Hi! This is my first time writing here, and I’m so grateful of finding this platform, even though I no longer feel that I necessarily belong into this community. I feel like I have to get these thoughts out of my chest, in case there’s anyone else having similar feelings.
A little under a year ago I broke up a six year relationship with the love of my life. We have known each other for over a decade, and during our time together we both moved out of home, built a beautiful life together and loved and respected each other deeply. I couldn’t have asked for a kinder and funnier partner. He was so talented and put together: we studied at university together, he loved to workout during free time and didn’t ever use alcohol. He had an amazing life ahead of him, and a career he had always dreamed of.
During our relationship he slowly started to pull away from his social life. At first I thought it was due to corona restrictions, but even then I feared that it was something worse. Two years ago my biggest fears came true: one moment life was completely normal, the next he had full anxiety about losing his mind. During the next couple of months he slowly had his first psychotic break. I brought him to the ER a couple days after the first symptoms - I knew right away that he wasn’t himself and was slipping into psychosis. Getting the help he needed still took a couple of lonely, long months.
He spent a month in the hospital, and after coming home, life started slowly to get back on track. He had a hard time finding a suitable medication - most meds caused akathisia, and the ones that didn’t, made him sleep around the clock. Still, he went back to his studies almost immediately and managed miraculously to stay on his courses.
During the next six months the devastating truth started to sink into me: he wasn’t the same person he used to be. As time passed, he began to be more distant, couldn’t talk about his emotions or our relationship. He had none of positive symptoms, but seemed to have all of the negative ones. He could mostly focus on his anxiety and the thoughts of quitting his medication, which I didn’t approve. Slowly I saw him drift away until there seemed to be only a shell left.
We broke up a year after his first episode. I felt so lonely with him, and couldn’t stand watching me slowly lose him to the progression of the illness. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make, and I feel guilty about it every day. Half a year after our breakup he had another psychotic episode, had cut all contact to his family and stopped using medications. We parted ways very peacefully and lovingly, but he hasn’t responded to any of my messages after having the second psychotic break and has gone off the radar from everyone he knows.
I know I left him, and I should move on. Still I find his illness devastating. This is not the life I imagined for him or a life he deserved. I feel so alone with my sorrow: with the breakup I had to say goodbye to his side of the family, who were my biggest support in this situation. My friends are empathetic, but can’t understand the feelings I’m going through: they treat this like a regular breakup.
I don’t feel like I broke up with my ex, but more like I lost the love of my life to this illness. He’s alive, but I feel like the person I knew, loved and shared my life and dreams with no longer exists. I feel ashamed of these feelings - to me it feels as though he died, without having the support from family and friends than if he actually had died. This has left me so empty: I feel like I can’t fully mourn the person I lost, since I made the decision to part ways. The idea of the life he lost due to this illness is tearing me apart. I know we won’t get back together, but I’ll love him and the memory of who he was forever, and I hope for the best this word ever has to offer him.
How do you let go of the idea of how their lives could have been without schizophrenia? Anyone having similar feelings or situation?
I would say that letting go of their past self and life is a part of the grieving process. I don’t think it’s possible to forget what they were at one time.
We have had past participants on the forum that told us it was painful for them when we hung on to their former traits. Who they are now is who they are and learning to embrace their current selves is important for their caregivers to be successful.
It is a grieving process and as is advised, every one has their own process and timing. I’d advise you to allow yourself your own. And, I believe it will help make space over time to be able to hold with acceptance and even grace, what was and what is at the same time. But however long it takes and if ever and how successful one it isn’t helpful to your process to compare yourself to another’s, or to hold yourself even to some personally perceived standard. It is also helpful to accept that you’ve been changed by this experience too, and perhaps even grieve that.
And, yes I have had similar feelings with regards to myself and my son who has schizophrenia. And I am still in the process of grieving and accepting. It’s hard. Yet, I do experience that not resisting my own grief does help me move through it a bit easier each and every time it arises. And, sometimes sweetness and other more lighter emotions also do arise, too.
Thank you for sharing. It helps me to know I’m not alone, and to encourage you, I encourage myself.
Such a good point- it’s a watershed life event. You can’t be the same ever again
As has been explained to me by several people with experience, you might not stop grieving but you will get better at carrying it with you.
So many of us can empathize with you and your grief. I think about my friend’s “could have been” life all the time. Even he, in rare lucid moments, talks with bitterness and regret about his wasted years and cycling between hope and dispair. It’s the sense of helplessness with this terrible disorder that seems to bite the hardest.
I hope at some point your ex gets the help he needs and lets others back into his life. Maybe think about him less as a ex and more as a person you will always care about?
Yes its very much a struggle !and we do all process differently I think its fairly safe to say most here experience the loss grieving .
I’m sorry you are going through this ,glad you found the forum after losing the family support from your ex side .
My brother has had this since our teens and I feel like I loose him over and over as this progressed . when there’s good days or times its hard for me to accept he has schizoaffective disorder . my brain wants to think things are ok . give yourself time and grace to heal
ic
Your not their wife, family, so you should go on with your life.
They will never be the way they use to be. But if they stay on their meds (which is hard to do because of the side effects, and how it makes them feel) they can survive this horrible disease.
I’m sorry for your experience. I can relate to your sentiment about losing your loved one even though they’re still alive.
That how I felt after my brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Although he lived for over 35 years after the diagnosis, I feel like I haven’t seen him since the summer of 1980. He was not the same person at all after his psychotic break, and he never was again; not even a little bit.
You have to grieve as long as you have to grieve. My brother passed away five years ago and I’m still stuck in the guilt stage of grief. I don’t think you can (or should try) to avoid the grief, because it will come back to haunt you later and it will be worse than ever. I’m speaking from experience; the death of my cat (yes my cat my best friend) brought back all the grief of a lifetime (more than just about my brother) and it was a very difficult time for me. I was basically incapacitated for months and I emerged from it with a different attitude and priorities in my life. The biggest lesson was to face your problems and deal with your grief as it comes. No good will come from putting it off.
Best of luck.