Do Weight Gain and Narcissistic Abuse Have a Connection?

After I went no-contact with my narcissist, a funny thing happened. I kind of got my life together (eventually) and I dropped more than 100 pounds

When my PhD friend heard about this, she reached out to me and mentioned that she, too, found herself uncomfortably overweight after her narcissistic abuse experience. And, she said, that “without any effort at all (no dieting),” she had managed to drop 40 or more pounds once she’d escaped from her toxic relationship – all of which she has kept off without effort since.

Like me, she said she just didn’t “see it” in the mirror – and that though she can look back and see it in old photos today, she really didn’t realize how heavy she’d become. She also noted that she sees a very sad and depressed look about her when she looks at those photos. If you ask me, she was wearing her pain, just like I had been doing.

Everyone Can See It But You

Everyone copes with the emotional pain and trauma in their own way. For people who are addicted to gambling, it shows in their bank accounts. For those who are addicted to alcohol or drugs, the damage shows first in their relationships, and then on their faces and in their health. For those of us who have a tendency to comfort ourselves with food, it shows on the outside sooner and in more obvious (and less socially acceptable) ways – PLUS it can often directly affect our physical and mental health profoundly.

“During the marriage, there were many discards, and I did seem to lose significant amounts of weight during these phases, only to put the pounds back on when he would decide to re-cycle me,” she told me in an email, adding that she wondered if this was a pattern I observed in narcissistic relationships. “It would be interesting to see if there is a pattern of weight gain over the years of time spent with a narcissist.” So, what’s the answer?