This is what domestic abuse can devolve to. Yup, getting upset with you over the tiniest thing and calling you worthless because you made a mistake and forgot the cinnamon. It's crazy making!
Abusers of all kinds use these kinds of phrases, but overt narcissists seem to love them the most. These phrases are always categorized as verbal abuse by psychology and domestic violence field professionals.
At the core of these phrases is hatred, usually spurred by a black and white thinking process, which abusers experience much, much more than the rest of us. There are very few, if any, people who really please them, so they usually spend a lot of free time complaining about other people, insulting them behind their backs, even lying about them. If you are privy to hearing about all of the people they hate and that do not live up to their standards, if they are in a love bombing stage, you may think that you are safe from their hatred, but most of us find out that we are not.
And it is their hatred that can be dangerous to us. Hatred is usually rooted in either family prejudices (hating women in the family, or overweight people in the family, or being prejudiced against people who are mentally ill, or of a different race, or of a different lifestyle, or who are financially or physically challenged ... it can be anything).
One thing all narcissists have in common is that they talk negatively about other people, usually a lot, and they tend to be harshly judgmental too. It tends to be a daily affair, but it can be weekly as well, and it will still influence people around them.
Highly critical people tend to lack empathy too, just because their minds are on what to despise in other people. They feel better in comparison if they can trash-talk about others, what they do, what they look like, who they are ... They spend way too much time on what to nitpick apart, what about the differences of others that make them feel disgust, what about them that incentivizes the narcissist not to care about the struggles of other people.
For the rest of us, it is pretty awful to listen to negative talk about others.
Certainly highly judgmental people are not inside the heads of others, looking at their thoughts, or even looking at situations through their eyes, and how they got to where they are now. For the most part they don't know their cultural background, or their family background. For this reason a lot of people call highly judgmental people ignorant and prejudiced, and the reason why is that if you are really open to who other people are, and explore their perspectives at length, it will expand your understanding such that you will get along with more people, and you and others in your orbit would experience more peace.
Tolerance and peace go together.
Narcissists can be so rageful about how all kinds of other people act, and it can, in turn, create an environment that is at best irritating, and at worst, dreadfully horrible and depressing. If they are shouting every day about someone, whether it is a new person or not, I'd bet all you want is the raging and complaining and their insults of other people to stop.
However, we are all judgmental and it probably came from the days we lived in tribes. We are judgmental because we have to discern friends from enemies, bad fruit from good fruit, predators from prey, but when extreme, and children are listening, then being harshly judgmental can become normalized within a family, and one of the unforeseen consequences is that children can also turn on parents with the same harsh judgments they grew up hearing. So it doesn't do much good. And, of course, if the parents are harshly judgmental (not just of outsiders), but do it to family members, or a member, there can be an estrangement.
Most of all, harsh judgements, and turning to judging people as a constant conversation activity, can often turn into prejudice, and it tends to be based on the usual ones I mentioned above: on race, creed, religion, sex, financial status, etc.
One way you can tell who the family is prejudiced against and who they hate is: Who is treated without dignity and respect? Who is criticized a lot? Who is not getting empathy? Who is not listened to? Who is treated as a second fiddle or like they don't matter in terms of voicing their perspectives or being an integral part of the family? Are their hierarchies where certain members seem to be more valued, and where others are not? And in an extended family, what do they have in common? I would bet that it has something to do with societal prejudices like the ones I have mentioned above.
Let's just say as an example that members trash-talk about women in the family much more than the men. Trash-talkin' means: harshly judged, criticized, blamed, shamed, treated with disrespect, punished, insulted, disparaged, down-graded, talked about in a derisive way, peppered with false narratives and false motives, devalued, put on a lower hierarchy in terms of importance. Perhaps there are even quite a few women in the family who are estranged from a parent because of all of this. Maybe the parents in the family went overboard and women started to be scapegoated, and you find out they later became estranged.
And why? My guess is that there is an attitude that women are considered to be more "useless", more "nobodies", more "worthless", the phrases we are talking about in this post. So when you get a male in the family shouting this at a female in the family, they've been taught to disparage women by example.
And why are women hated - or why is there a family narrative of anyone being hated? My guess is that there are unrealistic or downright no-win expectations on these women, and in some way or other, they fall short every time. Usually the women aren't submissive enough - that's usually the real reason behind the disparaging. So then prejudice turns into scapegoating.
Hatred within the family also means the abuser has either some mild or high expectations of roles, and that the roles have to be performed to exacting standards. And people are defined by the roles. The usual roles of abusive families are golden child, scapegoat, family mascot and lost child, but there are other roles that the family pushes on to a child.
The need to put someone else in a role and feeling prejudice towards that person usually goes hand in hand too. Roles and submission are much more expected from an abuser when his extended family expects the same thing. For instance, the expectation can be that girls must be submissive to the men and older women of a family. If a young adult female member strays out of that expectation, the family members rage, blame, shame and/or ostracize, or all four.
And even if you are from a different family and you are dating or married to someone who was brought up this way, that is the crux of why you are abused too. Your abuser can't get out of the mindset that you deserve it (and in this case it would be "You deserve it because you are female; you are supposed to be submissive; I have learned that females are below men in stature; I believe I have a right to control you like my mother controlled my sister; I have a right to punish you in ways that are similar to how my mother punished my sister; I have a right to tell you what to do, where to go, how to act; I have a right to rage at you, insult you, walk out on you; even dismiss you as useless and worthless if you are not living up to these standards.")
I am using "mother" here for a reason. While narcissistic dads are much more likely to treat daughters as underlings who are expected to be submissive, and disparaged because of their female sex, believe it or not, these attitudes can take hold in the mind of a boy by a mother who treats her daughter badly, with disdain, and with enormous amounts of disrespect. And jealousy. Narcissistic mothers tend to be extremely jealous of their daughters, especially if the daughter(s) are talented, or conventionally beautiful, or highly educated and respected, or highly independent, dignified and revered. They also tend to be very competitive with these kinds of daughters too. Sabotage can also come into play. This is often not apparent to daughters who have pronounced C-PTSD because C-PTSD can mean they don't feel jealousy themselves. If you don't feel jealousy yourself, you do not know what the narcissist is going through with this emotion, so you may miss the signals that would make you look into the reasons for their jealousy, and how they are relieving it, and it can mean that you fail to protect yourself. I'll be publishing a post on jealousy soon.
And because jealousy and competition can consume the thoughts of a mother about her daughter above anything else, these mothers can act out in very destructive ways against a daughter to get rid of feeling jealous. Narcissistic Moms can actually feel better about themselves when they abuse their own daughters, or have other people do it - sort of: it is not long lasting enough for them ... I'll discuss that in the post about "Jealousy and the Narcissist". We tend to think an overbearing authoritarian narcissistic dad will teach his boy attitudes about women, including that women are inferior to men (common), but it can come from a mother just as easily, and may be a more powerful lesson because usually the self esteem of a boy comes from his mother much more than it comes from his father.
So let us say that he finds a mate, but his expectations of a mate are that women must be inferior and need to be submissive, controlled, dominated, told what to do. If they are not submissive, then he will learn to deal with the situation the way his parent or family treats women. It could be via a swift discard (immediate termination of a relationship). Or raging. Or violent outbursts. Or the silent treatment. Or punishing her by depriving her of resources. Or even murder (especially if he has been taught to hate women to the extent that he gets the feeling they should not exist if they aren't trying to please men. Or it could be all of these things).
At any rate, the verbal abuse gets to the point where he is calling his mate "useless", "a nobody" and "worthless" a whole lot.
Of course, this has nothing to do with the victim. And as the cartoon portrays, it can be over silly stuff, and usually is.
Perhaps she comes from a family who reveres strong women. And she doesn't understand why a man would want to dominate her in the first place. Why not real love than all of these domination plays? What's he getting out of this?
It has to do with prejudices, family and cultural attitudes about women, and the familial and cultural background of the abuser. And it is where abuse usually comes from: their family, who they listened to when growing up, not you.
They may try to talk you into that it's something to do with not reaching their perfection standards in behavior, or actions, or duties, or appearance, but if you really look closely at what the abuser is trying to accomplish by being hyper critical of you, you will usually see that it has to do with how much you submit to his will, authority, domination, threats, and how much you are sublimating.
Unless you want to prove how submissive you are, you are going to be rebelling, defending yourself, complaining about how you are treated. And believe it or not, it rarely makes a difference to them. And what do they do when you are rebelling, defending yourself and complaining? They rage, and lecture endlessly (usually), argue endlessly too, try to trash your self esteem any way they can, and they try to wear you down so you will get exhausted and throw up your hands and do what they tell you to do just to get them to stop with the tactics, and use phrases like these to make you aware that you are not particularly special to them.
Where does the attitude come from that women must be submissive? In his family. If he has a sister who was beaten down every time she did not submit, then he is going to have the attitude that abuse works in making women and girls submissive.
Very seldomly it can come from peer relationships or other families (unless the children of a family are neglected by both parents and their closest bond is with peers or the members of another family).
If he saw a sister get hit, and he has most of the traits of narcissism found in the right column, he will probably be hitting you eventually if he isn't already. If he saw his sister get discarded for not being submissive, he will most likely discard you when you are not submissive.
And as we know, prejudiced people can be very, very abusive, and even violent, especially if you are "only one" among them, or if the abuser thinks it can be done in secret, or you are being isolated, or if you are enduring lots of insults and gaslighting, or have been through an abandonment by them before (especially if it was over something erroneous), and especially if you are enduring any kind of physical aggressive touch or displays (grabbing, shoving, pushing, trashing a kitchen or smashing dishes, breaking property, punching fists against the wall or near your face, driving recklessly, fast and dangerously while you are the passenger).
Calling people useless, a nobody and worthless typically has a lot of hatred and rage behind it. Obviously. And it also tends to be used most by physical abusers.
One reason these phrases are more dangerous than other kinds of verbal abuses is because they are dehumanizing. People who dehumanize tend not to see you as human, with feelings as important than theirs. Dehumanizing means that they will not have empathy for you, and that the only thing they care about is whether you fulfill a role they demand that you fulfill, period. I bet if you've heard these phrases, the disrespect is off the charts, the rage is off the charts, the insults are off the charts, they are constantly telling you what is wrong with you, and they are either in a physically abusive stage (during the escalation of abuse), or they are constantly trying to intimidate you. But I would bet that the physical abuse has started, or will start very soon.
These phrases, can and often do, mean the kind of abuses that can escalate to much more egregious forms of attack, since these phrases are in the "worst" category of verbal abuse. In order to escalate, he has to go beyond these phrases. The escalation is pretty certain, especially if these sayings are said with rage, and it is clear that they are not respecting physical boundaries (pounding their fists in close proximity to you, raging within 5 feet from you or in your face, pushing you aside, shouting commands at you from several feet away as well). The other sign is making demands with rage, or trying to micromanage your movements and how you perform "duties".
Abusers usually tell you or show you in some way or another what their intentions are towards you too. These three phrases tell you that the narcissist has devalued you a lot. As I've said before, it's about as extreme as you can get. However, thinking of you as worthless can add up to any number of final results, including egregious physical injury, and even murder, so it is very important to know how much intimidation is behind these phrases and get help.
Rage with clenched fists is not a good sign.
In terms of covert narcissists, they are not as likely to use these phrases. They try to show victims, rather than say it out loud, that the victims are useless, a nobody and worthless through discarding, something narcissists are known for. The narcissist throws you away like a toy that isn't working right for them.
Either way, it is important not to let these phrases or discards ruin your self esteem (if you at all personalize what they have to say, or take their opinions of you to heart, or if you care about their opinions, which narcissists will always assume you do because they have very inflated views of themselves).
In many ways it is also dangerous for you to let these phrases compromise your self esteem because you can fall into a state of cognitive dissonance about your abuser where you miss the signs that the abuse is escalating. If you go to a domestic violence counselor, and they make it clear you are in a dangerous situation, they know more than you do about the signs of dangerous perpetrators. If you are caught in this line of thinking, "Well he has his good side and his bad side, and the Christian faith tells me I should forgive the sins of others, and I can tolerate it for now while we figure out what we are going to do with our relationship. And hopefully the love between us will make him change" - that is cognitive dissonance, and for the most part, unrealistic thinking, and it is often what happens to women who go back to their abusers.
But back to the phrases ...
Some perpetrators mean to scare you with these phrases, and they make it clear that they must exert power, control and domination over you at all times, what many of them, especially narcissists with darker traits, live for 24/7. Every time they need something, want something, and are dissatisfied with something, they want to rage at you like a king does, scaring you into submission.
I hope that these phrases, at the very least, will not be something that you personalize: look at them. Could you tell them that they are useless, a nobody and worthless, and would they act like a pleaser puppet for you? Probably not. They have to take what they dish out. Hypocrisy does not make a good argument for justifying their actions.
The reason why so many abusers are hypocrites is because they think they are special: that they are endowed by god, or by a parent, or by their own superiority fantasies, with special rights, and that you do not have those same rights. Some instances: they feel they have a right to insult you and criticize you at any time and with these kinds of phrases, but feel "incredibly hurt" if they even perceive that you might be critical of them (very, very common). Or they feel they can't trust you so they try to keep you isolated from friends and family, but feel justified in coming and going as they please, and even feel justified to have an affair on you because they deem that you are so untrustworthy that they need someone else waiting in the wings for them when you take off (also pretty common). They feel that you deserve their rages any time they want to rage, but if you so much as complain about anything, they deem you are being incredibly unstable and selfish (also common).
So if we are tired of dealing with all of their rationalizations for hypocrisy (and their being so darned special that they think your attention should be on them at all times, and what they have to say, and their views, and their paranoias and conspiracy theories, and what they want from you), we should be able to see these phrases for what they are: much like Dorothy, the tin man, the lion, and scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz who saw the mean wizard for what he was: an old feeble man with a weak voice working levers behind a curtain to make his wizard ferocious and terrifying.
In other words, these wizards of abuse are actually scared little entitled children who are often extremely jealous, and also believe others are jealous of them, with a broken self esteem, behind a ferocious, and perhaps even dangerous, mask, just like the man behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz.
And notice in The Wizard of Oz how the wizard wasn't satisfied after Dorothy, the scarecrow, the lion and the tin man did everything that was demanded of them, but the wizard still told them it wasn't good enough and to come back later. That's very much how an abuser does things too.
And the injustice that Dorothy's group expresses is very much how victims react too .... unless the wizards of abuse can keep talking them into what their victims are doing wrong, and that their motivations for pleasing the wizard are continually wanting: bad, wrong, crazy, stupid, useless, and worthless, like only the way a "nobody" would do it. In other words, you can always decide you need respect, than trying to win this infantile game of being their perfect pleaser puppet. It rarely works to please them anyway, because people who hate you can't, and will never, be pleased. You'll be spinning like a top and exhausting yourself in the process while they adopt more and more abuse tactics to keep you spinning harder, and harder, and more dominated by them.
And being submissive is a sure-fire way to end up with PTSD. We are not meant to be puppets of someone else's domination fantasies.
If you only get the silent treatment (another form of abuse), consider that you may have gotten off easily.
Some abusers who have actually gone public to tell their stories have said that they gave the silent treatment for a good reason: because otherwise they might have killed or injured their victims. It was the best way for them not to break the law. When you are perceived to go out of the type of role they assigned for you, they get very, very enraged, to the extent that they feel they cannot control it and control what they will do with it.
It is also why you shouldn't plead with them, or argue with them when they give you the silent treatment, a tactic that is pretty exclusive to them if it goes on longer than 24 hours. I think many of us usually come to the realization that they become even more rageful if we initiate contact to settle the dispute. Relationships with narcissists aren't like other relationships where both people argue their points, or plead with each other to understand, where you both come to many realizations, and finally come to a conclusion that makes both people happy and feeling loved. With narcissists, they do not accept resolutions that make you both happy (they feel like you should make them happy, period). They also are not interested in understanding you or what the conflict is about. They just want you "in role" because being out of role seems like an act of hostility, of instability, and a recalcitrance to them - think of tyrannical authoritarian leaders who want to destroy a country because all of a sudden the country they want to destroy has gone democratic (even though the country may have been going democratic for a long time) - the democratic government is no longer acting like a puppet to the destructive authoritarian country - this is how narcissists view people in personal relationships too, puppets to their narcissistic supply needs, end of story.
The way I now look at an unbroken narcissistic silent treatment is that it means they are in a constant state of rage over you being "out of role", and if it goes on for weeks, months or years, it means they are still in a rage. You don't want to deal with them when they are in a rage, so you let the silence go on and continue to come between you. Eventually, you'll forget about them. They may see that you have moved on, and have found happiness, which makes them rage more, and can even spark them to attempt a hoover.
I totally understand that it is shocking that they don't care about you at all, but it is part of their condition not to care about the fate of others (lack of empathy is one of the stand-out characteristics of narcissism). They'd like you to believe that you deserved it, just as murderers like to convince juries that their victims deserved to be killed, but it really does not belong to you and besides the upbringing they had, it is also the result of how abuse escalates.
Most victims tend to find happiness because nothing is worse in life for most people than abuse, violence and sadism.
And more often than not narcissists are much more cruel than other kinds of people. However, if your self esteem really has been broken by them it can point to another danger which I discuss in a paragraph below.
But for those of us whose self esteem is not decided by them, we will find happiness. They usually don't because the "puppet fantasy" can never be truly achieved, no matter how hard they try, no matter how many people they try it on. So, they stew in their rages in the silence that they created.
For those of you whose lives and self esteem have taken a deep dive after a silent treatment, it can be dangerous in terms of mental and physical health, so it isn't just about how these phrases escalate to other forms of abuse, but what it is doing to your body and mental health.
Most survivors seek mental health counseling from therapists. There are therapists who specialize in domestic violence and others who specialize in trauma.
But as I've said, the silent treatment is not all you receive from narcissists usually. And so the dangers need to be talked about. These phrases are just some signs of danger. This post is about getting the low-down on what these phrases actually mean, and why they are used (mainly for manipulation by the abuser), and what the dangerous outcomes can be.
"you're useless"
Narcissists tend to see people as utilitarian objects or tools. They love you if you are useful to them, and they hate you if you become, or are, useless to them in terms of the agendas they want.
It is often why they discard people who are caught up in other issues: caretaking a loved one, getting a diagnosis for a terminal or chronic illness, or alternatively when you are caught up in good things in your life like getting married to the person of your dreams (where they often either don't show up to your wedding, or where they show off so that the attention is on them), getting a significant award for an achievement (where they might skip that event too). Narcissists hate it when your attention isn't on them all of the time, which is what narcissistic supply is all about.
One of the reasons why narcissists have an easy time discarding people is because of the fact that they don't see people much beyond tools and objects for their use.
If they say they love you, it may mean they love you momentarily, or because you served a purpose for them in getting what they wanted. Perhaps you made a dinner they liked, or you took care of them when they were in the hospital, or you inadvertently bullied someone for them, or you made their ex jealous by your presence, or you made them look good in their social circle by being at the top of your graduating class or getting a scholarship, or you took on a role unconsciously in their life that they felt they badly needed.
As I've said before, roles are extremely important to narcissists, but not to the rest of us (if we are at all enlightened, we see people beyond roles, even beyond the roles of certain jobs and careers). Narcissists don't, not even in their closest personal relationships. They can't separate what they want from other people from who a person is.
Likewise, very few us use the "You're useless" or "They are useless" phrases when we describe people who aren't doing what we expect them to do, but overt narcissists tend to use the phrase whole lot, even when describing their own children, or a spouse, or an ex-spouse.
So be careful and be on guard when you hear the "useless" phrase when it comes to describing other people, especially if they are using it in a close personal relationship. Children, parents, a spouse, siblings, and friends are not "supposed to be useful" unless they are gainfully employed by the person using the phrase, and the job description is clear as to what duties they are supposed to perform.
Another tid-bit that goes with this that I think you might be interested in:
A lot of narcissists and especially sociopaths (who believe that people should serve some utility to them even more than narcissists do), is that they will say things like, "I don't like that actor."
Now acting is a job, and usually comes with a lot of education and a long career, and actors are often required to do different parts, even drastically different parts from one film to the next, or one play to the next, and the best of them have to learn to use different accents and perform certain types of body language so that they can "seem" as close to the person they are portraying as possible.
But if you ask a sociopath what they don't like ("is it the acting styles, the parts they play, their appearance, the roles they are cast in, what they do outside of acting, or is it something else?"), they often can't separate the actor from any of this, even from what the actor does outside of acting. You'll often only get: "I don't like that actress, and I don't want to see anything she has a part in, and that is all there is to it."
There are better ways to decipher whether you are dealing with Cluster B personalities high on narcissistic or sociopathic traits than asking them what actors they don't like and why they don't like them, but if you want just one more "sign", then this can be "useful" to you in terms of whether they may be narcissists or sociopaths who may, some day, find you as "useless" as the actors and actresses they don't like.
"You're useless" is not necessarily dangerous on its own (though it can be), but when used in tandem with the next phrases "You're nobody" and "You're worthless" it certainly points to danger. I tell why:
"you're nobody"
"You're nobody" is a pretty common phrase for domestic violence offenders. And like the rest of the phrases on this page it is also meant to hurt you, and to give you a personal devaluation (where a discard can often follow). Because it is intended to hurt you, and your self esteem, it qualifies as abuse.
When I did a survey on what abusive parents say to their kids, this was right up there in the "common" category.
Now why on earth would any parent want to say this to their kid?
And once they start saying it, they tend to say it repeatedly.
Do they have rocks in their head? No, but they do have blind spots.
And this is what this phrase is largely about. "You're invisible to me" was part of that survey too, and as far as I'm concerned, "You're nobody" and "You're invisible to me" are too alike to be discounted as not the same. The meaning here could be put together as "a nobody is invisible, and since you are a nobody, you are invisible to me."
I would bet, if a researcher wants to take this further, that narcissists who go around telling "loved ones" that they are a nobody (children, siblings, who ever they deem to be "un-useful" at the time they are saying it), are narcissists who give the silent treatment, either interrupt what you have to say or stonewall, who devalue and discard people they are in close personal relationships with, and who use perspecticide and invalidation on their victims. And what I found out is that this is the road that led to estrangement.
However, it can mean something significantly more dangerous for those of you in a relationship with a partner who abuses, a sibling who abuses or someone who practices elder abuse ...
So assuming that "You're nobody" is just another phrase for "You're invisible to me, and I don't care what you have to say; I don't care who you are; I don't care what your thoughts and feelings are; I don't care what you have to say to me or what your perspectives are because all I care about is what I have to say and what my perspectives are; I don't care whether I never see you again or not because after all, you mean nothing to me."
A lot of people who are not psychologists and domestic abuse therapists say to "discount" phrases like this as unregulated rage, that maybe they are "stressed out", and that they'll be calm once again, but a lot of domestic violence survivors say that they may get a calm period, but their abusers are right back at it again moments, days or weeks later, and always worse than they were before: more in-your-face, all the way to the most egregious forms of physical abuse.
Sometimes it is a combination: the perpetrator physically abuses the victim, then goes silent on her, then plays the victim.
When gleaning forums, it turns out that from all I have seen, "You're nobody" and similar phrases like "You're invisible to me" and "You're worthless" and "I wish you were never born", and "I wish you'd just go kill yourself" and "I'd be better off if you weren't in my life", or "I'd be better off if you were just dead" and phrases in the "general camp" of the three phrases I bring up in this post tend overwhelmingly to be physical abusers.
Parents can sometimes be the exception, but often they aren't.
The usual escalation process is: verbal abuse, graduating to verbal abuse with emotional abuse, graduating to verbal, emotional and physical abuse, with the physical abuse often starting with pushing and shoving. Since this phrase is "over the top" in terms of verbal abuse, it would stand to reason that escalation is assured.
Also from gleaning forums and blogs by survivors, abusers often tell you what their intentions are. "You're a nobody" means that they have every intention of making you a nobody, whether you are wiped out by them in a silent treatment, or wiped out in terms of your voice, or wiped out in terms of punches or murder.
They are telling you that they want to make you a nobody in their life, to get rid of you in some way.
I would even bet that these phrases, when used in tandem, point to as many danger signs as assaults to your face, head and neck; it's just more of a preliminary act to physical abuse than the later assaults are.
"You're worthless" is similar to "You're useless" except it is more about shaming than about blaming (usually). "You're worthless" can mean, and often does mean, "You'll always be useless".
"You're worthless" is also similar to "You're a nobody" too.
"You're worthless" can mean "You're worthless to me" or it can mean "You're worthless to the world", but in domestic violence situations it usually means "You're worthless to me."
"Waste" is more about something to throw away, and again, I wouldn't be surprised if you receive the silent treatment or a violent type of attack shortly thereafter, whereas "worthless" can mean that they find you not worth anything as far as their agendas go, not worthwhile as far as putting you into a role that satisfies them (whether scapegoat or pleaser puppet roles), or worthwhile as far as their ambitions go.
When it is said in tandem with phrases like "You're nothing to me", "You're nobody", and "You're invisible to me", I wouldn't be surprised if it put your system into "high alert": a sense of danger, hypervigilance, fight or flight reactions, anxiety, un-surety as to their volatile intentions.
For now I list symptoms on the bottom of this post.
The further reading section also has some articles about the effects of verbal abuse.
The silent treatment (of which "ghosting" and "cancel culture" count) can be have many reasons behind it. However, if they were abusive at the time they gave you the silent treatment, like calling you names, referring you as an animal creature, trying to destroy your self esteem, doing lots of gaslighting (i.e. referring to you as crazy with people you both know, or calling you crazy to your face), neglecting to respond when you try to give them some reasonable solutions (like meeting in a public place to talk out your differences), then the silent treatment has to be considered an escalation of abuse. Once you have received all of these abuses, they are highly, highly likely to keep escalating. There isn't much to do to stop it other than getting help:
- keeping a record with police of any harassing or threatening e-mails, texts or phone calls, and then keeping police abreast of any more threats or harassment, so that they know what is going on and how to intervene).
- getting a good safety plan from your domestic violence center
- getting financial advice if they are practicing financial abuse (something domestic violence centers also usually help victims with in terms of advice and/or shelter)
- talking to a lawyer
- grieving and healing
Instead of trying to wrap your head around all of the various possibilities in terms of what they are trying to convey in terms of how they see you, and which displeasure they are experiencing, most domestic violence counselors will tell you to go "no contact", usually. The rule of thumb here is if they give you "the silent treatment", you go "no contact". I think if you are in this situation, you'll get that response from most counselors who work in the domestic violence sphere.
This is because with the silent treatment, the kind of safety you have to adopt isn't as clear, so you have to assume the worst.
If they give you the silent treatment without abusing you, then you can consider other things. But it is still possible they are trying to show you contempt. Or that they just prefer someone else's company. It is always best to seek a safety plan regardless because you never know ...
The silent treatment is hurtful to most people, and reassuring you that they care, or calling you to find out how you are doing, is what most people do when they "go missing into a period of silence". If they don't have a good, heartfelt response to going silent on you, even when you've reached out a number of times to talk to them, or talk through a problem between you, consider that they have no empathy for you. A lack of empathy usually points to narcissism, sociopathy or psychopathy (lack of empathy tends to go hand in hand with these disorders, in other words).
And narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths are not safe people to be in relationships with.
excerpt:
Abusers who have not yet turned to physical violence could be "time bombs" with fuses of unknown length. If your abuser feels that his "normal" verbally abusive techniques are not working, he will probably move into physical abuse to maintain his control.
Abuse escalates over time. Time spent in abusive situations and relationships cause you to feel beaten down and devastated - but it is never too late to get help.
What could happen if I stay?
Remember that your abuser benefits from abusing you. S/He gets his way and lives the life he wants to live while you do everything in your power to "make them happy" at the expense of yourself.
Here are some possibilities of what can happen if you choose to stay with your abuser: S/He could escalate the abuse until he kills you ...
RECOMMENDED: 15 Disturbing Forms of Verbal Abuse in Relationships. The abuser feels more powerful when he puts down his victim. - by Berit Brogaard D.M.Sci., Ph.D for Psychology Today
excerpt:
KEY POINTS
* A verbal abuser may regularly tell the victim they're too sensitive, have no sense of humor, etc., which denies the victim’s inner reality.
* Any form of ordering or demanding is a form of verbal abuse.
* Threatening is a common form of verbal abuse and can either be very explicit or subtle.
RECOMMENDED: Why Verbal Abuse Can Do So Much Damage ("Tough love" and "discipline" are often just rationales for maltreatment.) - by Peg Streep for Psychology Today
My own post: constant insults and criticism (verbal abuse), how to deal with them
Verbal abuse is a dangerous form of workplace bullying - by Thorman Petrov Group, Your Ally in Workplace Justice
EXAMPLES OF VERBAL ABUSE: A Comprehensive 2022 List - by the administrators of Soul-Mate.com
Domestic Abuse - a Help Guide article
You are NOT worthless - by Lynn for Get Domestic Violence Help
What's the best comeback/response to "you're useless"? - Reddit question
"We're doing so much for you and you're useless" - How to not get triggered? - a similar Reddit question
People can't use you if you're useless. - a Reddit comment with 46 replies
