Hi Belle1979, thanks. Doing a bit better today (no crying) because I'm out of town for a week with business and seeing friends and such and those distractions always help temporarily. In the long term of course they just delay the inevitable.

@FeelingSad, he has always been the same wonderful person, very caring about his family and friends, running errands or doing things for them, spending time with family members because he thinks they're lonely and need friends, he's funny, smarter than most, interested in lots of topics, very creative, always joking and telling stories, well-liked by everyone he meets....

That's why it was so easy to feel comfortable around him to start with-like me he appears situationally extroverted, a friendly-faced person people confide in and like although not usually an initiator of conversation. I saw a lot of what I liked about others and myself in him. At the start of the relationship he asked a few times what I saw in him, commented a few times that he was a bad person. That concerned me, but someone who seemed otherwise ok apart from not the highest self-esteem didn't strike me as abnormal because I don't think I've ever met anyone with good self-esteem.

Two or three times he said he was "batshit crazy" (his term) but the evidence for that was that he thought random things or talked to his cat. To me these sorts of things were endearing and not abnormal. I never directly asked him if he had a mental health issue. I assumed that I would see some evidence of him taking meds, or I would be able to tell he needed them, or he would divulge such a thing prior to getting into a relationship.

Has he given indication for hope? I'm not so sure. Yes and no. Yes as in the talk is there but no as in there's no action being taken yet to improve his situation.

His biggest fear is becoming his dad, he expresses desire to fight this and be normal, he tries very hard by being social and making friends whenever he can. He knows to surround himself with friends and family and maintain that support structure, yet at New Year's he told me that every day he feels like he's losing his grip on reality a tiny bit more. One of his resolutions for 2010 was to tell me more about what he's thinking and feeling because he feels that he's wanting to withdraw-the part that isolates and pulls one into one's own mind and away from reality is getting larger and he knows only bad things come of that.

He says that whenever he's heard or seen things he's been aware that they're not really there, so he's not convinced that he has a problem because if he really had a problem he thinks he would be unable to tell that such things were not reality. So 4-5 years from initial diagnosis he is still unconvinced that standard therapy and meds are helpful at all and not entirely convinced he has any issues that need treatment. I've told him the best thing he can do to be not like his dad is to get help but he hasn't.

I fear that he will remain untreated and, like his father, continue to use smoking and alcohol as his coping strategies instead, which will then lead to his untimely death from cancer (which his dad is dying of now) or another cause. Alternatively, I fear he will keep being off and on meds and not stick to something because like before he'll feel better or stop caring (as he said he had before) and just go off of them and abandon treatment. But I haven't told him I think he's headed for one of those 2 outcomes because I don't *want* to think this way, I just naturally am not optimistic. And also because he's not naturally optimistic either so I've been trying to help us both be more optimistic. But optimism has to give way to reality at some point.