“I have schizophrenia.”

Hmmmm. This is a really tough blog post for me to write. It’s taken me a while too. I keep writing things and then deleting them, and the same can be said for my tweets. I just don’t know how to broach it, how to talk about it, how to ask questions … Except now I think I need to because it seems Mr. Schizophrenia isn’t going anywhere. And I’ve started to quite like him.

The usual rules apply – tall, dark, mysterious, not conventionally attractive, covered in tattoos … the usual things I’d find hot in a man. He’s hairy, really hairy, man-hairy … everywhere except his head. Not a look I’d normally go for but I wouldn’t be writing about him if I didn’t think he had potential, right? Nor would I have been talking to him for as long as I have. Plus he has KILLER shoulders. Possibly the best shoulders I’ve ever seen on a real live man. I would very much like to get my hands on those shoulders.

In some ways, he’s every inch the kind of guy I’d date. In other ways though, he’s really not. He looks like a thug. I actually found him very intimidating when we first started talking, but I seem to have him wrapped around my little finger already. Very Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) calming down Bruce Banner / Hulk in The Avengers – esque? I think that’s it. He says I’m already having a calming effect on him, on that “bad” side of him.

He told me about his condition early on, day two of talking I think? It didn’t sink in until day three or four. It wasn’t until a few days after that I started to ask questions and do some research, and that’s when I started talking myself out of it. Him. The date. Our first date.

What do I know about schizophrenia? Well, it doesn’t sound great. As soon as I started reading Google’s offerings, I decided to stop. If I continued to read, if anyone ever continued to read that stuff, no one with schizophrenia would ever date ever again. They’d certainly never get laid. That hardly seems fair. Plus he’s really nice. If he were … what’s the term here – ‘non-mentally challenged’ (?), I’d be besotted by now.

I stopped reading and text him instead – “Can I call you?” It was our first ever phone call, and as much as I didn’t want to bring up the subject of his mental health so soon, it was the only thing on my mind so I figured I’d get it out the way.

“Listen, I don’t want this all to be about your condition (or whatever you want to call it), but it’s important and I want to get it out the way. I’ve Googled it, and Google makes it sound really scary, so why don’t you tell me what schizophrenia is for you and we’ll figure shit out from there … ?”

It turns out the direct approach pays off. He laughed, said I could call it his “crazy” if I wanted to, and told me all about it. His eyes will flick from normal Mr. Schizophrenia eyes to really dark, evil eyes apparently, and that’s when the dark side of him comes out. He knows when he’s being the dark version although he can’t predict when it’s going to come out, and sometimes he can stop himself saying and doing nasty or stupid things, and sometimes he can’t. He’s had the condition for a long time, and he’s learned a lot of strategies to help him through it, plus there are people who can ‘bring him around’. He thinks I might be one of them. I make him smile when he feels the heat rising, and then it just goes.

In the few weeks that we’ve been talking, I *think* he’s had two episodes. The first time he just went silent. No more texts, no more calls, nothing. The second time he told me “I think I need to go. Speak to you later.” The next morning came around, I got the usual “Good morning beautiful! x” message, and life went on.

I’ll be honest, and I know it’s very early days, it doesn’t sound anywhere near as terrifying as Google led me to believe.

And now I’ll swiftly slap myself around the face. I’m well aware we’ve not even broached the tip of the iceberg right now, but don’t I need to give this guy a chance? He’s been so honest and open with me, and I’ve asked questions as and when I’ve had them. He hasn’t made me feel bad for asking the stupid ones either. In fact, he just laughs and tells me I’m cute. And we can talk, really talk. We’ve been talking non-stop for a while. I don’t want to stop talking to him. Do I need to? Can I work with this? Can I … really?

All I can say with any certainty right now is that Mr. Schizophrenia has ALL of my attention, and that’s what I’m gonna go with until I’m given a reason to do and feel otherwise.

And our first date is tomorrow.