Do you think it’s possible? For one to suffer from schizophrenia triggered by relationship issues? (quite commonly triggered by drugs, trauma, stress, alcohol, adverse experience… But relationship problems?!)

They have been in a relationship for few years, after knowing each other since 7 or 8 years old in tuition centre. They also have a common childhood friend Ernest who attended the same schools with the guy Kenji. Sue knew Ernest had a crush on her when he was 12 or 13. But she didn’t think it was a problem, and didn’t take any action. She continued to maintain their friendships, spending a lot of time together, sometimes they could chat over the phone for hours. Sue didn’t hide any of this from her boyfriend Kenji, for the first few years, Kenji never (appear to) mind his girlfriend’s close relationship with another guy.

Till one day more recently, Kenji started to shout at and scold Sue, for still staying with Ernest despite knowing the latter admiring her. He said Ernest isn’t a good guy to befriend with, and he is kind enough to warn her about this. For the sake of her boyfriend, Sue decided to slowly keep her distance from Ernest. That didn’t help, Kenji started to hear voices, asking him to leave her, saying she wasn’t “the one” for him, he’d be better off without her. The voices were haunting him, day and night, especially when he was alone, so bad that Kenji started to stay away from Sue (which somehow relieves the symptoms).

Of course he still loves her. But he couldn’t bear the voices and hallucination. He didn’t feel better staying away from Sue, as he’s still thinking about her all the time, and fighting for her against the voices. He feels like he’s going crazy. He’s slowly losing his ability to function in other parts of his life.

Sue then decided to seek professional help for him. There wasn’t any apparent or direct family history of mental illness in Kenji’s family. It was in fact difficult to find the trigger. But Sue thinks it was all her fault, she is the cause and trigger of the psychotic symptoms in her boyfriend.

Is it possible?