Advice for recently met potential romantic relationship
Recently met and falling in love with schizophrenic guy
Met a guy 10 year older than me at work who opene up to me about being schizophrenic. I’m super interested in him as he’s very attractive, matches my energy, is incredibly intelligent and creative. I’ve only known him for maybe 2 weeks but we have lunch together every time we are scheduled together and he makes me feed so comfortable and understood as we have some similar struggles such as anxiety and substance abuse. When he opens up to me about his schizophrenia symptoms and blackouts I feel so much pain hearing how serious and scary his illness is. I’m super terrified to get too attached as my last relationship was so dependent on each other and toxic causing me to loose my independence, completely lost without him around. When it ended I attempted to take my life. I don’t want this to happen again. I only realized years after the break that I was a toxic partner as well, in addictive addiction, psychosis and deep in self hatred and insecurities. My emotions and insecurities controlling my actions, creating arguments and overstepping his boundaries being to obsessive and controlling unable to trust him.
Long story short I’m very interested in this guy but I have some concerns :
\-I’m about to be 23 he’s 33 is this an inappropriate relationship? In what ways may we experience disconnect or issues in our relationship due to the age gap?
\-what steps do I need to take so that I don’t accidentally end up hurting him? As he does not deserve any more stress on top of struggling with his sever illness
\-advice or things I should expect to deal with from someone diagnosed with schizophrenia? Such as issues his illness may cause, or how to help/deal with his illness and blackouts/episodes
\*MAIN QUESTION\*
\-from experiences in my last relationship I’ve been trying to focus on myself and my mental health before draining myself/loosing myself trying to pick him up because I realized we can’t help each other if we are not %100 ourselves. However when I explain that to him he insists of worrying about me before himself. Am I correct in the idea that we should take care of our own mental and physical health before trying to pick up each other? I worry he thinks I’m being selfish but I already worry about him and hurt to know when he’s hurting. I know his illness is serious and that an episode could be a lot for me to handle, maybe to much and I’ve made it clear I might have to step back to protect myself but how can I balance being there for him but also not loosing myself by putting him before myself… I hope that makes sense… am I right for preparing to step back unable to be there for him in tough times?
\-how do I not hurt him but also not let myself get hurt by him?