Accidental Carer

Hi guys, My flatmate of 2 years has schizophrenia. I didn't find out until months after he moved in though I had noticed a few odd things from the moment I met him but I agreed to let him move in as I had just asked a guy with aspergers to leave as he was scaring me and prior to him, I had another guy with aspergers and clinical anxiety. Next to those experiences, pretty much anything seemd normal and I needed a flatmate as I could afford to cover the rent of 3 people for much longer.

When he moved in, we selected another flatmate together. She had chronic anxiety also and was manic pretty much all the time except when she crashed into a deep depression. They hated each other and battled constantly for my attention and approval. Meanwhile, I'm an introvert and these two were sucking me dry of any energy I had. Ultimately she moved out because of him. So did the next two flatmates though he never told them he was schizophrenic.

All up, not including my father who I'm sure is undiagnosed as having narcissistic personality disorder, I have lived with many people with mental illness of varying degrees. Bipolar, depression x 3, anxiety x 2, aspergers x 3 and schizophrenia. I'm pretty cool about these things as long as you don't hurt me emotionally or physically. Everybody deserves a home after all and I'm not here to judge, I'm here to be good to others and live my life. But I really wish we were allowed to ask up front so we were a little more prepared.

In this case, had I been aware, I would have said no to my current flatmate as I was so emotionally exhausted after the previous two that I just needed a break for my own mental well-being but I didn't get it. I needed time to recover from the constant verbal attacks, the theft, the damage to my belongings and the end to my friends visiting. But, that's discrimination. When he interviewed for the room, I explained that I had lived with 3 people in a row who suffered terrible mental illness, I was emotionally battered and bruised and this time I needed to find somebody who is relaxed, happy and emotionally healthy because I was so tired. He told me that he was totaly normal and super chilled. This is not at all the case. He is one of the most intense people I've ever met and entirely unaware of himself or his behaviour.

I used to love my home, I am the head tenant and anybody else in the house is my subtenant, the house is decorated with my artwork, my furniture etc. It's a beautiful relaxed & creative space but I live in my bedroom and only go downstairs if everybody is out or if I need to make dinner. I even keep some food in my room and bring up multiple bottles of water to avoid making additional trips downstairs because chances are, I'll be mugged the second I step foot unless his head is buried in his laptop. He's a good guy at the heart of it but man it's stressful! He wants to be liked but the way he goes about it is to put me down behind my back even if it means lying.

He gets intensly defensive if you ask him a question and accuses me of accusing him when really, it's just a simple question like 'hey ....... did the fish bowl get broken? (In a very non confrontational friendly manner no matter how frustrated I am that ANOTHER one of my belongings has been broken). When I asked, he lost it and told me I was accusing him. I explained that I'm just asking if he knew what happened to it as it suddenly vanished. He is forever breaking things and hiding them. Because his dad was strict, he blames that as being the reason he gets defensive (he's 38, time to let go of daddy issues, my dad was violent and extremely emotionally abusive and I'm younger than him). I explained that sometimes defensive behaviour can come across as dishonesty, especially when the response doesn't fit the situation. He told me that I'm wrong and it's only when people feel threatened.

Basically, I am not allowed an opinion. He is always right. He is 3 times my size and while I'm not scared that he will hurt me, it's still intimidating at times. He's so loud and has no idea about personal space. He will follow me around the kitchen and get in the way while talking at me at high volume and high speed. A few times I asked him if he could not stand so close as it makes me feel claustrophobic. So he lunged at me and put his face right in mine and laughed. I told him not to do it and it's not funny when someone has just told you it makes them uncomfortable. It took about 2 months of this happening and me telling him the same thing before he stopped. It took 18 months of explaining that rent is to be paid fortnightly before he managed to get it right *he'd pay 1 week, 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 4 weeks, 5 weeks and fall short constantly because he'd run out of money and I had to cover him until his next month pay, I also helped with his budget a number of times because he was complaining that his $80,000pa pay check was not enough and was running out a week before every pay. He was complaining to me - a person who he knows earns less because he asks everybody how much they earn and to our neighbour who is on a disability pension and explained that it's not very considerate to complain to a pensioner who earns $55,000 less than you that you don't have enough because you're eating and smoking your money, also that it's not polite talking about money all the time. I'm still teaching him how to clean properly, I'm still trying to teach him appropriate responses to things. e.g. I told him I needed to have major surgery and it was costing me $30,000 and I was scared. His immediate response, "I got a promotion and a $15,000 pay rise". I explained that while it is wonderful news and he should be very proud of himself, sometimes when somebody tells you they are having a hard time or just received bad news, that a more appropriate response might be to say 'I'm sorry to hear that, are you ok? and then let them answer. In a lot of ways, I feel like I am teaching a child how to be an adult because his brain just doesn't work in the same way that ours does. I don't think his parents taught him any of this so I am being treated like his mother, I didn't sign up for that. I wnat children of my own, not somebody else 38yr old kid. He fixates on earning more money and getting promotions every few months as he's and doesn't stop talking about it. We have these one-sided conversations multiple times each week. He doesn't listen when other people speak, he's argumentative, he asked recently if I have set up surveillance cameras around the house and asks constantly if I've told my friends or family about his schizophrenia which I deny be cause he'll lose it and If I don't have some support from dealing with him, I risk losing it. He doesn't seem to have empathy but has certain rehearsed phrases he might use at times, he has lost 4 garage remotes and is on to his 5th because he just doesn't pay attention, he fixates on things like money, getting a girlfriend, buying a bloody sound bar, promotion, pay rise, promotion, payrise, payrise, payrise, soundbar, investing (Even though he is awful with money).

I'm so exhausted from being accused and lied to and having to ask an adult to clean after himself or teach him how to do very simple things. He is medicated though his moods seem to fluctuate quite a bit. He seems to do well for a month or two then he goes manic, after a time of mania, he gets depressed and withdraws to his room then he comes back and he's back to being smiley and arrogant again. I want him to be happy, I want everybody to be kind to him because I know it's not his fault and have described him as a smiley gentle giant who just wants everybody to like him - though he doubts me even though he's sat opposite me as I've said it. I have done so much research so I can better understand him and be supportive but do you know how hard it is to find any articles that relate to us, the people who live with them? All articles related to family and partners. There is nothing about flatmates! For me it wasn't a choice, he isn't my son or my brother or my partner. He was a stranger that answered a flatmate ad but I've found myself in the position of carer/mother. I feel like we have no rights, they do. They have the right to a safe happy home but we don't. We can't ask them to leave when it becomes too much because that would be discrimination. They don't need to disclose anything before moving in and I get it, people do discriminate. But we have to live with it and it does impact us even when they are high functioning and medicated and if they drive us crazy or make life hard or stressful, we have to live with it because it's a mental illness. I can't move out, it's my name on the lease and would cost me thousands - he's a subtenant. I feel like I have had to deplete myself of all my energy trying to support him and do everything he needs. Communicate the way he wants, don't call him dude, change the wifi name because he doesn't like it, don't text him if there is a problem or question. He demands I speak to him face to face so I do even though often times he argues and it's very uncomfortable and he won't let me speak but when he needs to raise an issue, he can text and not show me the same courtesey he expects from me. As far as he is concerned, he displays no symptoms whatsoever and anything I read does not apply to him and that his behaviour is his personality, not the illness. Personally, I'd rather believe that the selfishness, mania, lack of awareness and empathy are part of the illness that he has no control over rather than his personality because if thats the case, he's a jerk who has cost me a lot of money in replacing or repairing things he's broken.

I recently had major spinal surgery. It cost me $30,000 and I had 4 weeks of unpaid leave while I recovered. One night while he was manic, he began talking at me at high speed, top volume without taking a single breath about his job/colleagues in a very negative way for the 9 millionth time - he constantly puts others down and talks himself up. I sat there and let him talk at me. There was no opportunity for me to be included in this one-sided ear bashing. After 30 minutes, I was in sheer agony as my sitting limit was about 5 minutes but because he wouldn't stop talking, I couldn't get up because I was raised to be polite despite the behaviour of those around me. I was praying for him to take a breath but he didn't so I had to interrupt loudly. He continued. I begged him to stop and I told him that I was in excruciating pain and couldn't sit anymore. I literally couldn't hold my head up, I had tears welling in my eyes from pain. He continued steamrolling me. I begged again, nothing. So I lay my head down a little for support and let him go for another 20 minutes. By now, I'm getting angry. I'm in so much pain I can't think straight, he didn't care at all, I didn't even need to be there for that conversation so I interrupted again and said '.... Please stop, I beg you, I told you am in pain and I cannot handle this for another second. He kept talking so I got up and left, went to my room and didn't come back. I skipped dinner and went to bed to sleep the pain off and because I was so angry at him I didn't want to deal with him anymore. The next day I raised it with him and explained that if somebody gets to a point where they literally beg you, you need to listen as there is a reason for it. I reminded him that I have had surgery and making me sit there in pain so he could talk about a book or any other reason was not ok, it was rude and insensitive. He told me that he needed to talk about work and nobody else wants to listen. I reminded him that I don't work there, I don't know these people or understand what he does, I only need highlights and lowlights. Good/Bad/stressful/easy or funny stories and that's enough. I don't like hearing him put people down and compare himself to them as it is not the trait of a kind nor humble person.

This is completely normal behaviour. It is exhausting having to moderate yourself constantly. I change my communication style for each person I deal with because we all think differently but i've never had to give away so much of myself as I do for him (aside from my family during childhood). Sometimes I just want to say what I really feel, I don't want to pander to his every request. I want to be able to tell him to shut up if he's being a jerk but I can't. Partly because I'm too nice, partly because he's suffering from a mental illness and I don't want to hurt him.

I was of the belief that anti psychotics are supposed to level all of this out leaving only small blips on the rollercoaster scale. I know it has softened the voices a bit but his paranoia is still peaking and so are his manic ups and downs. I don't know that I have the energy to keep this up for too much longer. I have my own life stressors to deal with, it's been two years already and I know he will never move out unless I move out or make him leave andunless he screws up with rent again, I don't have good enough legal reason. I'm tired of being a carer for a Schizophrenic that I am not responsible for, I don't love him, he's not my son or my partner or child, he's my tenant who I care about because he is a human and is nice half the time. I wish his parents would do more but I have no way of contacting them, and if he found out I did, I'm sure he'd lose the plot. I have had my fill of mental illness and perhaps I attract it because I am calm and was raised by an NPD father, every day after school with a narcissistic grandmother & paedophile grandfather, a bipolar uncle who stopped sepaking to me because he hated my father and later had a bipolar best friend until I realised that I was attracting illness because I was comfortable with it having been raised amongst it and it was not good for me. I know they can't help it or heal it, though they can manage it if they are able to admit to it. But at some point, our mental health has to matter as much as theirs especially when their illness affects our emotional wellbeing as has been the case my entire life and am very grateful that I don't suffer clinical depression, anxiety or PTSD, I should technically! I have worked so hard to be emotionally healthy after a life of trauma and would very much like to just have a happy and easy going life without always being everybody elses care taker (until I have my own children) but people who need help continue to be delivered to me. A one-hour tenant interview is not enough to work out if somebody suffers in their life or not and howa way that will impact me. All you have is your intuition telling you if this person is good and bad bnut it can be clouded by desparation or previous trauma such as my previous tenants. Honestly, I am utterly exhausted and while I am proud of my ability to empathise and show compassion to people of all walks of life and give them a safe home, how am I able to put myself first when if I were to do that it would be classed as discrimination? Even though it's not their fault, it is still abuse sometimes. Thanks for reading, I know it was long, it's been a long 2 years!!