this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2026
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Autistic safe person breakup (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 days ago by Capitanmaroon@lemmy.world to c/autism@lemmy.world
38 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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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[–] modem_down@thebrainbin.org 10 points 4 days ago (2 children) 
You just slip out the back, Jack.
Make a new plan, Stan.
You don't need to be coy, Roy,
Just get yourself free.
Hop on the bus, Gus,
You don't need to discuss much.
Just drop off the key, Lee,
And get yourself free.

In all seriousness, I’d suggest promising specific regular occasions when you’d be happy to meet your ex as a friend, so that they aren’t left entirely without friendship and without events to look forward to. First Saturday afternoon of each month for the next 12 months, or some such.

I’d also recommend contacting a local autism support group who might be able to check in with your ex periodically to help them recover and move on. Ideally, they’d hang out with your ex right after each time your ex sees you, to help take your ex’s mind off you.

[–] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Out of curiosity, why are some of the words in your comment differently colored?

[–] dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (2 children)

i can answer this. the triple-backtick block assumes you're writing in program code, like Javascript. The wild-looking highlighting follows most code syntax.

https://markdowncheatsheet.com/reference/code-blocks

[–] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago

I didn't recognize it as a code block without code! Makes perfect sense.

[–] modem_down@thebrainbin.org 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

wild-looking highlighting

Interesting. I'm not seeing anything wild-looking in my comment.

[–] elephantium@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)
[–] november@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 days ago

It looks like your instance is automatically assuming everything inside a preformatted block is some kind of code.

[–] modem_down@thebrainbin.org 3 points 3 days ago

All the text in my previous comment is black, at least on my screen.

Do you mean the song lyrics, which have a grey background? If so, that's because I used Markdown's preformatted text block feature, so the newlines would be in the right places.

[–] LavaPlanet@sh.itjust.works 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, but nah, she's engaged a rule for herself that her safety is reliant on external factors, it's a consistent loop of evoking fight or flight. It's enabling to continue a relationship in any form, op actually needs to entirely cut cords. Then ex can see she can survive without op, invalidating said rule. But that will take therapy and guidance, so definitely engaging mental health services. But absolutely nope tf out of there, op. Zero contact, go.

[–] modem_down@thebrainbin.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

op actually needs to entirely cut cords. Then ex can see she can survive without op

That seems an unnecessarily impatient and risky suggestion, if the ex is as unwell/fragile as OP indicated; it risks ex committing self-harm or worse.

[–] LavaPlanet@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 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.

[–] modem_down@thebrainbin.org 1 points 15 minutes ago

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.