Hi All,

Recently, my partner (female) of four years has broke up with myself after experiencing an episode, where she was in high intensity care for a period of 2 weeks. Her Schizophrenia came from genetics, passed down from her mother however she is very extremely high-functioning and performing. She can speak 5 different languages fluently, her intellectual ability is amazing but this also did come at the expense of her being underweight/not eating etc. She had often job swapped, and have common symptoms that I personally had ignored because this did not change her relationship with myself. Her condition never changed the person, or the type of person she was to myself or others, and she often had always kept it quiet.

My partner has always been a high performer and an very high achieving intellect. Her first episode was almost a decade ago, after smoking marijuana and this caused her first ever episode and she was MIA for roughly 6 months. After this episode, she has (almost) followed through with taking medication, with two other consecutive in nearly a 4 year pattern, with the common theme being related to stress. I personally did not know about her condition until 7 months of us dating out of the 4 years however this had never changed my love or care for herself. We had full intention of getting engaged in 2023. She was managing well, had high-energy and was an amazing human. She was never aggressive, not a smoker, drinker or consumed drugs apart from that initial incident.

Her more recent episode came though from a trait, that I encouraged her to address and manage, which is being a workaholic. She was obsessed with her work, in a fantastic way and doing fantastic and amazing things that change other peoples lives. She was selfless, pleasing people and slowly she forgot to please herself. She was very "normal" throughout our relationship, considering we've travelled overseas together multiple times, including pre-COVID. She became severely stressed induced, and later was missing for over 30+ hours without a phone or a way to contact her.

During her 2 week stay at the high intensity care, she had a self-realisation that she needs to take her condition seriously, to achieve all of her career and family goals. I supported her, and her whole family during this time. 

After her stay, she decided she needed to turn a new leaf however she unfortunately did not communicate this, going missing again and not being contactable (no phone). I tried my best to support her, and she understood that, and I never showed anger, hatred and only empathy knowing and researching of how to assist her best. The part that I'm struggling to understand, and more so for clarity, is herself turning a new leaf.

She has an obsession for dancing/partying/drinking alcohol, learning another language (French) and anything to do within the French culture. She had broke up with myself, saying that she does not want to burden my life, but along with a few points of minor disagreements (e.g. myself encouraging her not going to a drug-invested music festival by herself, however for my friends to look after her), and some other irrelevant points.

I'm trying my best to understand, not the break-up part, as we are civil, adults and want to remain as friends (as we have professional overlap in our careers also) but more so her obsession of dancing/music/getting drunk/French culture. Her parents advised me she was in denial of this episode happening, but this came out of the blew. Initially my partner did not take her medication and was refusing, however she eventually came to the realisation that she needed to take her medication.

Personally, I'm taking self-care and ensuring that I look after myself,. However I've exhausted all options on my front and our contingency plan we had set up had "failed". Her family and friends understand and I cannot assist my partner any further. However through my hours of research, I could not find any correlation with her "new" personality after this episode.

**TLDR:** Are there any studies, or anyone have any experience with a partner (or yourself, or someone personally) that has tried to shift their personality after experiencing an schizophrenia/psychotic episode? Or is this an unrelated "symptom"?

***Please note, I'm trying my best to learn and understand here!***

Thanks All :)