From personal experience, they will serve you bland grilled chicken and overcooked vegetables night after night. Then, later, you will hear the microwave beeping. You will find a burger wrapper in the trash. You will smell takeout in the kitchen at midnight. They will claim they are just not hungry. But the truth is, they didn’t care enough to make you a decent meal. You were fed out of obligation, not love. And while you are forcing down dry food, they are treating themselves to the very thing they told you they could not afford or did not have the energy to make.
It is the emotional equivalent of watching someone starve you and then sneak into the pantry at 2:00 a.m. It’s not just selfishness; it’s sadism because deep down, they enjoy knowing you are sitting there eating something they wouldn’t even touch.
If you have ever tried explaining this to someone who has not experienced narcissistic abuse in this way, you probably got the same response: “Oh, you are reading too much into it. It’s just food. Get over it.” But it’s not just food. It’s a mirror of how they treat you—with disregard, with calculation, with emotional distance masked as normalcy. When someone cares about you, they try to nourish you if they can, even in small, clumsy ways. But when someone wants to control you, they will use whatever is available, including your plate.
The pain of this kind of treatment does not come from bad meals. It comes from the emotional starvation it represents. You sit at the table not just hungry for food, but hungry for kindness, consistency, and care. And the narcissist knows that. That is what makes it so cruel. They know what you need; they just choose not to give it. And somehow, they still get to look like the generous one.
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