Sunil, Week 2

In this episode, Sunil demonstrates an inability to voice his opinions and state his own likes and dislikes. He points to one time when he spoke harshly to his son in voicing his opinions, Arun, but in the example all that comes through is how Arun spoke harshly to him. In any case, Sunil was speaking to his son at his wife's behest to communicate his wife's concerns. So even if he did speak harshly, his independent opinions were not expressed. He also reacts meekly when teenagers spill soda on him while on the train in traveling to Paul's office, although that could simply be because he is alone in a strange land.

Julia's narcissistic personality is demonstrated in her browbeating behavior after the encounter in the bathroom and also in the fact that she showers with her six-year-old son, Sam. The latter should not be seen as misplaced eroticism, but rather as child abuse for the purposes of exerting control over her son. One must also wonder about whether she washed Sam in the shower and how. Alarm bells should have gone off in Paul's head when told of Julia's practice, but Paul gives no evidence of them. Although narcissists present the appearance of being opinionated and very sure of themselves, they are extremely insecure and must therefore control everyone around them to keep them behaving in a manner the narcissist knows how to cope with. Julia's treatment of Sunil as a child is in line with this insecurity.

Sunil laments that his son is becoming more and more like Julia and that Arun does not rule his own home. Everything he says about his own home existence in Calcutta, however, indicates that he did not rule his own home, either. It seems safe to guess that his wife was also a narcissistic personality, and that Sunil therefore finds himself under the thumb of a narcissist for at least the second time in the person of Julia. An inability to express one's own opinions on important matters is one price one pays for adapting to a life with a narcissist. Given the insecurity of narcissists, one must either agree with them or remain silent. Gradually silence becomes habitual to the point that contrary opinions don't even rise to consciousness. Sunil doesn't fail to answer Paul's questions about his opinions and desires because he is seething with them but is reluctant to give them voice. Rather he is silent because he can't think of anything to say. He isn't even conscious that this suppression of normal self-expression has left him angry. This has possibly been a lifelong anger, as his mother could have been narcissistic too.

This episode, then, seemingly confirms the possibility that Julia and Sunil's wife were both narcissists, and that Sunil has found himself under the thumb of a narcissist at least two times in his life. But there is a difference with Julia. Sunil can choose whether or not to relate to her in this case and seems to have chosen the latter. This decision opens the door to life-changing possibilities and also endless conflicts with Julia.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• In Treatment
• narcissism
• insecurity

[giorozza]

Apparently, @behrooz4 is blocking my response, so I'll just write a general one. His opinion is "it's still with a 6 year old, which I think by most people's standards is strange". Of course I don't know anything about him; what is his cultural background, upbringing, how he's been raised... But it's striking to me how a young man can have such prejudicial views about a mom bathing with her 6 year old child. "Most people's standards"(?) I disagree completely. Most people where? Islamic cultures?

[ControlMastery]

@giorozza If the culture were that of a hunter-gatherer society in which near-nudity were the norm, I would agree that there generally would be no impact if the mother did manipulate the child's geni'tials while "washing" him or if the mother did nothing considered sexually provocative by the culture. You are correct that one's culture needs to be taken into account, which you are failing to do.

[giorozza]

@ControlMastery Quite the contrary; I'm considering cultural value to try to understand why it would be such a "shocker" that a mom bathes her child. The genitalia needs to be touched in order to be cleaned, correct?! I don't meant to be offensive, but my perception is believe that you have very wicked concepts of mother-child relationship. He's a 6 year old boy, not 16 - which of course, would be absolutely wrong/incestuous.

[ControlMastery]

@giorozza The situation was not that she was washing her child but that she bathed with him. Julia's obvious use of bodily exposure and contact to manipulate Sunil and her husband make it a reasonable guess that she was doing the same thing with her son, which is a form of child abuse.

[giorozza]

@giorozza Sorry for my "miss-typing"...It should read "I don't mean", and the word "believe" should have been erased; I was writing "I believe that", and changed to "my perception is".

[behrooz4]

@giorozza ...I suppose we can just agree to disagree. I think I should have clarified what I found strange - not the act of washing the child himself - which you are right, is normal - but the implication of her showering with the child is that she is naked as well. That is what I found weirdly Oedipal.

[behrooz4]

@giorozza Well, it's still with a 6 year old, which I think by most people's standards is strange. Obviously, yes, Julia's a fictional character - we don't know all the details. And that's the point - we don't know for certain if their showering together is innocuous or something more sinister, but in light of the rest of Sunil's episodes and the fact that this is HBO, it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine the sexual control implications of Julia's behavior.

[giorozza]

@behrooz4 Well, you can interpret it in a thousand different ways. Julia is a fictional character, we don't really have much information about her anyway. What I'm saying is that a mother showering with her children, regardless of the gender, is a NATURAL thing. If it's an issue, that's because your minds are making it an issue. I suggest that you read at least a little bit about sexual deviancy before jumping to conclusions like that. You guys make me sick to my stomach, honestly. 

[behrooz4]

@giorozza Uhm - I think the uploader is right here. Julia's showering with her 6-year-old son is not only deeply weird, it reeks of incest and sexual deviancy.

[hotstepperish]

i love the bit about yellow shining hair!! cracked me up!