The silent treatment ......

What does it do to you internally?

How do you handle it and recover from it?

***. This could be triggering for DTD ***


My husband is a master of the silent treatment with disdainful, aggravated you irritate the crap out of me look on his face.

I immediately turn into a very small and young scared part me and freeze.

Inside, I’m so angry and just frozen because I feel like anything I try to say or do would only make it worse.

I know I should comfort that part of me and stand up for her but I can’t. I don’t have the ability and I’m too afraid to.

I feel pretty beat up and crushed when it happens. I don’t want to just be a victim anymore with no voice.

A part of me, the 12yo, knows he’s just a bully and is taking great pleasure in what he’s doing, but I can’t seem to step in for the little one who is so crushed.

Just curious if anyone else deals with this.

no I did not have a problem with others outside me giving me the silent treatment. heck there was enough chatter going on inside that most of the time I did not even notice when it was silent outside my head. i could sit by myself or with others and still be having conversations and listening to conversations. sometimes I wouldnt even know someone outside my body has been talking to me because I would be hearing what was going on inside me.

Oh! I am so sorry you experience that in your marriage. I believe it is emotionally abusive. It sounds controlling and disrespectful, casting you as "the bad one" in relation to him, a more powerful other. In your words I can tell you definitely experience it as abusive. It triggers a trauma response in you. I am not surprised you feel beat up and crushed when it happens. It likely repeats childhood trauma over and over and over again. Those young hurt parts of you experience being hurt all over again. Every time he does this to you. They don't get to escape!

He IS being a bully. What he is doing really is not okay. It is not respectful. It is not kind. It is not loving. It is not caring. It is not supportive. It is not okay.

It is hurtful. It is disrespectful. It is harmful. It is triggering. It is mean. It is abusive. It is unkind. It is immature. It is controlling. It is inconsiderate. It is the behavior of someone who wants power over you rather than a connection.

Those hurt ones get to be hurt over and over again. They don't get to feel safe. They don't get to feel protected. They need to be alert to danger and threat all the time, long after the old hurts have passed.

I am so sorry this is the place you find yourself in now. I am sorry your hurt little ones are not safe yet.

I trust one day they will be safe from harm.

I wonder
Do you think a child who has been abused can recover from that abuse if the abuse still happens?

Can that work?

If the child gets away from the abusers to a healthy place, does all sort of lifestyle changes (like exercising, right diet, gradually increasing physical activity) stays in therapy and takes meds, I don't see a reason why not. This is coming from someone who is still abused.

If the child is in a "healthy place" I would expect they are not experiencing abuse. I don't think a place where someone is still being abused is "healthy".
I think a child can heal from abuse, of course. I don't know if it is possible to heal from abuse if you are still being abused.

I am a master at silent treatment because I become so overwhelmed or frustrated with a situation that I just do not want to discuss it anymore. I am not being abusive. Maybe you husband needs help with dealing with his emotions and a way on how to handle them instead of shutting everyone off.

From my own experience the child becomes emotionally numb to say at least. Later it depends upon the type of abuse I think. If parents don't let the child go out, he may never recover and require psychotherapy to manage it. Of course the abusers don't have any knowledge of medicine or psychology so they'll nicely continue, so I believe it's impossible to recover from an ongoing abuse. That's what I think.

That is a form of emotional abuse/all about control.

Umm i take it you are not married.....

its normal for married people to have disagreements / arguments and go through a period of silent treatment/glaring at each other while in the heat of the moment and the time it takes to think about the disagreements, then after a time talk about what happened and work out the problem.

my point its not abuse when one partner in a relationship is showing how they feel by glaring and silent treatment. its just part of being human and being in a long term and committed relationship...

that said it is a bit uncomfortable for some with Dissociative disorders where the disorder is not showing emotions, not expressing feelings and hiding emotions behind a mask of what ever / who ever protects that person to experience a normal relationship problem like this.

I didnt have a problem with this situation ..... until ...... after I was integrated. I didnt have the distractions of inner voices and other people showing their emotions to and about me was a new and uncomfortable situation. the first time my now wife expressed how she was feeling after a fight in this way, after I had been integrated I was so upset that I called my treatment provider who explained to me that this was normal now that I was integrated I was going to be able to feel and express emotions and recognize them in others and sometimes it was going to hurt knowing my now wife was not happy with something.

i bet if you think about it you will notice times in your life where you have not been happy with someone you encountered or was part of your life and caught yourself not talking to them, or not posting to them, all the while stewing/ possibly glaring at them and about the situation.... heck people do this all the time here on psych central (the ignore feature is like giving the silent, I have nothing to say to this person and am not going to even engage in this persons posts treatment...)

my point in relationships on and off line its normal not abuse to show emotions like glaring, smiling, pouting and so on while being silent.

I am posting this point of view from a dissociative and also in a marriage situation....

Im also guessing/ thinking that there may be things about this situation that have not been posted about/ or that we do not know about since we are not in this persons off computer life so its not up to me to say if their own direct situation is abusive or not.

only trailrunner can say whether her husband is abusing her. in which case my suggestion is contacting domestic violence agency that can help them get the help they need.

No.

No, I don’t believe it can work.

I don’t believe that part of me can heal until the abuse stops and it will only stop when I am able to stand up for my younger parts.

I have to wonder if I’m the enabler of the abuse. If a person is a bully and they aren’t called out, it will surely continue and probably get worse as they see the weakness. It kind of feels like a cat playing with a mouse.

If there was a way to stop the automatic switch that happens maybe things could be different.

Thank you!

I hope one day to have the strength and healing to stand in the face of it.

Your post brought something to my mind.

When my boys were young, 5 and 2, we were visiting my parents. The boys were being boys and I had to correct them and this happened in front of my dad.

I did swat a bottom and use my stern voice, but it was followed by a hug and explaining why I did it.

My dad saw that and told me that when I disciplined them, I needed to pull my affection away from them until they earned it back.

I remember, now, my heart feeling very heavy from what he said. I would never do that to my babies, but he did it to me.

I believe that is where this is coming from. I don't know just yet how to stop it, but the connection feels good to know.

Hey there. I really hope things get better for you. I know how it's like to be abused. My parents (especially my dad actually) love psychological abuse. They don't let me go outside on my own. I am almost 18. I can never be normal now.

No wonder it hurts so much for your husband to do that to you. Knowing is a step towards a solution I think.

You can do this!

((((hugs))))

We considered our spouse to be a bully doing that psycho crap. Guess what...haven’t seen her in 2 years....3 strikes and she was out.

The silent treatment, patronizing, isolation....her way of asserting her self-supposed superiority.

This was a major trigger that we can do without. We are much calmer today.

Sounds like a marriage counselor can be of use here and he to be seeing a T.

I hope it gets better for you.