WaytooHardCasual Contributor
Partner with Psychosis
I'm sure there's heaps of discussion here about people discovering that their partners suffer from psychosis. So I'm guessing it's nothing new to mention it but very alarming to come to terms with all the wierdness you have encountered in your relationship with your partner over the years turning out to be this condition.
My partner of 16 years has always been a bit unusual. Always the square peg in the round hole. Never able to really hold down permanent work. Employed but not in team environments. And if this has happened, not for long.
I use to say she was pensive when I first knew her and at times quite dismissive. When I lived by myself and she stayed the night, sometimes she would just get up at 3am and go home. Always thought it was something I did wrong. She would spend every night in the bath for half an hour and still does (showers are bad). Never really loving in the true sense of the word. Quite aloof. None commital. A bit kinky. Didn't want to get married. Didn't like families accept her own. Couldn't handle people all itimately chatting and having fun. Always on a conspiracy thing etc etc.
I'm touching the surface here with the out of the ordinary stuff. So much more... But I always just accepted the difference as just different.
About 6 years ago things really changed...for the worse. Suddenly I became the centre of this plight that she was on to prove that I was a whole bunch of terrible things that I'm not. From.....having affairs. Wanting to harm her in some very creative ways. Having girls come to the house. Planting sharps in her bag when we travelled so that she would be arrested. Having sex with men which is why I had a urinary tract infection. Wanting to work out a way of stealing our house from her part ownership. Trying to find a way to steal her money. Thwarting her from having children even though she didn't want children. Contacting my work staff to investigate me. Breaking in to my email and Facebook chat to try to learn more about me. And so on and so on... Endless amounts of crazy stuff.
I tried to get her to therapy but always ended up being the victim of her concoctions in sessions. Amazing stories she would put together to convince a therapist that I am a monster. Quite alarming when you experience this stuff.
I ended up getting my own Psychologist because I started to believe I was going nuts. Fortunately my mind was put at ease after spending 'some' time trying to understand my circumstances.
It has taken a alot of understanding and many occurances over the past years of my partner having psychotic epsiodes and she is also currently having one for me to get my head really around her illness
It is very alarming to be told suddenly (although I do see the signs of approaching doom) that you are a monster and she won't have anything to do with you. And you are now just a flat mate (again). This time she has found more evidence of something bad that you are going to do.
I guess the hardest thing is seeing all of this stuff going on in someone you truly love.
They have long forgotten what love is. At times really don't know who you are because they believe false things about you that are untrue so behave differently toward you in an instant. You have to just cope and be banished from their normal persona (which has gone on holidays) in the hope that the epsiode will end and you can get on with normal life again.
I have to say having been through these episodes so many times has made me jaded.
Trying to get her to see a doctor and get some psychiatric help seems impossible as she thinks I am the bad one of course as she does with the 'players' in all the conspiracies that she concocts.
I have talked to my GP and her GP and a pyschologist I know but noone will touch this without her accepting her condition. A tragic situation in our society that we are more worried about litigation than helping someone with a mental health condition.
40 years ago someone acting as strangely as my partner does would have been put in an institution. Today noone wants to know.
As I said to my sister just the other day..There seem to be so many lost people around these days. Noone seems to care.'
From my position - do I stay or do I go. How much more can anyone care and bear.
Leading up to Christmas I am quite mindful of the idea that this is a time for families to be together and when I see my own family (partner) not really knowing me or knowing herself due to mental illness, I am deeply saddened.
