Living as a Non-Verbal Couple

What our experience with psychotic structure can show about your relationships too

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash cropped by author

I am autistic and my partner is schizophrenic. Neither of us knew we fit these labels when we got together. You could say that being together and reflecting with each other has drastically contributed to illuminating our inner worlds.

There is so much we were able to keep at bay before we met each other.

Though we’ve spent a lot of time learning about strategies, we still experience a lot of stress when the conditioned resistance to sharing ourselves intimately meets the determination we nurture to grow in intimacy with ourselves, with one another, and with the world —

it’s like rusty gears grinding, shooting sparks in unpredictable directions, shrieking right into the core of your consciousness. (Make it stop!!!)

Our Secret

“Lemon square!” I holler as I run up the stairs realizing I am at an eight or nine on the stress scale, heading face-first into a large pile of blame that can go nowhere productive.

My thoughts are racing along the lines of, “This is your crazy, your family, your delusion, not mine.”