with anyone…? We get angry naturally when someone hurts us- it is an automatic response to being hurt, regardless of anything else. When you feel anger at him, let it be.
Becoming him in those… exciting ways, maybe, was a relief from being you, wasn’t it? Like taking a ride in some other life and getting a break from your own?
anita
March 24, 2018 at 9:19 pm #199287ZoeParticipantHi Crystal,
I know you posted this a while ago now but I just stumbled across this when Googling something about schizophrenia as I too am left still in complete heartbreak about losing a man from my life who also has schizophrenia. Although he is also a functioning alcoholic alongside this. Reading your experience was like speaking from my own heart and I have to admit I struggled not to cry as I was reading. So many triggers 2 months on and so many unanswered questions. Id really love to speak to you if youre still on this site. I talk to no one about it as nobody understands so would love to share some insights and maybe it’d help us both.Thanks
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