91. Intimate Partner Violence & Eating Disorders: Narcissistic Abuse, Trauma Bonds, and Treatment Insights with Dr. Lauren Napolitano, PsyD

So this is a really heavy topic.

It's an important topic, which is why we're so happy you're here to talk about it today.

I don't think we talk about this nearly enough in the mental health field, but especially in the eating disorder field.

Mm-hmm.

And I was wondering, how did you develop this specific interest in intimate partner violence and, and eating disorders?

Well, the true answer for any of us doing any kind of, like, passion projects is it's lived experience, right? Like, I'm not gonna turn into a passion about geology and volcanoes 'cause that's not something I've lived through.

But I have lived through an eating disorder and intimate partner violence.

So when I was in college, I had an eating disorder for several years of college, and I was very fortunate actually to get great treatment, coincidentally, at the Renfrew Center in New Jersey, not an ad.

But, and I, I think relatively quickly the therapist that I was working with was able to help me see that chasing thinness was not making me happy, right? Like, I was able to see, like, oh, all these attempts at getting thin was not making me feel accepted, loved, like I'd reached any kind of destination.

So relatively quickly I was able to kind of dismantle some of my eating disorder symptoms, which felt like a win.

However, in hindsight, what I ended up doing is taking all of that energy, which, as you know, is a tremendous amount of energy to sustain an eating disorder.

Mm-hmm.

And I just decided, okay, well, if thinness won't make me happy, what will make me happy? So I looked at...

Again, this is the '90s.

I [laughs] was pouring through all of the women's magazines of the time, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Cosmo, and the answer overwhelmingly was, "If you can get picked by a man, you will be happy."

Mm.

"If you can get chosen, you will be happy.

You will have this brass ring, this evidence of being lovable, of being beautiful, of being societally acceptable." So I poured all of my eating disorder energy into getting chosen and really being, quote, unquote, "on track" to get married.

I wanted to be on track to get married by 27.

I wanted to have a baby at 29.

I wanted to be hitting society's milestones in a very specific way, because that's really what young women are told to do.

Mm-hmm.

Get partnered, be on track-

Yep

... sort of hit these milestones in a certain order.