Anupama Parameswaran has opened up about one of the most difficult phases of her personal life. In a candid conversation with Dhanya Varma on YouTube, the actress revealed that she spent nearly two years in a narcissistic and emotionally abusive relationship.
Anupama did not reveal the identity of her former partner. However, she has previously been linked to Dhruv Vikram, son of Vikram, famous for Anniyan, Pithamagan, and Ponniyin Selvan.
Anupama stressed that she was not speaking about her experience for attention. She wanted to create awareness because many people could be silently going through similar situations without understanding what is happening to them.
She explained that narcissistic abuse is often silent. It does not necessarily involve someone constantly shouting or behaving aggressively. In her case, it began with intense love bombing. The affection and attention eventually turned into control and emotional manipulation, creating a cycle that she said could almost feel like an addiction.
Anupama revealed that her partner gradually began controlling several aspects of her life. Even her clothing became something she needed permission for. She explained that it could reach a point where sending photos of what she was wearing for approval became mandatory. She said the relationship affected her professional commitments and revealed that she was not allowed to promote films, including Dragon.
Anupama had become isolated and created a bubble around herself and deliberately distanced herself from friends and family. She knew they would see what was happening and tell her to leave the relationship. Instead, she found herself trying to protect the person who was hurting her.
Another disturbing aspect was how quickly the relationship moved towards marriage. Anupama recalled that his family started preparing for an engagement just three months after the relationship began. However, she repeatedly postponed engagement-related conversations because something did not feel right to her.
She eventually felt that the urgency was not coming from love but from a desperation to get someone under control. She described constantly feeling like she was walking on eggshells, never knowing what could trigger another change in his behavior.
Anupama used the character Anniyan, ironically, to explain the drastic difference between the two sides of her former partner.
According to her, he could become cold, dismissive and almost monstrous, even ignoring her when she was going through intense emotional distress. She described it as a cycle where one day he would be abusive and the next day he would be begging her, apologizing and saying it would never happen again. Then came the love bombing, and the cycle would repeat.
Anupama also explained why people outside such relationships often fail to recognize the abuse. She said narcissists can be extremely good performers. In public, they can appear gentle, charming and kind. That creates another layer of confusion for the person experiencing the abuse because nobody around them may believe what is happening behind closed doors.
She struggled with the contradiction between believing that someone who loves her would not hurt her and the reality that the same person was causing her pain.
The relationship eventually affected Anupama’s personality and physical and mental health. She revealed that she lost a lot of weight and was crying almost every night. She was on anxiety medication and suffered constant panic attacks, even while working.
She said she stopped smiling, stopped making eye contact and even avoided physical affection with her own brother because she feared how her partner might react. In other words, she was slowly erasing parts of herself just to keep the relationship going.
Anupama’s decision to discuss the experience publicly was not easy. She said guilt played a major role. She felt guilty thinking that other people could be suffering in silence in similar relationships. That guilt eventually pushed her to speak.
She also revealed that after sharing her experience on social media, she received calls from 12 people from the film industry. They reached out to tell her that her story reflected experiences they had gone through themselves.
For Anupama, that was proof that these patterns of emotional abuse are far more common than people realize.
Perhaps the most striking part of her account is that the abuse did not always look like abuse from the outside. That, according to Anupama, is exactly what makes narcissistic relationships so difficult to recognize and escape.
