Dating after I became stable

This is a composite story, drawn from common experiences shared in the schizophrenia community. It does not depict a real individual.

I am a 36-year-old man living in Atlanta. I have schizoaffective disorder, depressive type, diagnosed at 27. For most of my late twenties and early thirties, I was either in an episode, in the hospital, or recovering from one. Romance, in any meaningful sense, was not on the menu. I was on my third antipsychotic, then my fourth. I was crashing at my parents' house on and off. The idea of asking someone to dinner was on a different planet.

Three years ago I started a long-acting injection — see our piece on long-acting injections — and stabilized in a way I had not since college. I got my own apartment. I got a steady job at a logistics company. I got a therapist I actually liked. And then, sometime around year two of stability, I started thinking about dating again.

The internal hurdle

The first hurdle was not the apps or the conversations or the disclosure. It was the question of who I was, now that I was not in a constant state of recovery. When my entire life had been "managing schizoaffective disorder," I had a built-in answer to "what do you do?" and "what is going on with you?" and "how are you?" The answers were variations of "I am working on getting better." Without that, I was just a guy. A guy who liked basketball and history podcasts and did not want to talk about his hospitalizations on a first date.

I spent a lot of time in therapy on this. My therapist asked, "What did you used to like, before all of this?" The answer was hiking, jazz, terrible action movies. I started doing those things again on weekends, alone at first, and then with friends. The point was not to invent hobbies for a dating profile. The point was to remember who I was when the illness was not the loudest voice in the room.

Building the dating profile

I made a profile on two apps. I did not mention the diagnosis on either. The advice I had read on the NAMI website about disclosure was clear: there is no obligation to disclose in early communication, and disclosing in a profile risks attracting people who fetishize illness, not people who are good for you. I led with what I actually liked. I used pictures from a hike with my brother, a cousin's wedding, a basketball pickup game. I did not use a five-year-old photo. I did not airbrush. The pictures were of the man I actually was.

The first three dates

The first date was at a coffee shop. Forty minutes. She was a teacher; we talked about our siblings and laughed about a movie she had hated. There was no second date. Nothing was wrong. There was just no spark. I felt fine about it. That was new.

The second date was a disaster. Not because of me — because the man I had matched with arrived an hour late, smelled of bourbon, and spent the dinner talking about his ex-wife. I left after the appetizer and walked home in a light rain feeling, oddly, very alive. Even bad dates were data.

The third date was with a woman named Priya. We met for tacos. We were there for two and a half hours. She wanted to see me again. I wanted to see her again. That had not happened to me in years.

The disclosure conversation

I disclosed at the start of date four, in her apartment, on her couch, with both of us sober. I had thought about it for a week. My therapist and I had rehearsed it. The script I landed on was simple:

"There is something I want to tell you about myself. It is not a secret, but it is private, and I want to share it with you because I like you and I want to keep seeing you. I have schizoaffective disorder. It is a brain illness in the schizophrenia family. I have been stable on medication for three years. I work full time. I have my own apartment. I have a treatment team. I am not going to be hospitalized tomorrow. I am telling you because I do not want it to be a surprise if it ever comes up — for example, I get a long-acting injection every month, and you might notice that. I am happy to answer any questions, or to give you time, or both."

She asked three questions. What do the medications do? Are you ever in danger? How do you know if you are slipping? I answered each one carefully. We talked for an hour. She did not break up with me. We have been together for almost a year now.

What I learned about timing

Different people in our community make this decision differently. Some disclose in the first message. Some wait for an exclusive relationship. There is no objectively right time. What worked for me was: after I trusted them enough to want to keep going, and before they had emotionally invested enough that the disclosure could feel like a betrayal. For me, that was somewhere around date three or four.

The questions I now ask myself before disclosure:

• Do I trust this person to handle the information with care, even if they decide not to continue?
• Am I in a stable enough place that I can absorb a rejection if it comes?
• Have I rehearsed the words I want to use, so I am not improvising in a moment of vulnerability?
• Do I have a friend or therapist to debrief with afterward?

Dating with a routine

The other thing nobody warns you about is that stability has a schedule. I take my oral medication at 9 p.m. I get my injection on the second Tuesday of every month. I sleep at least seven hours a night or my next week is rough. I do not drink more than two drinks. I cannot stay out past midnight on weeknights without paying for it.

None of this is glamorous. It also turns out to be fine. The good people do not mind. Priya knows my pill alarm goes off at 9 and she does not bat an eye if it interrupts a movie. We make plans around my injection days. I learned, slowly, that having a routine is not a deal-breaker; it is, in fact, a sign that I have a life worth structuring.

The hard moments

There were two dates I left in the middle. One man, when I disclosed, said, "I have always wanted to date someone with a mental illness." That was the end of that. Another woman went silent for a week and then sent a long message about how she was "not in a place" to take on a "challenge." I cried. I called my brother. I went to therapy. I went on another date the next week.

The point is not that disclosure always goes well. The point is that you can absorb the bad ones. The stability that allowed me to date at all is the same stability that lets me lose a date and not lose myself.

What I would say to someone thinking about dating again

• Wait until you are stable enough that a hard date will not unravel you.
• Rebuild your sense of who you are outside the illness before you ask anyone else to be interested in you.
• You do not have to disclose in your profile. You do not even have to disclose on the first date.
• When you do disclose, rehearse. Have a script. Choose a quiet moment.
• Pay attention to how someone responds in the first ten seconds after you tell them. You will learn more about them in those ten seconds than in the previous ten dates.
• Have a person to call afterward.

For more, see dating with schizophrenia, disclosure on dating apps, and disclosure decisions.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified mental health professional. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 in the US, or your local emergency number.