Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

As someone who is currently dating someone with history of psychosis, I have vested interest.

90% of the time she is truly the most amazing, compassionate, full of life and thoughtful person one can ever meet. Then there are times when it’s truly awful. She can barely sleep at all, leaves house without telling anyone seemingly thinking the presence of third person around. And she strongly feels others around are judging her hard, giving non verbal communication. It’s truly awful.

I didn’t know to the full extent her symptoms when we started dating. But one thing that was clear was she could barely sleep at night. Or sleep too long. There was no “normal sleep cycle”.

Over the time, some triggers are noticeable. Places with crowds, bright lighting, or sometimes stress at work. Aripaprazole so far seems to be holding up, no one knows for how long. I hear meds become resistant at some point. I don’t know what future holds. Kids are probably not an option. Although she very much wants it.

She will break down, then she'll get strong meds and she'll change unrecognizably. Think twice before making a long relationship with this person. You'll get a lot of stress and eventually she'll change drastically.

Schizophrenia has a strong genetic component, so think twice about making a children as well.

> She will break down, then she'll get strong meds and she'll change unrecognizably. Think twice before making a long relationship with this person.

Isn't this risk mitigated if the respective person is (also) an anti-psychiatry activist? ;-)

Doctors prescribe meds for a reason. Schizophrenia is not a funny thing. Person with voices in the head, can hurt or kill, themselves or someone. It's a choice between two evils. My spouse has these issues, and it was much worse for me, when she resisted to take a treatment. And treatment eventually changed her, so it's very terrible thing that I wouldn't recommend someone to experience voluntarily.