I think, when I first met my lady friend I knew there was something wrong, as I’ve explained in my previous thread, but, basically, I thought I could help her with her short-term memory loss, which I continued to do through our loving relationship.
Over the months that followed, we had such lovely, blissful times together, and both looked forward to a really great future as we began making plans for our life together. We were inseparable, and just couldn’t bear to be parted. When I bought her engagement ring she was very specific about the colour of the sapphire – it had to be blue/grey to match my eyes, she said, so if we were ever apart she would always think of me. Sadly, when we split up – as the result of her being sectioned – she left it here with me.
As time went on I had to be her short-term memory as she just couldn’t remember anything that had happened recently. This was to become an awful burden for me – especially (if I may say so) when we had made love, as a few minutes later – and the next day – she couldn’t remember a thing. I began to feel so inadequate.
We would go out on picnics; she would forget those also. If we went back to the same place she would say I’d never taken her there before. She could remember nothing of our first meeting, 9 months earlier, but loved to be told how we met. On the day of her sectioning, she said to me –despite us being engaged – it was too soon for us to be in a relationship, as we’d only just met!
Just after she’d moved in with me – on 2 October 2012 – she began to bring her belongings to my home because, she said, they weren’t safe in her house as ‘the next-door neighbour was a tea-leaf’! Then there was her heavily-fortified garden shed. She then decided to get everything indoors ‘for safety’. Then she said she’d put her house on the market. I told her she couldn’t sell it like that as everywhere was cluttered up with dozens of boxes – lounge, kitchen, hall and spare bedroom, everywhere – you just couldn’t move. She said, angrily, they couldn’t go back in the shed, and we brought the lot round to mine!
We then put most of them in my summerhouse and then strange things started to happen. One day, both keys to the summerhouse disappeared. After much searching I found them hidden away in one of her boxes upstairs. (Later I concluded she hid them to prevent me ‘stealing’ from her, as she was becoming paranoid about me by then!)
Then both keys to her bicycle – kept in my workshop – disappeared as well. (Again I came to a similar conclusion as earlier!)
She removed keys to my front door from my key ring, and a duplicate from hers – neither were ever found again. Once again, she had boxes stored in my house.
I had to resort to photographing all the keys – to her house as well as mine – just so we would know what we were looking for. Looking back at the photos, keys just kept vanishing, sometimes re-appearing on different key rings. I felt I was going mad – but still didn’t know what was happening.
Shortly after she’d been sectioned I had an email from her previous Outreach worker – yes, she’d obviously been there before! – who told me my partner had something called Paranoid Ideation, with which she’d been diagnosed back in 1989! I looked it up on the Internet and discovered all about it – and the symptoms, which she displayed – and I quote:
“..a long-standing pattern of pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others… their motives are seen to be suspect or malevolent… others will exploit, harm or deceive them, even if no evidence exists.
“…the condition pervades every personal relationship they have… they have an excessive need to be self-sufficient and have a strong sense of autonomy… they need to have control over those around them… and have great difficulty with any criticism of themselves.”
There’s much more, of course, but all those symptoms, I’m sad to say, applied to my partner!
Earlier – before I’d found out about paranoid ideation – I challenged the hospital doctor to give me some information, at least. But, because of the Data Protection Act he could reveal nothing, he said. But when I told him what I thought my partner had he said he had to agree with me but there was a complication. I can now see that was paranoid ideation. I do hope these additional notes may help others as well. If anyone wishes me to explain further I would be pleased to do so.
Over the months that followed, we had such lovely, blissful times together, and both looked forward to a really great future as we began making plans for our life together. We were inseparable, and just couldn’t bear to be parted. When I bought her engagement ring she was very specific about the colour of the sapphire – it had to be blue/grey to match my eyes, she said, so if we were ever apart she would always think of me. Sadly, when we split up – as the result of her being sectioned – she left it here with me.
As time went on I had to be her short-term memory as she just couldn’t remember anything that had happened recently. This was to become an awful burden for me – especially (if I may say so) when we had made love, as a few minutes later – and the next day – she couldn’t remember a thing. I began to feel so inadequate.
We would go out on picnics; she would forget those also. If we went back to the same place she would say I’d never taken her there before. She could remember nothing of our first meeting, 9 months earlier, but loved to be told how we met. On the day of her sectioning, she said to me –despite us being engaged – it was too soon for us to be in a relationship, as we’d only just met!
Just after she’d moved in with me – on 2 October 2012 – she began to bring her belongings to my home because, she said, they weren’t safe in her house as ‘the next-door neighbour was a tea-leaf’! Then there was her heavily-fortified garden shed. She then decided to get everything indoors ‘for safety’. Then she said she’d put her house on the market. I told her she couldn’t sell it like that as everywhere was cluttered up with dozens of boxes – lounge, kitchen, hall and spare bedroom, everywhere – you just couldn’t move. She said, angrily, they couldn’t go back in the shed, and we brought the lot round to mine!
We then put most of them in my summerhouse and then strange things started to happen. One day, both keys to the summerhouse disappeared. After much searching I found them hidden away in one of her boxes upstairs. (Later I concluded she hid them to prevent me ‘stealing’ from her, as she was becoming paranoid about me by then!)
Then both keys to her bicycle – kept in my workshop – disappeared as well. (Again I came to a similar conclusion as earlier!)
She removed keys to my front door from my key ring, and a duplicate from hers – neither were ever found again. Once again, she had boxes stored in my house.
I had to resort to photographing all the keys – to her house as well as mine – just so we would know what we were looking for. Looking back at the photos, keys just kept vanishing, sometimes re-appearing on different key rings. I felt I was going mad – but still didn’t know what was happening.
Shortly after she’d been sectioned I had an email from her previous Outreach worker – yes, she’d obviously been there before! – who told me my partner had something called Paranoid Ideation, with which she’d been diagnosed back in 1989! I looked it up on the Internet and discovered all about it – and the symptoms, which she displayed – and I quote:
“..a long-standing pattern of pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others… their motives are seen to be suspect or malevolent… others will exploit, harm or deceive them, even if no evidence exists.
“…the condition pervades every personal relationship they have… they have an excessive need to be self-sufficient and have a strong sense of autonomy… they need to have control over those around them… and have great difficulty with any criticism of themselves.”
There’s much more, of course, but all those symptoms, I’m sad to say, applied to my partner!
Earlier – before I’d found out about paranoid ideation – I challenged the hospital doctor to give me some information, at least. But, because of the Data Protection Act he could reveal nothing, he said. But when I told him what I thought my partner had he said he had to agree with me but there was a complication. I can now see that was paranoid ideation. I do hope these additional notes may help others as well. If anyone wishes me to explain further I would be pleased to do so.
