I've added androphobia to Lena's diagnosis.
Carry on.
You cant tell people about your mental illness, even if they are good people because most people don't understand it enough.
Maybe you can't, mine's worked as an icebreaker. When you feel like you have to hide your disorders, that's when it scares people, but if they are warned they find ways to look at the quirks leading up to it as a bigger picture and tend to become more accepting of it overall.
From personal experience, people are more ready for "the schizo to have a schizo moment" than they are for their totally mentally healthy friend with no problems whatsoever suddenly going into an episode without warning. It can be the difference between it coming from a place of concern or a place of shock, the knowledge proves to be to both people's benefit.You can only tell people that you really know how will react, or if you manage to educate them, but that seems unlikely. Another option is to tell them the symptoms you have, without ever mentioning a mental illness. However, you need special relatable friends for that, and depends on the symptoms.
Them knowing it in advance steals it's thunder and gives them enough info to be helpful if something's happening. Seeing you as more functional than the stereotype also helps in a lot of ways, as the stereotype is 9/10 of the time worse off than the reality.
If they judge you right off the bat for being mentally ill, fuck that guy. Obviously don't announce this shit in the first sentence and don't mention that shit at work, but if you're meeting new people with no real strings attached it's a lot easier to just let them know. The candid honesty has had many tell me their own Dx.
you don't get it cos you're faking schizophrenia, so you wouldn't be legitimately afraid they would think you're crazy, and the schizophrenic paranoia that would tell you that they're all judging you all the time & that they can hear the voices or w/e isn't there.
I've added androphobia to Lena's diagnosis.
Carry on.
Maybe if you kill yourself I'll be cured of it