is this schizophrenia?

i wouldn't ordinarily post on this forum on account of the last time i did i ran into a lot of problems in relation to my views on medication. but i really feel that i need some help with an issue that has caused me much heartache.

about 5 years ago i met a woman, nearly 9 years younger than myself, and we struck up something of a romantic relationship. however, she went missing and i eventually found her in a psychiatric hospital. our relationship is now completely over, however, i still feel somewhat uncertain as to what was wrong with her. i'm almost certain she had schizophrenia but i was never able to confirm this.

most of the problems in our relationship stemmed from what i felt was her distrust of me and her unfounded allegations against me. one of the earliest such allegations was that i had been having people follow her. at the time nearly caused us to split up. i was deeply hurt that she could think such an awful thing of me. i told her so but she never apologised. according to her she was entitled to her opinion, no matter how much it offended me.

the issue that finally ended our relationship, though by then it was really nothing more than a friendship and really only on my behalf because i felt that i needed to help her if i could, was her allegation that i was possessing her body and making her do things that she didn't want to. she seemed to me to reserve such allegations for people that she really hated, as i'd heard them before in relation to hospital staff that she claimed had abused her during her various stays in hospital on sections. i realised then that the situation had really become utterly hopeless.

i got the impression that during such possessions she would destroy her personal belongings and blame it on the person that she claimed was possessing her. she claimed i had made her break glasses, bleach clothes and even, if i recall correctly, stab herself in the leg with a knife.

in addition, she claimed to be psychic. she had visions of people. she heard voices, claiming that she was guided by various archangels and was being protected by her deceased father.

she seemed to believe that there was some sort of conspiracy against her and that the medical profession and even certain celebrity figures were involved. in fact, it was difficult to tell which parts of her life were actually real, though i tended to believe whatever she said unless it sounded really to bizarre to be true. she also had no trust in me, or anyone else. she thought i was hacking her e-mail. she thought people were bugging her phone, and these were often so called friends.

to me, this all points to psychosis. in particular, delusions, hallucinations and paranoia. hence my conclusion that she was schizophrenic. but i'd really like to know what other people think?

Hello, I'm sorry to hear of your loss. Loss is a hard thing to go through, I've lost my grandmother, my dog, and one of my best friends in the past week. I've never lost a romantic partner because I've never had one. Shoot me up a PM if you need someone to talk to. I'm usually on here whenever I'm not sleeping or at work.

Now, could this be Schizophrenia? Yes, it could be. But it could also be Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly(?)/commonly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. It could possibly be both.

With Dissociative Personality Disorder (DID), psychosis can usually come along with the changing personalities. I've heard that in severe cases, you can switch to an alternate personality (alter), and you don't even know it when you're back to your regular self. Whenever I was taking my psychology courses, we watched a video that was rather old, back in the late 80's/early 90's, and it was a woman from a small town who was sexually assaulted almost every day ffrom the age of 3 to 5. She was diagnosed with DID and allowed cameras into her sessions with her therapist. I just tried looking for it on Youtube and couldn't find it (teacher used a VHS), but she during one of her personality switches, she would take about being a witch. She would talk about being able to use magic to resurrect people and to kill people and all sorts of other things.

She also had a personality that hated her regular personality. That alter would cut herself and destroy her physical possessions and at one point, from what she said, tried to burn her house down.

Psychosis is always severe, but it is probably most severe with Schizophrenia. The voices and delusions could be coming from that. Paranoia is the most common delusion of psychosis my psychiatrist told me. You don't have to be mentally ill to be paranoid over things, and maybe that was her way of rationalizing it.

There are a couple things that could have been wrong with her, but if I myself - not a medical professional - had to make a guess, I would say it was DID, and possibly Schizophrenia added on to it.

EDIT: Re-reading this, it could be just plain Schizophrenia too. I've had delusions that I was a demigod, and that I would one day rule the world. I thought that people could intrude into my mind and thoughts and could see what I was thinking. I've heard lyrics to music and thought of them to be messages to me (a key thing of Schizophrenia), so it could have been Schizophrenia without the DID.

Hey shock,

A few thoughts on this ...

I worked with people for a long time who had similar beliefs. What I eventually came to believe, right or wrong, is that believing oneself to have super powers is an ego boost in a world where the person otherwise felt diminished.

Personally I'm not a believer in psychic powers or any magic, what some call magic-thinking, but if you think about it from the point of view of someone who is struggling with self-esteem issues, I guess that's super empowering to believe you are the center of some kind of conspiracy, or have super powers. I met someone not so long ago who falls back on believing she is a witch with magic powers; it happens.

Also I think that some people hide parts of their minds from themselves. So maybe she could never consolidate her own part in the relationship, or maybe she preferred to see herself as a victim. There is a lot written on why people may choose to see themselves as a victim vs facing the harsher realities.

Most of us have some kind of self-esteem issues, but facing our issues is extremely difficult. Could just be too that she had a lot of self-esteem issues that over-whelmed her, so she went down the victim conspiratorial belief path?

For whatever it's worth though I had a friend who became schizophrenic. Sadly at the time I had no clue how to help him. Today I'd take a different approach but at the time it scared the hell out of me, and I was judgmental, and assumed he could just get over it. Now, I think different. As his friend I saw the kind of abuse his parents put him through. For example, one day his mother just walked up to him and poured a carton of milk on him. I was a kid at the time and didn't have the where with all to say wth! Yes well of course his mind broke, as any of ours would. Perhaps she was abused too, and it started long before you met her?

the only thing that i knew about her past was that she claimed that her previous boyfriend had been abusive towards her. knowing what i do now about how she distorts reality, i don't really think that was true. i think i was part of her psychosis.

beyond that, she never really trusted me enough to open up to me about anything really personal. all i knew for sure was that she was in denial about her mental health.

unfortunately, she became so abusive towards me that our relationship broke down completely. she appeared to have no appreciation of how she was constantly hurting me. either that or she just didn't care. i actually tried several times to pull things around but nothing worked.

i'd always tried to make adjustments for her mental health but now i'm left wondering if in fact i just ended up getting used by her. i did an enormous amount to help her and she threw me out of her life like i hadn't ever meant anything to her, and said so too. i have to say that i still feel confused. none of it made any sense to me. but perhaps it was never going to. and that's what i've basically decided that i now have to accept.

Hey shock,

Sadly the truth is probably somewhere in the murky middle. Wish there were simple answers in life, but just as likely is some are born into that mental pain, while some are pushed over the edge into it. There is also probably no way to know after the fact what is the truth because there is no way to ascertain the truth in retrospect (i.e., I mean you just can't ask people for the truth, because they won't remember themselves being abusive).

From your posts, you are a great guy shock with a lot of very valuable insights. Sometimes nothing we do is going to be enough. That's okay. Maybe someone else can make that difference, or maybe there is nothing that will make a difference. Knowing when we've reached our limits is okay too.

Love reading your posts shock