Actress Anupama Parameswaran has revealed for the first time the physical toll of the “narcissistic abuse” she experienced during a two-year relationship with an actor.

Speaking on the I AM With Dhanya Varma show, Anupama said the constant stress and anxiety caused health problems that she had never experienced before in her life, some of which required surgical intervention and others that directly disrupted her ability to work on film sets.

“I was a happy child. I was a normal child. I would just chill in my life. None of this had happened before,” she said, before listing what her body went through during the relationship.

The problems started with panic attacks and anxiety attacks. She said they would come without warning, leaving her physically unable to function. “Our legs would suddenly start to shiver, our hands would start shaking, and we couldn’t even control it,” she said. Alongside the panic attacks came constant blackouts, episodes where she would lose consciousness or awareness without any prior medical history of such incidents.

The anxiety also destroyed her ability to eat. She said that every time she consumed food, a conversation with her partner would trigger her anxiety so severely that she would throw up. “Whatever I ate, some conversation would happen, it would trigger my anxiety, and I would throw up,” she said. The result was severe weight loss that was visible to people around her but that she could not explain publicly at the time.

What affected her work most directly was her right eye. She said it began twitching uncontrollably during shoots, to the point where filming had to be paused. “My right eye would start glitching. You have to stop shooting because my eyes would start glitching. You can’t even stop it.”

Story continues below this ad

The most serious physical consequence came when her lacrimal gland, the gland responsible for producing tears, swelled up and dropped from its normal position. She said the damage was caused by crying for hours every night over an extended period. “I was crying every single night for hours and hours, and I would have to get up and go to the shoot,” she said, adding, “All of a sudden, my lacrimal gland came down till here. It was swollen, and I had to get surgery done.”

She pointed to her promotional appearances for the film Paradha as visible evidence of the damage. “If you see the promotions of Paradha, you can see that one side of my eye was very swollen. The lacrimal gland itself had fallen down completely, and then they had to stitch it back,” she said.

Even beyond these specific issues, Anupama Parameswaran said there were other physical problems she did not detail publicly. “There are wounds in my body, not by physical abuse, not directly by someone punching, but wounds and issues in my body that can never be healed. Physical and mental ones, for whatever I went through.”

Story continues below this ad

She was clear that none of these health problems existed before the relationship. The panic attacks, the blackouts, the weight loss, the eye issues, the gut problems, all of them began during the two years she has described as the most difficult period of her life. “Nothing of this sort had happened before. None of this,” she said.

Anupama Parameswaran has not named the person she was in a relationship with. Reports have linked the unnamed ex-boyfriend to actor Dhruv Vikram, with whom she co-starred in Mari Selvaraj’s Bison Kaalamaadan (2025). Neither Anupama nor Dhruv has publicly confirmed or denied the relationship.

HELP IS A CALL AWAY

MENTAL HEALTH HELPLINE NUMBERS

AASRA


Contact: 9820466726


Email: aasrahelpline@yahoo.com


Timings: 24×7


Languages: English, Hindi

Story continues below this ad

Snehi


Contact: 9582208181


Email: snehi.india@gmail.com


Timings: 10am – 10pm, all days


Languages: English, Hindi, Marathi

Fortis MentalHealth


Contact: 8376804102


Timings: 24×7; All days


Languages: Achiku, Assamese, Bengali, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu

Connecting NGO


Contact: 9922004305, 9922001122


Email: distressmailsconnecting@gmail.com


Timings: 12pm – 8pm; All days


Languages: English, Hindi, Marathi

Vandrevala Foundation


Contact: 18602662345


Email: help@vandrevalafoundation.com


Timings: 24×7


Languages: Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and English