Just so you know, these kinds of questions get asked a lot! ... Which is why I'm spending time on it ...
Again, the answers came from a number of sources, but they are all pretty consistent, so I left the redundant ones out. Feel free to ask other survivors of abuse (often found at your local CoDA or domestic violence group) why this is happening if your story is unique to any of these stories (and you need some coping strategies).
I have also written about the silent treatment in these following blogs:
"The Silent Treatment is Abuse!"
"The Silent Treatment and Complex PTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)"
"Healing From the Silent Treatment"
Most silent treatments are initiated by people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder (or a combination of the two disorders). There are exceptions (like withdrawing because of grieving, withdrawing because of a lack of self confidence, withdrawing because of PTSD, withdrawing because of abuse, and other matters like this), but most silent treatments in close personal relationships (parent-child, marriage partners, live-in partners, siblings and long friendships) are about getting you to do what they want you to do. Usually some disagreement or argument sets them off and they go into the silent treatment. However, like I said, there are exceptions, and I think they are worth hearing out ... I have included these stories towards the end.
For narcissists, however, the end game really is about power and control. For them, silent treatments often come about because:
- the narcissist feels ashamed by something you know and wants to get away from you so they won't be reminded of it (most abusers are incapable of dealing with shame in a healthy way and usually want to put the shame on you, or someone else, instead)
- you have found out something unethical about them (shame makes narcissists and sociopaths rage, and sometimes punish you too, and one way they do it is through the silent treatment)
- you aren't living up to their "perfection standards" (which are often different for themselves than they are for you)
- you are unwilling to accept a "twisted story" (false narrative) and they punish you by refusing to talk to you (hoping that you will see them as a victim who has been falsely accused of lying)
- they see they can't crush your self esteem to their liking (so they abandon you for someone who is more "insecure")
- they see it as a way to punish you (this is usually narcissists with some antisocial personality disorder traits which manifest as malignant narcissism, or people with outright antisocial personality disorder).
This is being published now as a preliminary to a few other posts, one having to do with the nation.
Finally, here is what a number of abuse survivors had to say:
* (My wife) and I were taught in the same high school that the silent treatment was abuse. We learned all of the signs of abuse in fact. So I thought I had a pretty good partner who would not stoop to abuse tactics knowing that I would point it out as what we learned in high school if it should ever arise. She seemed non-narcissistic when we were getting to know each other and to be quiet, thoughtful and introverted. But as we started to have disagreements, the tactic started to slowly come out. I thought it would be a good idea to go to therapy because I told her that I was not reacting to it well, that it was giving me anxiety. The fact that she would not go and was not concerned about my anxiety should have been my first exit sign, but I was hooked on hope for some reason or other. The fact that we both knew it was abusive was the first hope I hung onto.
But then things got worse. As time went on, she would blame me for things like having to go home early from a party so I could get up rested for work the next day. I was the only bread winner and she tried to make me feel guilty and embarrassed for perfectly natural things like this and I called her out on it.
And then things got worse. By then I was on the fence about whether I really wanted to be married to someone who was constantly berating me for not being fun and agreeing to go out partying with her in all-night clubs. I really didn't want that. And my introverted wife was no longer introverted. She would punish me over something and use the silent treatment to stay out all night and even several days.
For me, her silent treatments were about her changing into what she is today, and wanting a different life. She is now with someone completely opposite from me who is tattooed all over with a died orange mohawk. I was never going to be that, and had no desire to be that. She has wanted to come back to me, perhaps because she is living in poverty, but I don't want to "hang my hat" on her again. I don't wish her ill. But for me, the silent treatment instilled a lot of distrust and when she is pleading, my thoughts immediately go to, "The relationship for her was only about what she wanted and never took 'us' into account. She never cared about me, even to the point of basic needs."
* (The silent treatment) makes you crazy, and they like that. It also breaks your spirit and they like that too.
* They use it in place of physical violence. The only reason for not using violence against you is that they might get caught, and if they don't get caught in the act as it is happening, if you go to a hospital, they can tell what kinds of bruises they are in terms of whether someone else caused them, or whether they were from a fall, etc. Then the hospital staff brings in someone from Domestic Violence to talk to you about the bruises and the probability of the violence escalating, and the possibility of life endangerment. Most abusers know they lose their "people trinkets" to domestic violence shelters and therapists.
So an abuser has to think up another way to bully and hurt his victim. They feel they have to use something that they feel can hook their victim in for constant predation and that is less detectable and the silent treatment becomes the bullying tactic of choice.
It doesn't amount to much because in the end because the abandonment, especially if it is long enough, sets you free.
I have never known anyone to fall "game" to the silent treatment except for a few times at most. Most get all compassionate at first. "What's wrong? Did I do anything to offend you or hurt you?" only to realize it is only the false alarm of another power and control game. I mean, who falls for the silent treatment these days with all of the information out there? Savages who live in the woods?
I realize that there are people out there who develop severe Stockholm Syndrome over it, but I have never met anyone like that personally. It's certainly the danger for ultra empaths to feel compassionate towards their abusers no matter how many abuses they receive, no matter how much information they are given, but I would bet they do not live to tell the tale.
Sometimes not having empathy that is too strong and over-powering is a good thing. It forces us to self-preserve instead.
* It is only a weapon if you allow it to be. Enjoy not having to deal with circular conversations.
* There is always someone in a work environment who uses it, it seems. They are the gossips and the people who put others down while aggrandizing themselves. They groom themselves to act bigger and bossier than they really are. Sooner or later this type of person is going to give the silent treatment to someone. Count on it.
And then they will try to convince the boss that they were given the silent treatment instead. Count on that too.
Every work environment I have ever been in has one of these. Most of them seem to be women. And they pick on another woman. With me, they flirt in order to keep me quiet, I suppose. But I know who they are: sick people.
Do women prefer passive aggressive forms of abuse over other kinds of abuse?
* Women can't beat up someone very easily, so, yes, they are typically known for the passive aggressive variety like the silent treatment. I think in many ways it can be more insidious because they can get away with a lot more lies about you that way.
You get angry and they say things like, "What's wrong with you? I never gave you the silent treatment! I wasn't trying to punish you! Since when shouldn't I have time to myself! I've been through a lot! Not everything is about you, you know! You must be crazy to say that about me!" They gaslight, especially in front of a lot of people to get sympathy for their deplorable behavior.
Best thing to do? Enjoy their silent treatment a whole lot because when you do, it scares them.
* That’s the only power they THINK they have to make your head spin. Don’t play the game and focus on YOU.
* My mother used this on us all of the time. We'd beg and plead and then she'd accept us again. But the acceptance didn't come without a price. Sometimes the price was quite high and immoral. Regardless, she'd point out something we could do for her to get her love back again. Since when is it a child's duty to be loved only if she or he does something to soothe a mother out of abandoning her kids?
Children aren't born to regulate the emotions of their caretakers!
A lot of us wised up to the game as we got older. Actually all five us (children) wised up, but only the youngest still plays the game with her and is fully aware of what is going on, but thinks things will change now just for her because she's the only one left. Little sis has the upper hand, for sure. The other four of us abandoned her for a change!
Then she cries! "Boo hoo! I was abandoned by my own children! Their father caused all of this!" Our father never even discussed or suggested abandoning our mother, and probably never had a thought that ran along those lines. Interesting that the abandoner should be complaining about abandonment! Well, when you grow up with abandonment, dear mother, and learn how to cope with interpersonal relationships that way, what makes you think that we won't learn to cope with you this way too?
Until she sees the hypocrisy there is no sense in talking to her. She's dumber than a load of wood not to see what we have been through and all of the hurt it has created! F*%k these mind games!
* It's a one way ticket to a broken spirit. Do everything you can not to be effected by this treatment. Don't even think about them. Just go about your business and fill up the day with the better things in your life. They aren't thinking about you, so why should you think about them? If you have to, get into guided meditations to give your mind some peace. Always remember if you inadvertently think about them, remember that abandonment is not love, or empathy, or caring. It's the low part of their character that they want you to respond to, the part of their character that is about anger, hurting you and insisting on dominance over you. Don't feed that kind of a monster. Don't feed a beast who is hell-bent on hurting you or others. Don't feed a beast who doesn't care about you or others. Don't feed a beast who is incapable of loving, or can only love you sporadically. Don't feed a beast who hurts you only to twist the story to make themselves look like the victim. Don't feed a beast who has no self reflection and always puts the blame on someone else. Never feed a beast who rejoices in breaking the spirit of others.
* This is what makes you realize they have no empathy. When my father died, my mother used it (the silent treatment). When I was living in poverty, she used it then too. When I was sick and ended up in the emergency room, she used it then too.
Oh, but she came around when I got a promotion at my job which put me on the airwaves!
Some never believe they are like this because they cover their tracks so well, and seem so NICE! "Your mother would never treat you like that!"
She can have the really, really stupid people who are blind followers. I want people in my life with more depth and intelligence than to hear a bunch sycophants think that untruthful words that don't add up should be believed verbatim.
I'd like to say to them, "Haven't you ever heard of abuse behind closed doors"? Haven't you ever heard of narcissism? Haven't you ever heard of psychopathy? Haven't you ever heard of "She seemed like the nicest person to her neighbors and friends but she was secretly not talking to her children for weeks, and keeping one locked in an attic room for days"? Probably the same kind of intelligence is how certain presidents are elected too. There are a lot of "sheeple" in the world and for my short life, I don't want them around me. I would rather surround myself with people with empathy and brains. She is perfectly welcome to have those without either quality.
* The flying monkeys who blame victims are walking infections that fester upon others in order to worship their own false beliefs and false idols.
* I actually feel that the silent treatment is a form of gaslighting. You might have upset the narcissist just by existing (having nicer hair, being younger than they are, being more successful than they are), but they try to convince you that you've done something so horribly wrong and bad that you don't deserve to be talked to, or respected, or treated with civility, or loved. They often say that you are crazy for not understanding what you have done to upset them, right?
While it is their sick extremely childish little fantasy game that they like to play especially when they can't stand their own jealousy or feelings of guilt, it's super damaging to children. And it can be damaging to a spouse too, depending on timing, and narcissists do like to use it when you are going through a really challenging time! It also depends upon whether the spouse is educated enough to know that the silent treatment is a dead giveaway that they have a narcissist for a spouse.
At least adults have a choice to leave this B.S.
Children can't. I want to hug all children who go through this and tell them they never deserved it from their parent and that I will take responsibility for loving them from here on out. Parents who do this to children do not deserve children and should have them taken away.
* I actually think it is used as a smear campaign just as much as gaslighting. They delight in telling others that you did something so bad, when you didn't, that you are not worth treating with dignity. Then they want others not to treat you with dignity either. The silent treatment is always part of their flying monkey schemes, to get other people brainwashed with an incredible number of lies.
Narcissists can be especially vindictive when their ego is shaken up. The flying monkeys they lie to help to put them back on that pedestal again. What ever gullible ass#@le they can use in this manner, they use.
Meanwhile their victim sees all of the lying and can walk away with a lot more ease because it is absolutely nauseating behavior. That's the major difference between narcissists and the rest of us. We can't and don't want to put them on that pedestal. We lose respect for them, and we plain can't stand the sight of them.
"Oh, you had to lie about me quite a lot to get Mr. or Ms. Ass#!pe to be convinced not to talk to me!"
What do they expect from us? "Oh, we envy you so much for using such unethical practices! I wish I was just as driven to be as dishonorable as you are!" They probably think people are jealous about their immorality and see-through tactics. And that's the incredibly stupid part about them. They really are not on a pedestal at all. They are too dumb to know they aren't because their brains are wired in such a way that they think people admire and envy them. They are, in fact, in the basement of our opinions most of the time.
Another one of their stupidities is that their egos are such that they are often surprised at how many people detest them, end relationships with them and want nothing to do with them. A therapist once told me that narcissists understand that people abandon them, but never know why. Undoubtedly the narcissist thinks "Oh, but I thought I was so important!" Nope, they are not. They don't get that they are as unimportant to us as we are to them - laws of physics.
* I'm from a family of stalkers. I would very much like it if they gave me the silent treatment! Oh, please, Lord!
* Yea, stalking is probably worse. No concept of boundaries. At least with the silent treatment the boundaries are so open that you can wander into another life. You can go without them following you into your new life even. I'd hate it if my family was around me after the start of my new life and all of the self discovery.
"You must come back to the dark cave of confusion, twisted tales, gaslighting, blaming, anxiety and punishment where your family dwells!"
"No!!!!"
I actually have nightmares like that.
I was so hurt and damaged by the silent treatment at first, but now I realize I'm much happier without them around. When your family is all about lying, talking over you, and the constant arguments over nothing, it's so worth it to leave them all in the silence that THEY created. Halleluiah!
* I think my father is a psychopath. I was so relieved when I was 18 when he gave me the silent treatment after several days of torture, kicking me, tying me to a bed in his house, yelling his head off right in my face with his spit landing on my lips about absolutely nothing, and pouring his whiskey on me while I was trying to sleep. I was so surprised when he finally took the ropes off of me, gave me breakfast and showed me the door. I really thought I might die in there. I have never looked back since and he does not know where I am.
* (man answers about a woman) For some reason, the silent treatment makes me feel guilty. Like cognitively I know that I have done nothing wrong, but emotionally I feel bad for abandoning her. Well, technically she actually abandoned me, but because she abandoned me so many times, I abandoned her the next time she came back.
Why do I feel this guilt? I don't really understand it.
* It's cognitive dissonance and Stockholm Syndrome, very typical in narcissistic abuse. And especially if they have tried to talk you into the abuse being justified. It works on your mind and emotions, doesn't it? They are really invested in the concept that people have to be talked into abuse being a normal way to live. It isn't normal, but for them, they need you to be abused so that they feel less miserable. That is what a psychologist told me.
Just give it a lot of time to dissipate. It will. It's part of the shock stage in the grief process. Eventually when you get to the anger and acceptance stages, that is when the guilt goes away. You know you have been treated deplorably by that stage.
Trust me. You will eventually wake up some day without the guilt. But you also have to make efforts to send her away if she keeps trying to come back to you. Otherwise you are back to square one, in shock about how she is treating you.
* It's a power game. They think that the silent treatment will make you want to run back to them like a little three year old in need of their approval.
* Both the approval and disapproval you receive from a narc is meaningless because they don't look in the mirror. Besides being a hypocrite and not practicing what they preach, it also means they are totally dependent on OTHER PEOPLE for propping them up. Imagine having to use the silent treatment to give yourself props! It's laughable! It means they are suckers for flattery and accolades. If you starve them of that, they go into withdrawal. It's this sucker in them that makes them rather pitiful.
* Their revenge for anything good that happens to us is the silent treatment. Don't engage. Once they start the discard and abandonment process with you, start the same thing with them.
Always remember that the silent treatment is abuse. Drumming it into your head that it is abuse, and an extremely obvious one, you have a right to abandon them for abandoning you, because you have a right to a better life.
* I hate these discussions because I am giving my mother the silent treatment right now and all of my relatives are giving me all of these heavy handed guilt trips over it. I really don't want my mother in my life. I'm 25 years old! She treats me like I'm still 10 and I don't want to be treated like I am 10 any more. I got away finally and the only way I want to respond to her when she calls is to hang up on her. Am I obligated to talk to her? Really??? The way I see it is no because there is no resolving this. If she wants to give me the silent treatment in retaliation, then fine, I'll accept that and even prefer it.
Why is the silent treatment so abusive? Why can't it just be defined as irreconcilable differences or estrangement?
Why does it make me a narc?!
* (response) Maybe you are not giving her the silent treatment as the word is meant? Infantilization, trying to make you ten again, isn't healthy for you. Any therapists on board?
* (non-therapist response) Yea, I think the silent treatment is meant as social punishment. It goes with smear campaigns and calling someone crazy (gaslighting) and trying to isolate someone socially. It is about coercive control. It's not just about being silent.
* (response from the 25 year old above):
I'm being hounded by my entire family about what an ungrateful daughter I am for leaving my mother. I've received more insults from them than most people do in a lifetime! And they are everywhere in this town that I have to live in because I don't have enough money saved up to move to another town. They are doing everything they can to crush me including sabotaging one job after the other by making a scene in places where I am employed! She doesn't want me employed because she wants me working for her, so she sends out the entire family to wreck my life! She wants me trapped in a life with her!
Have I told everyone that she's crazy? Yes! Because she is! It's the only way I can get anyone to listen to me so that she doesn't make me her slave again.
None of my friends from highschool are trapped with their mother all day! They have gone off to college with their mother's blessing, and they are working good jobs and married while I am living with a friend and working at restaurants. They are living 25 year old lives while I am doing the work of a 16 year old! I'm tired of living a shitty life with her. If I have to live with her again, I don't want a life at all. I'd rather be dead. So there! It has gotten to that point.
We don't see eye to eye on anything. She's a major Trump supporter. She has to talk about him every single night droning on for an hour or more after the evening news. I don't want to talk about her views about how he's a victim of the left wing media, of the polls, of Obama, Pelosi and Clinton.
She literally can't talk about anything else other than conspiracy theories and victim theories. I can't stand listening to Trump. He's so much like her, going on the attack and whining about how he's a victim. I feel like he's trying to do to the country what she is doing to me. The way he waves his hands around, with his palms facing the crowd in a constantly defensive position is the way she talks too. She likes to defend dictatorship. And she goes on and on about how loyal his kids are to him. It's such an obvious arm-twisting to get me to be like one of his kids.
I don't want a dictator for a mother, but my whole family wants that for me. I feel like I have to fight a whole army just to live like other 25 year olds do.
It's like leaving a cult. I'm realizing I have to leave all of them in order to be really free to have my own life. It's beyond frightening to live without a family but I'm willing to do it because going back is not an alternative that my mind or emotions can face. I would like to find a job where I can be at peace without their intrusion and then figure out a way to go to college and get away.
* (talking about the person above)
If I am not mistaken, a lot of us feel the same way that she does?
The big difference is that she has this family who is trying to coerce her with words, threats of ostracism and shaming, and we are being coerced with silence (i.e. "We won't talk to you until you do what we want"), actual ostracism and shaming.
Wouldn't the logical conclusion to her story go like ours where no one talks to her, where she is demonized by her entire family, and if she goes back at some point, under suspicion and coercive control?
What I'm saying is that she would eventually be given the silent treatment too?
* I'm not convinced this is the silent treatment. But it is confusing for sure as to whether it would be defined that way by therapists!
* Our hunter-gatherer selves are very family oriented. And I have heard the stories of real hunter-gatherers living together for a lifetime for survival purposes. There is a part of us that hopefully realizes that we have to treat children with kindness so that they have empathy and so they can take care of others, including us when we are old. Am I right?
The thing is, throughout history there have always been human sacrifices where a person has to be sacrificed for reasons that aren't rational like a draught. These days a toxic generationally abusive family takes the place of the draught. It serves the same function in terms of starvation, except this time the starvation is about not being loved and cared for properly, not being soothed, not being respected, not having a voice.
The parents are screwed up because their parents were screwed up. There isn't much support. And in a way they are starving, not for food, but for kindness and affection. They look to their children to supply a lifetime of that, and in the beginning they do, but the children's well runs dry because no one is giving that to them, and eventually they don't have that to give. The child is born with a well, but abuse isn't going to replenish it.
That's probably why a lot of us get rejected over relatively insignificant reasons. It is a throw-back to that age. And they can't murder us, or commit cannibalism to chew on our bones, so they throw us away by not talking to us, and having other family members not talk to us either. The crisis of emotional starvation means they have to get rid of the person who is not supplying them that, even if that person is their own child.
So yes, I too think that there will be a big wall of silence and family demonizing once you are living your 25 year old life. You should not feel guilty about it because you will never be able to be their supply even if you agreed to be prisoner of your mother and signed on the dotted line. The thing that will happen is that she will eat away at your emotional and empathetic well until you are in starvation mode yourself (dead).
Only THEIR parent can supply those emotional needs, and that parent never did. It is not up to a child to make up the difference.
We also go quiet on them too which perpetuates "not existing" as though we are dead.
I have read enough forums to know that when children like us commit suicide or die from natural causes, the older members of the family basically look at it like something they are already over. They don't shed a tear about it. For siblings of dead scapegoats, some of them end up hating their parent for having to go silent for so long under pressure. At least one sibling from the pack is usually plagued with guilt for sacrificing their sibling to supply the emotional needs of the parent, so then the parent becomes sacrificed by the sibling who put him in the position of giving up his other sibling.
Ostracism and death tend to cause great dysfunction and shifts in toxic family systems. That's when the fight for dominance comes out too. And in the case of dysfunctional families, dominance means drinking out of as many wells as you can, with the next generation of children used, molded and imprisoned in this way too.
* Wow, that's insightful!
* (therapist) I am willing to talk to you. There are resources and ways for you to leave your town and even ways to get a college education. Message me.
(my note: resources include shelters, student loans and scholarships, job resources, etc - domestic violence centers and hotlines can help in terms of getting help emotionally, financially, and with the law in terms of stalking, family harassment - The law is actually more on the side of victims than the families who act in this way ... ).
* I feel like abandonment of children is taking a child's innate innocent desires to be loved, respected, nurtured, belonging and development and turning it into shame, blame, disrespect, and isolation from would-be family capable of loving them. You might as well plant a bomb in their head because all of it is designed to make them self destruct. When children think that love is the same thing as abuse they won't live long lives. It explains why my family is so riddled with suicides, suicide attempts and criminals.
I don't feel it was always like this. My great, great grandparents were quite respectable, did a lot with their lives, were highly regarded, even sort of famous. But the money, the spoiling, and all of the fights over the money by the next generation created threatening dictatorial monsters who put themselves first over their children and other family members. It created an abandoning generation of parental misfits. That generation then created criminals, some low-life criminals as well as white collar criminals. Then the unprecedented child suicides. Sad.
* I agree that the silent treatment can be a lot more complicated than that we are all narcissists and use it to dominate our kids. Did I use it on my kid? Yes, and to understand why, it is important that I tell what happened. It is long, so don't bother if you are in a rush.
I am part of the faculty at a small college in a small city. I got married to another faculty member who taught at the same college.
Part of my decision to marry him is that I thought two college teachers would make a good match. I admired him for his brilliance and intellectual prowess. He seemed to be proud to have an intellectual woman and said all of the things a professional woman would want to hear such as equal pay. I fantasized that we would be eating lunch together every day at the college and enjoying intellectual pursuits together. Very bad reasons for getting married. The first consideration for marriage should be kindness. I didn't think to look for that. I put too high a priority on intellectualism compared to other qualities.
Anyway, he became verbally and emotionally abusive first which shattered my self esteem as it does most people, and then he became physically abusive.
I didn't know how to handle it. I was in this terrible cycle where my wounds would almost be healed and then I would get another blow. In the meantime we had a son. Trying to be a mother to this little boy while being smacked around and having to prepare for very demanding classes and dealing with so much anxiety from walking on eggshells around my husband, I couldn't think straight in terms of how to get out of my situation. Back then I was also confused as to whether I was responsible because abusers can be very persuasive that you are. And when I did think about leaving, I wondered how it could work when both of us taught at the same college. How is going to a domestic violence shelter going to work when we run across each other every day? It's a prestigious college in a beautiful city. I am lucky to be there.
In the beginning my boy was trying to protect me from being hit. In one incident I was lying on the floor and he laid on top of me so that his father would have to hit him to hit me. What happened was that he took him off of me and threw him across the floor.
I wasn't going to have that, so when I was being hit I told him to go to his room.
What does that teach a kid? When someone is getting hurt, go hide in your room.
One day our son told me that I deserved to be hit because I wasn't doing anything to prevent it and that he hated me for it. To use the popular phrase "normalize", my son was beginning to normalize hitting.
It really went on too long. I was trying to be a good model for my son and my students and being hit and making excuses for it happening was not good modeling. My excuses were flimsy. Working at the same college was a flimsy excuse for telling myself that I was trapped. Being embarrassed that this was happening and putting on a false brave front for my students was not good modeling. Being so embarrassed that I was covering it up was not good modeling. Thinking that this could be resolved because we were both highly intelligent people was delusional of me. I also had the rather prejudiced perspective before I got married that only guys with marginal intelligence and blue collar jobs were wife batterers. This guy didn't fit that mold at all. Preaching women's rights to all of his students was crazy-making. He wanted them to have equal rights and pay but be battered at home so that they would be too disabled emotionally and physically to do an effective job at work?
In the meantime, our son started hitting other kids at school. Again, this was also crazy-making. My husband would lecture our son about how he shouldn't hit other kids, and would punish him for days with long time-outs in his room. In the meantime I was told that I should not interfere with the time-outs or I'd "get it." These kinds of "policies" and threats obviously don't make sense and were part of ending the cognitive dissonance I had in terms of taking any responsibility for the beatings. I decided he was insane.
Our son turned ten and started screaming in one of these time-outs that he wanted to die and that he would kill himself. I sought a divorce. I knew the violence and double messages were effecting him. Of course, I thought I'd be battered when I handed the husband the divorce papers, but all my husband did was to make demands about what he wanted, which was nearly everything, and told me that I'd never find a husband like him again.
I thought life would be better being separated, but when my son got into his teenage years he was drinking, drugging and screwing the girls. He was breaking their hearts too. I learned he slugged one of the girls and I got a phone call from her parent about that. He was out of control in every way possible. Especially emotionally. Then because I wasn't putting up with the drinking, drugging and sex in my apartment, and wanted him in counseling, he smashed up the kitchen and went to live with his father.
Now his father is a competitive parent. His son moving in with him means to my ex that he "won" our son and that I "lost". So everything I was trying to work on with our son got challenged and dismantled by my ex. He not only allowed the drugging, drinking and sex, but began to partake in it too.
Then one night he told my son that he was coming home with a woman and wanted to impress her and asked our son to clean up the place and to cancel any events my son made. My son did neither and apparently the woman was horrified by what she saw. My ex was apparently livid and drove the woman home. He slugged our son and threw him against a wall.
Our son was back with me again and I tried to get him back into counseling, but he refused to go and moped around the apartment.
By the time he was 18, I was quite frightened of him. He was like his father in that he was verbally abusive and quite threatening in terms of getting his way. He was so verbally abusive that I thought the best thing to do was to tell him that if he was going to treat me that way then he should consider moving out.
He did. He went back to his father's and lived there for two years and I never heard from him.
Then he moved into an apartment with a friend. He contacted me and it was okay for awhile, but then he started slipping on the verbal abuse again. I tried everything to get him to stop and when he wouldn't, I told him I was having no more of it until he was in anger management classes (I would pay) and thinking about how his father impacted his behavior.
When he would call, I'd ask him if he was in counseling yet, and when he wasn't, I'd hang up on him. I had had enough and was determined that this was THE ONLY WAY to break the cycle. Hanging up on him is definitely coercion and it is definitely the silent treatment. I am not a narcissist for using it, and I was also naïve to the consequences of using it. I would never recommend this approach to any parent with the same problem at this point. It has so many unforeseen pitfalls.
One of the pitfalls that I have realized after joining groups for survivors of abuse is that it is the rare child who does not feel totally unloved, abandoned, distrustful and completely lost after you give him the silent treatment. I should have been more open to alternatives rather than insisting on getting my way through that method. I heard one woman speak up and say that she dealt with verbal abuse from her son by putting up boundaries. She wouldn't allow him in her house, but would meet with him in public places like restaurants. The idea is that a public place might make him more reserved.
By the time I apologized for using the silent treatment, it was too late. He would never trust me again. He has never been verbally abusive since, but what it did to our bond was terrible.
One of the things that exacerbated the estrangement from my son is that a colleague asked me how I became estranged. I panicked. It would mean that I would have to tell her about my ex who was our fellow colleague, the beatings, my son mimicking his father, my abandonment of him, and I couldn't do it. My head was buzzing from the anxiety. So I said, "You know how kids are! They have to assert their independence. It's his way of growing up, I suppose. Yea, it's been three years, but it's what he wants."
I believe most parents probably give answers which put the responsibility for the estrangement on the child. I don't believe this act is exclusive to abusive parents. When you are in a panic, there is a huge lure to grab the easy answer. If I told the story and actually owned everything, I might very well be judged, with the judgements extending into work place derision. Victims of domestic violence are still looked at as responsible in some way for the violence they endured even though they are not. I still see enough victim shaming to scare me. And when you add in an estranged child, they may especially see you as some sort of perpetrator who is pretending to be a victim. Yes, I was concerned about my own reputation and I'm ashamed of it. And I bet most of the stories parents tell about being estranged from their own children are outright lies too.
I realize lying and putting culpability on my child is certainly a narcissistic trait, but unlike narcissistic parents, I have never told my child he was crazy. I don't practice idealize, devalue, discard. I don't scapegoat him. I don't expect him to be a sycophant or slave. I don't need to be flattered to feel whole. I don't have to win arguments. I don't go around and toot my own horn. I'm not in competition with my ex. I don't want to punish my son. I didn't punish him by taking him off of my Last Will. I don't live a life full of lies. That one lie caused me quite a bit of anxiety, heart ache and guilt. I can't imagine trying to live a whole life like that.
Anyway, my son got wind of the one lie and decided he did not want to have anything to do with me. He lost respect for me. I think eventually he would have forgiven me for the silent treatment, but not for lying and making him responsible for the estrangement. He doesn't feel guilty for abandoning me because he learned abandonment from me. For parents who give their kids the silent treatment, you "normalize" abandonment for them and they will use it on you.
My son is really, really in terrible emotional shape because of both of his parents, his father for the verbal, emotional and physical abuse and me for abandoning him and lying about him. We did not do right by him. And I wish I could have another chance to get it right. I know he is living in Europe somewhere, and has been for three and a half years, but I don't know where and I don't hear from him. It is excruciatingly painful to have lost my child. Holidays are especially hard. I imagine abusive parents look at children as inconveniences, but I really did want him and still do, even more so. I think about him every time I wake up and when I go to sleep at night. I worry that he is cold, or without food, or that he will kill himself as he threatened to do so many years ago.
What I'm trying to say is that parents who have used the silent treatment or any one of the abuses typically attributed to narcissism aren't necessarily narcissists. I suspect that a lot of parents are falsely judged. While being educated as to what narcissism is is commendable and necessary and gives abused children a chance to see what is really going on, I hope that people are able to decipher the differences between the true narcissists and those of us who made incredible errors in bringing up our children and who have sincere deep regret.
If I had to do it all over again, I would have walked out on my ex-husband as soon as the abuse started. I would have reported the abuse to CPS even though it might mean I would lose my child to foster care for a short while. I would have done it so I could get my head together to leave and provide a safer home for us. I would have tried to make my ex more accountable. When you allow the unacceptable and put priorities in the wrong place, you are perpetrating child neglect. I take full responsibility for that, and I also realized at one point that giving my son the silent treatment just added to the awful legacy of child neglect he already endured.
Every child has a right to a safe home. Every child has a right to non-abusive parents. Every child has a right to ask for a father who is not beating up his mother. Every child has a right to truthfulness and self reflective parents.
further reading:
Recommended (especially if you have a similar situation to the person above): How to Help Your Child when the Other Parent Is a Narcissist - by Adam Dorsay, PsyD, for Wiki How
Most of the time narcissists are more manipulative than most of us can handle, too emotionally abusive and self-involved to have any kind of long term relationship with, and many people who have married them wish they had never met them at all, but if you want to get along with them in "the meantime", the advice here may work for awhile: How to Handle Marriage to a Narcissist - co-authored by Adam Dorsay, PsyD, for Wiki How
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comment may be published after moderator's acceptance. Thank you for your thoughtful reply.