Aarav was being punished by his romantic partner without him knowing.
Aarav would go days without eating much and it would lead to a further downward spiral of emotions. The first thing I told him was to eat a banana a day. To drink electral and add a multivitamin to his daily routine. I started with indirect things – that he had not even considered could be the reason he was ‘always struggling emotionally’ as he put it.
Aarav was feeling the aftershocks of the deliberate punishment that he had been getting from his narc partner. He had not realized it but the bouts of not feeling hungry would follow the bouts of punishment he had received.
Whenever he stood up for what he felt was wrong in their relationship and did not agree with his partner on something or did what he had been ‘told’ that he was ‘not supposed to do’ – he always was meted erratic behavior by the narc that led to his emotions going down further.
This was ‘punishment’ I told him, for trying to stand up and have a boundary and have your views that are going against the training and brainwashing that the narc wants to do with you.
You are a person that is a tough nut to crack that is defying the narcissist’s toxic schemes.
On the one hand it is a challenge that narcs love to crack and on the other it is also an act they despise – that you are being rebellious and they are not able to exert their power and control game over you the way they would like to.
They hate it.
They will amp up their toxicity and the cruelty in a way that you cannot notice.
“It was a natural and organic part of our lives” Aarav said. “He would say he is busy or his mother is in town or something that I could not impinge upon and stayed away. This went on for a week and was so uncharacteristic of him. From messaging me every half hour or checking on me a gazillion times a day to barely a trickle. It was a stark withdrawal but I could not see it at all. It just made me wait by the phone and be adjusting and accommodating to his schedule, while ignoring mine and putting mine on complete hold. Even after I had been so adjusting, I was accused of being selfish, demanding and self-centered and could not comprehend why. I tried my best to adjust even better and just keep the peace. He would get it eventually, I thought. I valued peace more than winning the argument with him and so gave in most times. Despite this I was punished,” Aarav felt.
Aarav said that his partner knew the things that he was insecure about in the relationship and needed reassurance for. They had spoken about it many times and Aarav had articulated his needs clearly. But when it came to doing the actions and saying the words that Aarav wanted to hear, his partner never said nor did those things when he was required to or when a healthy person would. Instead – those were the exact times he would withhold the reassurance or go off-radar and not be present even. And according to Aarav, when his partner would return from the silent-treatment – his partner would talk about how he was kind to this random person whom he did not know and who appeared in his life and he felt compassion toward and how he did all the actions that Aarav had been holding his breath for, fighting for, begging for and had never got from him which a stranger had received, just like that.
Again, we worked on breaking these actions down so that Aarav could understand how his own triggers and needs were being used and exploited by his partner. Aarav started making small changes to his thinking and to his actions.
When he saw how his partner’s actions made him feel a sense of rejection and how the disconnect to himself became activated, Aarav worked harder and deliberately put the brakes on. Aarav actioned the steps to feeling more connected and anchored to who he really was and not the triggers/emotional wounds that his partner was working to activate and send Aarav into self-hate and rejection – so as to not want to eat or look after himself. Aarav could now spot these times and he worked to slowly become stronger to be able to disconnect from his partner fully.
It was very tough and Aarav took it as a challenge and vowed to not let his partner play with his emotions. He worked hard “to accept his horrible feelings as messengers of his truth” like he said. He heard the voice that would say “you are not loved at all not even by him,” and he would do extra self-connect-actions – that would make that voice not affect him. We worked on a daily action plan at first to cut the trigger-activated state within him then every 3 days leading to weekly action-plans and then devise new strategies for the next week depending on where he had landed – all the way till Aarav was able to navigate the shock and dysfunctional emotions that cropped up from time to time.
He no longer got triggered and did not self-inflict more pain. Instead – “those were my most connected times of self-love and self-respect towards me” he said.
The above is a recreation of an actual case by permission. Names have been changed.