If you’ve ever been in a relationship (familial, intimate, friendship or work) with a Cluster B Personality Disordered person, you’ve experienced the receiving end of their Silent Treatment.
Disordered people use the Silent Treatment as one of many forms of abuse meant to emotionally abuse their current victim. The Silent Treatment is a projection of their worst fear – BEING INVISIBLE.
Many victims of disordered people claim that the Silent Treatment is even worse than their raging / nagging / complaining counter-persona. I personally disagree. I will take the sulking, door slamming, silent pouter over the raging maniac punching holes in the walls, any day. But that’s just me.
So how, you ask, does one deal with the Silent Treatment? The simplified answer is that you don’t. Any person who intentionally seeks to cause you emotional harm, does not deserve your company. Mature adults use communication to work through their differences and don’t resort to passive aggressive manipulations to get their way. Normal/sane people don’t intentionally cause harm to their loved ones.
Normal/sane people don’t intentionally cause harm to their loved ones.
If you are in a relationship with an immature jerk who abuses you with the Silent Treatment, you need to get out of this relationship, stat.
While this immature jerk is enjoying the pain s/he believes s/he is causing you with the Silent Treatment, use the temporary state of peace to devise your exit plan strategy. If your abuser is a spouse, use this time to meet with an attorney, to collect your important documents and valuables, and to get your affairs in order. If your abuser is an employer, dust off your resume and begin looking for another job or an opportunity to transfer somewhere within the same company. Friends and family with whom you have no financial ties are easy – make their Silent Treatment permanent by going No Contact.
Pam McCoy is a writer, author and co-host of Crazybusters.
PourMe1 says
How is “No Contact” different than “The Silent Treatment?” When I block my daughter from her nasty text msgs and phone calls for a month. That to me was No Contact.
Dr Tara Palmatier says
No Contact is to protect yourself from further abuse and toxic nonsense because the relationship is over. It is a boundary. The Silent Treatment is done to punish and hurt the target while in an ongoing relationship. It’s a form of abuse, not a boundary.