Sleeping With the Killer – The Hidden Cost of Erasure in NeuroDivergent Relationships

Today’s message is one I’ve waited a long time to post. It’s raw. It’s personal. It’s painful. And it may just be life-saving—for those who have ears to hear.

Because sometimes what’s killing you isn’t stress. It’s who you’re sleeping beside.

Inch by Inch, Stress Kills

I was a little girl wearing my favorite Kathy-Kathy-Kathy T-shirt. Bright stripes. Bold letters. It was my armor. My declaration. I am here. I matter.

But even then, I was fighting for identity.

I pretended I couldn’t read in second grade so my mother would read to me—because it was the only time I felt connection. But she was autistic, and connection was not her language. When she was dying, I was 25. I asked my therapist to help me reach her, to find some way to connect before it was too late. But it was already too late. No one understood back then what NeuroDivergence does to children, especially the NeuroTypical ones.

Even on the night Howard and I decided to get married, my unconscious tried to warn me. I had a dream that jolted me awake—Howard was smothering me with a pillow. I brushed it off. Laughed nervously. But my soul already knew.

As a nine year old I developed a heart murmur after scarlet fever. Strep throat haunted my young adulthood. I had severe strep on my wedding day. And during my marriage to Howard, I experienced the slow burn of chronic candida, autoimmune flares, unexplained skin inflammation. My body was screaming, but I didn’t yet know how to listen.

Even after I found the courage to leave him, my body kept breaking. I fell down stairs, broke bones, again and again. Meanwhile, my daughter Bianca was melting down daily, her own autism undiagnosed, her sensory system shot. Her father refused to help. One night I called him in desperation during one of her meltdowns. He told me, “You wanted this divorce. Take care of it yourself.” It?

The Healers Who Didn’t Help

I went to chiropractors, naturopaths, energy workers—searching for someone who would see me. One chiropractor actually told me, “I’ll help your daughters, but not you. You’re an adult. You can take care of yourself.” He believed that I was the cause of all of the stress in our lives.

But I couldn’t take care of myself. Not anymore. I was collapsing.

One therapist—Frank—was brave enough to tell me the truth:

“You need to learn to protect yourself.”
But how do you protect yourself when you’re the one everyone depends on? When you’re holding the center, when you are the designated listener, fixer, healer? The command to protect myself felt like betrayal. Of my children. Of my clients. Of my partner. Of all the wounded souls I’d taken under my wing.

But I’ve since learned that protection isn’t betrayal. It’s oxygen. And I had been holding my breath for decades.

My skin burned. My gut rebelled. My sleep disappeared. And the worst part? I was invisible in my own suffering. It wasn’t just the autistic partner who didn’t see me. It was the culture of silence surrounding NeuroDivergent relationships.

One woman in my support group sat silently for most of our session, saying nothing. I finally called on her, gently. At first she hesitated—but then she looked up and whispered, “What can I do? I have no choice.”

That moment cut to the bone. It wasn’t helplessness I saw in her eyes—it was a lifetime of gaslighting, of resignation, of grief. This is what happens when there’s no language for what you’re experiencing. When even the professionals don’t believe you. When your suffering is met with silence or skepticism.

When the Autistic Partner Takes All the Oxygen

I reconnected recently with Mel, a man from my past. Autistic, emotionally volatile, and entirely self-absorbed. I knew him and his wife, Shari, when we were all young. She was gentle, bright, a trained social worker who never got to use her voice professionally. She raised their one child, tended their homes—yes, plural—and traveled alongside him as he built an empire.

I asked him, gently, how Shari managed her cancer diagnosis, and the 18 months before she died. He said, “She was angry. Angry she never got to do all the things she wanted in life.”

And I knew instantly what that meant. Because I had watched the vibrancy fade from her even back then. When he showed me her photo taken shortly before she died, I had to assume it was her. She looked dark, weighted down, almost unrecognizable. The sparkle I remembered—the woman who used to laugh with me poolside—was long gone.

She gave her life to him. And he drained her dry. Then she died.

What strikes me most is this: even in grief, Mel made it about himself. His volatility, his pain, his fear of being alone. Never once did he ask about my illness. Never once acknowledged the years I’d spent carrying my own pain. Instead, he criticized me for being too preoccupied with my suffering. As if I hadn’t earned the right to fall apart.

This, too, is part of the cost. Not just erasure—but inversion. You become the selfish one for speaking your truth. You become the problem when your body collapses from the weight of carrying everyone else’s needs.

The New Generation – A Warning

Now I see younger people in my support groups—30s, 40s—already battling autoimmune disease, IBS, fibromyalgia, thyroid issues. Some are still trying to hold the marriage together. Others are on the brink. I want to tell them what I wish someone had told me:

It can kill you.
Not in one blow, but slowly. Inch by inch. Cell by cell. Until your system collapses.

And to autistic partners, I say this with love and urgency: resisting a diagnosis is dangerous. Not just to your NT loved ones, but to you. Your suffering counts too. But refusing to own your neurological reality only perpetuates the cycle.

Asserting that you are who you are and expecting others to adapt may feel like empowerment, but it’s not healing. Healing requires awareness, accountability, and action.

Yes, for the NeuroDiverse, accepting a diagnosis is not enough. I often hear: “I don’t like labels.” Or, “It’s a Spectrum and I might have some traits, but not them all.” Or, “What does a diagnosis have to do with our marital problems? She’s just too sensitive.” Blaming others and refusing to see the destruction you’ve caused doesn’t make love work better. It may feel depressing or fill you with grief, but this awareness is your opportunity to make a difference—if only for one person. The person beside you. The person inside you.

A Wake-Up Call

This blog is not a eulogy. It’s a wake-up call.

If you’ve lost yourself in a relationship that always makes you the one who bends, who forgives, who explains—this episode is for you. If your body is screaming, listen. It may be the only part of you still able to speak the truth.

Your compass never lies.

Until next time, I’m Dr. Kathy Marshack. Stay strong. Speak up. And take back your health—and your story.