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Cassandra Syndrome

bacarino

I'm very distraught. I'm the husband of a late-diagnosed autistic woman.

There's a lot to this story, so I'll summarise.

Basically, over the last 2 years things have been going increasingly wrong. My wife vents all her frustration against me constantly. She tries to engage me in arguments to nowhere. Asks me what to do, and straight away plays the demand avoidance card. I'm basically in a situation where I'm being verbally attacked, made responsible for everything, not listened to and dragged into impossible, illogical situations on a daily basis.

We had a couples therapist specialised in neurodivergent couples for a while. I called the therapy off because I wasn't getting any benefit from it, quite the contrary. One of the reasons to start having therapy was that I wanted a neutral witness to what was going on, as often arguments with my wife would end up with her completely fabricating things or denying she'd said something that she 100% had said. I needed to establish some sort of consensual reality, not just for the sake of resolving issues but for my mental health.

I did not get what I sought. What I got was instructions to accept more, to be more patient, to adapt more. The thing is, by that point in time, I had already done a tonne of what I was being told to do and I was reaching the limit of what I could do and take.

My mental health was deteriorating fast. I told both my wife and the therapist in several instances, but little notice was taken by either. The only important person during therapy appeared to be my wife. Once we terminated therapy, we had to submit a questionnaire. The result of that was that the therapist was suddenly concerned about my mental health and recommended that I saw my own therapist... I didn't know what to think and say. I had just been through many months of therapy to no avail. My constant cries for help ignored and at the end being told that I was mentally unwell! A lot of what I was suffering was caused by the feeling of not being heard in couples therapy and now I was told to get therapy for that.

I'm now at the point where my mental health has gone down the drain. Doing some web searching, I suddenly came across Cassandra Syndrome. I was in shock. It described perfectly what I am going through. I was in disbelief. How could a therapist completely overlook this during our sessions?

My wife looks and acts normal in any social situation but when we're alone her behaviour and actions can often be pretty extreme. No one I talk to takes me seriously because they can't imagine her acting like I describe. I feel completely alone in my misery.

Now I'm broken, feeling sorry for myself, angry and bitter. I feel completely let down and don't know what to do.

Since I found out about Cassandra Syndrome, things with my wife have only got worse. In a way, learning this has helped me understand that I'm not going crazy and I guess that's a good thing. I've started protecting myself by setting boundaries, but my wife takes this as an attack.

I've been reading my journal, and there are many mentions of how over the past few months I've communicated to my wife the serious concerns about my mental health and how every time they were dismissed. We had a massive row last night in which I pointed this out. She now says that she's heard me. I don't know what to think. It always takes for me to completely break down before any notice is taken.

I see very little hope in the future of our marriage.

I'm not expecting any answers. I'm just venting, as I have no one to talk to.

Parents

  • I'm sorry to hear you have had such a rough journey with this - I have had a similar, if less extreme experience and I found that getting my own therapist who was very knowledgable in autism was the best thing to happen to me.

    My therapist helped me develop tools to cope with my autistic traits, to understand them better so I could spot when they were being triggered and taught me that the world was a very different place to what I thought I was seeing.

    One thing many of us autists have a hard time with is understanding the other persons point of view or what they may be feeling, and the compound effect of them living with us and our issues can make them behave in strange ways - almost traumatised in their own way.

    Being taught to correctly identify our own emotions (beyond anger and fear) and connect with them enables us to live a fuller life and be able to more correctly identify these in others as well as empathise better with them.  It is a very individual journey and getting an capable psychotherapist (they should be qualified as such and have a lot of experience of helping autists) is a good start.

    I have heard of less experienced therapists taking sides in couples therapy so it could have been what has happened to you. Personally I would write it off until I have had a chance to work through things with my own therapist and they should be able to help you understand yourself better and have the tools to tackle the relationship issues.

    Could it be Cassandra Syndrome? Possibly but my first thoughts as a non professional are that it is co-incidence and the result of the ND/NT couple having their own issues over a sustained period of time. With the complexities of our conditions, there is rarely a single issue at fault and we are the ones who need to do the majority of the work to have healthier relationships.

    It sucks when we are feeling so broken yet have to do the majority of the work, but throughout therapy, keeping an open and honest dialogue without sounding like the victim is what I would consider the best path forward if I were in your shoes. Don't disclose everything from therapy sessions but talk about progress and what has been learned without assigning blame.

    Your partner is undoubtedly not a completely innocent party in this but before talking about their failings, I would personally work through it with my therapist to make sure I can talk about it in a constructive way and see if I could learn to understand my partners situation and their own traumas from our relationship history.

    The end result for me was a far greater understanding of myself, the damage/pain I had inadvertently caused to be able to empathise and communicate more honestly with my partner.

    bacarino said:
    I see very little hope in the future of our marriage.

    I would suggest that it is too early to call the end of it - make the effort and show you are working on trying to fix it. Avoid arguments if you can, offer what support you are able and fight for the relationship these ways.

    In the event your partner calls an end to it then plan ahead for what could happen from a practical perspective. Work out where to go, how to live, what you need to take with you if you have to leave, what documents do you need etc. It sucks to have to do this but doing it while in a relatively stable place mentally is much better than when you are in the turmoil of a breakup itself.

    When the planning is out the way it can lift a load from your mind - you can focus on the here and now and getting better, safe in the knowledge that the next steps are thought through and prepared for.

    All this is just the thoughts of some random person off the internet so don't place much weight on them. I hope some are of interest.

    Hopefully you can work things out - good luck with what you do next.

Reply

  • I'm sorry to hear you have had such a rough journey with this - I have had a similar, if less extreme experience and I found that getting my own therapist who was very knowledgable in autism was the best thing to happen to me.

    My therapist helped me develop tools to cope with my autistic traits, to understand them better so I could spot when they were being triggered and taught me that the world was a very different place to what I thought I was seeing.

    One thing many of us autists have a hard time with is understanding the other persons point of view or what they may be feeling, and the compound effect of them living with us and our issues can make them behave in strange ways - almost traumatised in their own way.

    Being taught to correctly identify our own emotions (beyond anger and fear) and connect with them enables us to live a fuller life and be able to more correctly identify these in others as well as empathise better with them.  It is a very individual journey and getting an capable psychotherapist (they should be qualified as such and have a lot of experience of helping autists) is a good start.

    I have heard of less experienced therapists taking sides in couples therapy so it could have been what has happened to you. Personally I would write it off until I have had a chance to work through things with my own therapist and they should be able to help you understand yourself better and have the tools to tackle the relationship issues.

    Could it be Cassandra Syndrome? Possibly but my first thoughts as a non professional are that it is co-incidence and the result of the ND/NT couple having their own issues over a sustained period of time. With the complexities of our conditions, there is rarely a single issue at fault and we are the ones who need to do the majority of the work to have healthier relationships.

    It sucks when we are feeling so broken yet have to do the majority of the work, but throughout therapy, keeping an open and honest dialogue without sounding like the victim is what I would consider the best path forward if I were in your shoes. Don't disclose everything from therapy sessions but talk about progress and what has been learned without assigning blame.

    Your partner is undoubtedly not a completely innocent party in this but before talking about their failings, I would personally work through it with my therapist to make sure I can talk about it in a constructive way and see if I could learn to understand my partners situation and their own traumas from our relationship history.

    The end result for me was a far greater understanding of myself, the damage/pain I had inadvertently caused to be able to empathise and communicate more honestly with my partner.

    bacarino said:
    I see very little hope in the future of our marriage.

    I would suggest that it is too early to call the end of it - make the effort and show you are working on trying to fix it. Avoid arguments if you can, offer what support you are able and fight for the relationship these ways.

    In the event your partner calls an end to it then plan ahead for what could happen from a practical perspective. Work out where to go, how to live, what you need to take with you if you have to leave, what documents do you need etc. It sucks to have to do this but doing it while in a relatively stable place mentally is much better than when you are in the turmoil of a breakup itself.

    When the planning is out the way it can lift a load from your mind - you can focus on the here and now and getting better, safe in the knowledge that the next steps are thought through and prepared for.

    All this is just the thoughts of some random person off the internet so don't place much weight on them. I hope some are of interest.

    Hopefully you can work things out - good luck with what you do next.

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