When You Can’t Even Promise Fidelity: Living with Psychosis and the Fear of Losing Control

By someone who’s learning to survive their own mind

I want to be honest in a way that doesn’t make me sound like I’m making excuses—but I know how this might land.

This is not a cop-out. It’s a confession.

I’ve never wanted to cheat on anyone I’ve loved. But the truth is, I hesitate when I’m asked to promise, “Would you never cheat?”

Because what no one really talks about is what happens when you live on the edge of your own mind—when you’re not always sure who you are, what’s real, or if you’re still fully in control.

That’s what it feels like living in a state of attenuated psychosis, or in the prodromal phase of a break.

It’s not always dramatic. Sometimes it’s just a slow fog creeping in, thoughts twisting, reality bending—but gently, like water warping glass.

I still look like me. I still sound like me.

But inside, I’m barely tethered.

Sometimes I lose time.

Sometimes I follow a thought that isn’t mine.

Sometimes I believe someone is trying to hurt me—and I can’t tell if that’s a trauma response or a hallucination.

Sometimes I feel so detached, so unloved, so unreal, that the wrong touch feels like the only anchor I have.

That doesn’t mean I want to cheat.

It means I don’t always know who I’ll be when my mind stops obeying me.

And god—do you know how crushing that is?

To not be able to trust yourself?

To love someone deeply but know there are parts of your brain that don’t play by your rules?

To feel the disorganized thinking creep in—making you confuse affection with attention, safety with escape, connection with compulsion?

It doesn’t mean I’m irresponsible.

It means I’m vulnerable in ways most people never have to think about.

And it hurts. It hurts to say this.

Because if someone I loved said this to me, I don’t know if I’d feel comforted or terrified.

It sounds like I’m just making a loophole.

It sounds like I’m planning to hurt someone.

But this is actually the opposite.

This is me saying: I love you enough to be terrified of what I might do when I’m not okay.

This is me saying: I’m not safe from my own brain sometimes—and that’s not romantic, but it’s real.

So what does this mean?

It means if I’m with someone, I need them to understand that my illness isn’t just “in my head.”

It touches my behavior. My memory. My moral compass when the storm is strongest.

And I am desperate to keep those moments from happening again.

But I can’t promise I’ll always win the battle.

I can only promise I’ll fight it.

So no—I can’t promise I’d never cheat.

But I can promise you this:

If I ever do, it will break me, not just you.

And it won’t be out of apathy.

It’ll be out of dissociation, delusion, desperation—none of which excuse the hurt, but all of which explain the war I live with.

If you’ve been here, too—on this ledge between honesty and heartbreak—just know you’re not alone.

And if you’re someone who loves someone like me, thank you for holding space for a reality that’s messier than vows and harder than promises.

Some of us aren’t liars.

Some of us are just surviving minds we didn’t choose.