Living a Secret Life — Do People Know About my Condition?
James Baldwin mentions “The trouble with a secret life is that it is very frequently a secret from the person who lives it and not at all a secret for the people he encounters.”
By Steve Colori
For a number of years I just didn’t have the social skills to broach difficult subjects with friends. I used to let things go for fear of putting stress on the dynamic. I strongly valued my friendships during the harder years of having schizophrenia because it has been really difficult to make friends with this condition at times. I was dependent upon the people who were in my life and I was far too afraid to make any waves. One of the most difficult parts of having psychosis over the years has been the social component. It’s been tremendously difficult to be able to figure out what to do and say in social contexts until more recently where I’m starting to feel more like my self prior to my psychotic episodes where social situations came naturally to me and made better sense.
For years I thought my friend Anna had been telling her romantic partners about my diagnosis. I was incredibly distressed by this but I had never touched base with her to talk about it. We’ve been friends for about…
