What i feel for him now borders on insanity. I mean, is it natural for such a positive, life loving woman like me to feel such a charge, such a physical reaction to his mere presence?  This reaction cant be normal. Even now, almost two decades after our first encounter, regardless of the absolute hell we have made it through, I still have an almost visceral reaction to every look or word he directs at me.
I’m absolutly certain that those of you reading this are thinking, “why is this even an issue? Grab hold and never let go.” Which is exactly what I crave to do and exactly what I wish I could do. Here’s the rub. If you read some of my other posts, then you may have some idea as to what the ever growing, ever evolving barrier between not only him and I, but him and everyone else is. If not, allow me to enlighten you.  He is sick.  Very sick.  Mental illness, schizophrenia to be exact.  It has slowly, but very accurately, stolen him from me. Piece by piece and memory by memory. The man that I fell madly In love with at first sight, is now gone.

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I am a rare breed when it comes to love and relationships. If I had to compare my idea of commitment to something, it would be as if I were the captain of a sinking ship. Well, I am that captain that goes down with his ship. Or at least for the last 2 decades i have been. And now it’s reached clutch time, sink or swim. I want to swim, but my heart and loyalty tells me to go down with the ship.
My inspiration for this post stems from a 4 day period.  I spent them with him. It broke my heart into a million pieces to wittness the tremendous amount of torment and pain that he is in. He is now a prisoner in his own mind, and as I quickly learned, there is no penetrating the walls he has unknowingly constructed all around his tortured world. The voices control his every nuance and action now. In the the begining he used to try to hide the fact that he heard them, but as I found out while in the shower, he can no longer distinguish fact from fiction. In fact, it almost seems to me that the voices and people he sees are more real to him than reality. And if being ignored is not painful enough, now he says things like “They hurt me all the time”. But the one statement that he made during our brief, four day visit, sent chills down my spine. It was not even the words, but the conviction behind them. He calmly stated that it would all be ok soon, because he was going to blow his brains out, and that he was looking forward to the silence.
I have begged and begged him to get help, I have told his father about this new development, as he also knows firsthand how sick he is. His mother shot herself at about his age. What can I do? Please, any and all advice is needed and welcome. The clock is ticking.