Aftab-Shraddha murder case: Here are the points that you should not ignore in arelationship

Aftab-Shraddha murder case: Here are the points that you should not ignore in a relationship and what you should understand about toxic relationships and red flags.

Every person needs to define red flags for themselves – What is acceptable and what is totally unacceptable.

The recent murder of 27-year-old Shraddha Walkar, by her live-in partner Aftab Poonawala, 28, in Delhi, has highlighted how women are victims of toxic relationships and they often ignore the red flags they see in an abusive relationship as they don’t know how to get out of them.

The two had met through a dating app and had been living together since 2019. They had eloped to Delhi after her parents objected to their being together. However, things soured between the couple when Shraddha started pressing Aaftab for marriage. The two got into another quarrel surrounding marriage on May 18, after which he killed her.

According to The Indian Express, Shraddha was physically assaulted multiple times during her relationship with Aftab. She was emotionally blackmailed by him and threatened with suicide if she ended things with him. That’s not all, Shraddha, who used to speak to her friends over the phone, had stopped doing that.

Reports say Shraddha Walkar reported her live-in partner, Aftab, threatened to kill her and cut her body into pieces in 2020. It was also noted that Aftab's family knew he wanted to kill her. However, she added that Aftab tried to kill her on the day she was writing the letter, and he also threatened to kill her, cut her into pieces, and throw her away. "It's been six months he has been hitting me," the letter read.

How a mental health practitioner have could have intervened and helped with this case? After reading Shradha’s history, there are a few points that are appalling. Despite knowing that he can kill her, she chooses to stay with him, which makes us reflect upon the concept of boundaries, toxicity in relationships and codependency.

Red flags

How to know if the person you are seeing is your fairy-tale romance ending in a happily ever after or as pieces of human flesh stacked in the refrigerator only to be thrown around in the forest? How many calls are too many calls? When does care become obsession and protectiveness become dominance? The Shraddha murder case continues to send shivers down our spines, so we must develop a better understanding of how to identify such people who hide their barbarism behind a facade.

We need to be more open about mental health when it comes to identifying such personalities. In most cases the outcome can be traced back to childhood trauma. Unfortunately, mental health is still considered taboo in most parts of the globe even now, people battling such trauma or mental health issues can consider themselves to be weak. This suppressed emotion makes them want to target people who they consider weaker than them. It is difficult to identify such people in just an initial couple of meetings. Even though it is difficult for normal people to identify such people, clinical experts can often figure out if a person is hiding and most often the person displays manipulative behaviour.

"It's easy to tell if someone is faking their personality if they come up with different versions of the same topic, or if they are showing off too much because they are constantly afraid of revealing themselves. The reason they are so sweet is that they don't want their real personalities to show, and that is why they attract more people easily because of that. At first, they would make too many romantic gestures, always be on your call, and be overly invested. These are signs one must look out for because anything in excess is not good and balanced people have a balanced approach. The high and low points in the relationship are drastic with these people, They can lose interest very fast once the initial phase is over. The moment they think they have the situation or the person under control, then they will show their actual color. Usually, they are the charmers or leaders but never followers.

“Red flags include when you are made to feel low in mood and confidence, lack empathy, and miserable. When you are consistently made to feel guilty without any fault of yours. Relationship toxicity is when one constantly feels mentally exhausted, dissatisfied, and unhappy in a relationship. For any meaningful healthy relationship, one requires to build mutual trust, respect, healthy communication patterns, care and concern, empathy, understanding, and love.

Most intense and fast paced relationships tend to become toxic as a lot of decisions aren’t well thought out. We are often blindsided by love and mistake the intensity as passion and chemistry. This is also reinforced by mainstream media and TV series. People often romanticise things like possessiveness and codependency.”

These are the following things to look out for:

• Lying

• Anger outbursts – screaming, yelling

• Paranoid

• Possessiveness

• Lack of trust

• Alcoholism and Substance Use

• Disrespectful and dismissive of your individuality Intimidating and manipulative: exerts a lot of control over your choices, opinions, and who you meet. Isolates you from your existing social network, e.g. family and friends.

• Co-dependency -depend on you for all their emotional needs; threaten to kill themselves if you try to leave or self-harm like cutting themselves

• Gaslighting: a type of psychological abuse where the individual tries to control your sense of reality. For example: if they are cheating and you suspect it they would try to tell you how you don’t trust them and are causing issues in the relationship.

• Physical or Sexual Abuse

• Disrespect your boundaries Never apologises for their mistakes; blames you for everything, and if they do apologise, it's always conditional and not followed by any action.

• Economic control – your financial assets and expenditures are controlled by them.

In this case, all of these points indicate that the relationship was unhealthy, toxic, abusive, and had many red flags. There are four things that women should do. Firstly, make abuse completely unacceptable. An abusive person will rarely stop abuse whether it is physical or mental or emotional or psychological. The moment you see abuse, run from the relationship. Secondly, every woman needs to define red flags for herself – What is acceptable and what is unacceptable. Thirdly, participate in support groups and learn from the experiences of others while you share what you are going through. Most importantly, go for therapy early on in the relationship.”

“An abusive relationship can affect one mentally and physically. People consciously need to take time to understand the person they decide to build a romantic relationship with. Emotional abuse is much deeper as it affects the mind and the soul. Women should be encouraged to take a stand for their needs and understand their strength and potential so that they can be brave enough to make an independent decision where they feel things are not progressing in the right direction.”

Having talked about the signs which should not be neglected, it is important to be more open about mental health and be supportive of people who are battling any sort of mental health issues or trying to get over trauma without making them feel weak. In this case, also, it is seen that her parents were separated which inherently brings people some kind of trauma or attachment issues. Suppressed emotions could later aggravate and take a violent turn putting at risk the person as well as many others and early detection of such signs could help in treating the person and prevent such crimes in the future.