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Autistic safe person breakup (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/autism@lemmy.world
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Hey, I know that all relationships are different and I'm not looking for direct advice, but just curious as to how other people have experienced this.

My partner has audhd and has said many times that I am their safe person. They struggle making friends and don't have much of a family so (to me) a lot of pressure has fallen on me in that role.

I am looking to step away from the relationship but whenever I talk to my partner, she follows our conversations with a meltdown and says she doesn't have a safe person and doesn't feel safe any more.

Can anyone explain their experiences with this and things that may have been helpful or things that made it worse?

Thank you

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[–] 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Possibly, that's still not ops responsibility. Let me give you a few reasons and deeper explanations as to why.

My ex kept me in a very violent and abusive relationship because he would say, I'll kill myself if you leave me. Should I have stayed to protect his mental health? It's a very common abusive tactic for abusive types to use extreme emotional manipulation and abuse, to entrap a partner.

It's not any one person's job to manage another person's mental health and if you aren't trained you could be meaning to help, but actually be doing extreme harm, or enabling, especially in situations like this.

Safety comes from feeling like you're in control of your emotions. If you ascribe your ability to be safe on another person too heavily, it can cause an infinite loop of fight or flight to an extreme degree.

If you aren't in control of your own emotions, your safety and ability to emotionally regulate is entirely based on another person, you have split your own "self", and them leaving would feel like a part of yourself is dying. It incredibly harmful to both people involved.

Your emotions are not someone else's responsibility, ever. Your emotions are a message from a part of your brain that isn't able to verbalise or understand language, for you.

They are most often a warning signal, that if you don't listen to, becomes distressed, which drives urgency in delivering the message, so those emotions become louder and louder until you can't ignore them. This is caused by any type of emotional unsafety. Your emotions were designed to warn you theres a leopard in the trees stalking you, if you don't listen to them, they get loud. They can't actually tell the difference between there being a leopard stalking you and any other form in nowadays and time, represents an unsafe situation.

Ops partner needs intense mental health assistance to help rewire an accidental loop of fight or flight they're stuck in. It is not helping them for op to stay.

I absolutely agree this person needs care, and would highly suggest finding a mental health professional and care giver, if able.

But you also have to consider that op doesn't owe someone else so much that they should live in a distressing state, themselves. If op wants to end the relationship, they very much should be able to leave at any time. Not being able to leave, or owing to someone else's mental health and safety before your own is not an ok burden to put on someone. Whilst I absolutely appreciate you have a kind heart in thinking about the partner, op deserves equal consideration, and it's very easy to accidental skip over someone's feelings and needs, because they seem quiet and less in distress. And you shouldn't have to go into distress to be deserving of your needs. I would suggest this relationship is incredibly mentally and emotionally damaging to op, and they deserve to be able to leave and heal.

Op, I am so sorry for all you are going through.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

    I’m sorry you went through that. It probably explains why you’ve proposed an extreme, amygdalic “solution” rather than a safer, more moderate one.

    However, I’ve been through it too - and if I’d done what you proposed, I’d almost certainly have had an ex’s suicide attempt on my conscience. Instead, because I chose a more moderate path, that ex learned to be less over-dramatic. They were able to gradually move on, and eventually settle happily with someone else.

    To address your implicit assertions: I did not propose that OP should “live in a distressing state” or consider themselves unable to leave. Quite the contrary.

    I did try to highlight the big difference between:

    1. leaving abruptly and cutting cords entirely (as you propose); and
    2. leaving respectfully and with friendship intact.

    In OP’s case, this could be the difference between life or death. If I were in OP’s shoes I would not want to risk having a person’s death on my conscience from following your proposal (option 1 above). Instead, I’d rather demonstrate maturity, self-control, moderation, and above all patience.

    Analogy: would you push a scared non-swimmer in at the deep end - or do you admit it’s better to let them build skill and confidence in the shallow end before they tackle the deep end?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (1 child)

    My dude. Low blows. I proposed finding professional help, and a safe person to help ops partner. Not throwing them in the deep end. But you seem to ignore or reframe mostly everything I said. I get this is a hard truth for you to face.

    It's not one untrained person's responsibility to fix another person and without training and proper knowledge you could be furthering the problem, that means making it worse. For both people.

    Yes it's important op leave without contact, once mental health care has been sourced. If possible. Because ops partner won't be able to rewire their brain without a clean cut. As there's severe enmeshment here. You are proposing op stay and help ops partner, regardless of how they're feeling or coping. Because you did it.

    This relationship description is called codependency. Sometimes the person being depended on comes to define their self worth, entirely, by being so important to the other person.... But It can also cause severe harm to the person being depended on.

    I get that these are really hard truths for you to face, but that situation wasn't healthy. And you skating through, doesn't translate that everyone should face a situation like this in exactly the same way you did. You were doing the best you could at that time. You can't change the past, but we can learn and grow, when we notice mistakes. That's wisdom, my buddy.

    You're basing your opinion on this situation, entirely on your own past experiences, but your opinion doesn't align with current and past understandings of the definitons of abuse, or ways to handle someone feeling suicidal or enmeshment and codependency. I hope you are able to still feel proud of the fact your intentions in your past relationship were kind, and you did the best you could with the knowledge you had at the time, and learn and grow with more knowledge. I was going to link some articles for you. But this is your journey to choose to take, or not. I'm going to let you find that pathway for yourself. And if you don't choose that journey, I hope we can just agree to disagree.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    I proposed finding professional help, and a safe person to help ops partner. Not throwing them in the deep end.

    You proposed a "clean cut", which is the deep end as far as OP's partner is concerned.

    Throwing a scared non-swimmer into the deep end is cruel, dangerous, impatient and unnecessary - even if there is a lifeguard (mental health professional) nearby. Lifeguards should definitely be employed, but they are fallible: they may be busy rescuing others, or asleep, or off the clock.

    Building skills in the shallow end first, where self-rescue is manageable, is far safer than relying solely on a lifeguard.

    You were doing the best you could at that time.

    Not only at that time - at any time. There is no better approach than to be compassionate and patient, instead of heartless and impatient - as long as one does not lose sight of the goal or let oneself be trapped.

    I did not lose sight of the goal or let myself be trapped.

    Likewise, I advised OP, above, how to set boundaries and establish a clear but compassionate path out of the relationship.

    You can't change the past, but we can learn and grow, when we notice mistakes.

    What I did was not a mistake. Neither is what I proposed to OP.

    ops partner won't be able to rewire their brain without a clean cut

    That is almost certainly a false statement. You have no evidence for it. Neural plasticity is far greater than you seem to think, even on the spectrum.

    You are proposing op stay and help ops partner, regardless of how they're feeling or coping.

    Hardly! I'm saying OP should think of the future - not only the present - and should recognise that a little extra effort and inconvenience in the short term will yield much greater peace of mind in the long term.

    Because you did it.

    I'm not proposing it because I did it.

    I'm proposing it because it is the humane, mature, responsible course.

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