Salvos of Silence
Silence is golden. Or rather, it is a golden weapon when deployed by our kind. The use of silent treatment against our victims is a major part of our portfolio of abusive manipulations. Easy to implement, very low in terms of energy expended but capable of reaping such considerable rewards in terms of fuel, control, the assertion of superiority and the administration of power, it is little wonder that we use it regularly. The application of silence can be used virtually at any time and in nearly every situation. This cold fury causes frustration, upset, fearfulness, concern, confusion and bewilderment. It is perfect at drawing fuel from our victims. It is astonishing just how it affects those it is used against, causing the emotional fuel to froth and spill from the perplexed and worried individual. It causes anxiety and has a most unsettling effect which ensures that those who are subjected to it are unable to understand why it is being used. By maintaining a heightened emotional state, we ensure that you never manage to grasp what is happening and why this passive aggressive tactic is being used. It plays to your desire to know what is happening and why, but you do not realise. You hover around us, asking what is wrong, why are you not speaking to me, what is the matter, please just talk to me. Every sentence you utter, ever plea you make and every beseeched demand just makes us continue it all the more. In those instances, where the silent treatment is administered and we remain proximate to you, we will maintain a glacial mask. An impassive fixed expression which may be punctuated by the occasional baleful glare, but underneath this mask we are smiling and laughing at you. Look at how upset she is, see the confusion in her eyes and wait for it, here comes another question, another plea, another request to be put out of her misery. How the fuel flows and we revel in what we see.
Even when the silent treatment is utilised against you from a distance and we are not physically with you, we are savouring just how you will be reacting. We can picture you frantically jabbing your ‘phone as you send text after text asking us to come home, to call you and just explain what the problem is. We listen to your tear-infused voicemails as you ask us to just let you know that we are okay. Your sobbing promises to work things out and “whatever I have done, I am sorry, but please, please don’t do this to me.” Of course your failure to understand what you have done is used against you in two ways so that you are damned either way. Your admission that you do not know what you have done (which of course is entirely correct, how could you know what has happened when we just walked out of the living room when everybody was say quietly watching television?) just serves to underline, in our minds, that we are right to take this course of action. Good Lord, why should we bother to contact you if you cannot even be bothered to work out what you have done wrong. All the more reason to keep this silence going for a while longer yet. Furthermore, because it is so effective at troubling you and keeping you guessing as to what the reason for this icy front is, we want to continue it.
The silent treatment is used for many reasons. First and foremost, as with all manipulations, it is used to draw fuel. It is to exert control over you. It is to keep you in an emotional place and thus paralysed, unable to see what is happening and unable to think clearly. It is to reinforce that we are powerful, superior and mighty, whilst you are useless and pathetic. You do not know how to please us, you do not know how to remedy matter and you cannot even work out what you have done. You are useless.
There is also a further reason why we use the silent treatment. This is our way of killing you. True enough there are those of our kind who actually do kill their victims. Those people are idiots. They lack control, function and competence and allow their knee-jerk response to override their need for fuel and the ability to do as we please. By committing such an act, by losing control and killing, those of our kind who do this (invariably the lesser of our kind) not only destroy their primary source of fuel (often with no true contingency in place) but they then hand themselves on a plate to the authorities, a prison sentence and the attendance diminution in fuel gathering opportunities that arise from incarceration. As I wrote, they are idiots.
Those of us who exert control over our responses, those of us who are of a higher function, who plot and plan and calculate, do not go down such a route. No, instead we slay with silence and here are seventeen salvos which bring about that quiet death.
- Remaining in the room and saying nothing and not even acknowledging you.
- Remaining silent but staring malevolently at you.
- Talking to others in a social gathering but blanking you.
- Ignoring your telephone calls.
- Answering your telephone calls but saying nothing as we listen to you beg and plea before ending the call.
- Ignoring your text messages.
- Allowing you to know we have read your messages but never responding.
- Responding to everybody else’s comments on a social media post but not yours.
- Inviting everybody in a social group to which you belong, to an event, but not inviting you.
- Agreeing to meet for a date and not turn up.
- Sleeping in the spare room or on the sofa, anywhere but in the bed with you.
- Walking out all of a sudden and completely disappearing.
- Not engaging with you directly but acknowledging your existence through a third party – “John, did you hear something then? I thought I heard something squeak/whine/moan” used when you speak.
- Extending the silent treatment so it is meted out by lieutenants and members of the coterie.
- Responding to any written communication from you by writing “I do not recognise the sender of this letter/message/e-mail”
- We talk to you but only about our day, what we want to discuss and do not allow you to speak. We talk over you, ignore what you have to say and behave as if we are talking to ourselves in the mirror.
- You hear from other parties that we have been talking in terms as if you do not exist – “Yes, I am going to the wedding next week, I am happy to do so on my own, I am not being controlled then.” Even though you had no idea that we have such a plan in mind. Your existence has been eradicated and deleted by us and relayed back to you by proxy.
Yes, the application of the silent treatment is powerful indeed. It is regarded as a “death blow” against you.
Murdering without feeling has never been so damn appealing.
24 thoughts on “Salvos of Silence”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Will he eventually try to hoover back then if I’m silent back and I’m in his sphere of influence every day? Is he waiting for a reaction? I haven’t spoken to him in 2 months since he stood me up.
He’s a very passive agreessive man.
If you are in his sphere of influence every day Vanessa there will be a hoover trigger every day. What matters then is whether the Hoover Execution Criteria is met – does he perceive there is good fuel, has he been criticised before and will he risk it, are there any obstacles. Since he is passive aggressive he is likely to be a Mid Range and therefore he may be wary of hoovering you because of the risk of no fuel, potential criticism and other obstacles.
What is it exactly that a narcissist is looking to accomplish from silence and pretending you don’t exist when you have to be around him? Is this to make you beg for their attention, or do they just do this to silently kill you off because they don’t want anything to do with you?
I dated a passive aggressive narc and ST has always been his main tactic to hurt me. We recently were on speaking terms until he stood me up and now acts like I don’t exist.
Hello Vanessa,
A present silent treatment is all about exerting control and gaining fuel from you.
An absent silent treatment is all about exerting control, gaining fuel and gaining time courting and seducing a new prospective primary source. They get the good whilst you are viewed as bad.
There will be further articles on silent treatments in due course.
silent treatment helped me develop and learn from You…
silent treatment for who? I’ve been dancing around the house naked singing songs with a smile on my face…
silent treatment turned out to be a not as effective as someone would think…
Silent treatment Is so painful.
I thought the silent treatment was the worst thing for me. I had no idea what it was for. I shed more tears for this manipulation than any others. Once again I found more things that you wrote above to be the exact same.
“Please just talk to me”
“Just let me know that you are ok”
I said those a millions times.
I would have never guessed that there were others in the world who did this. I continue to be amazed at how effective this method is. Great explanation.
“2. Remaining silent but staring malevolently at you.
and
11.Sleeping in the spare room or on the sofa, anywhere but in the bed with you.”
Both of those would be an invitation for a challenge. I have been there and it just makes the victory much more sweeter.
Do not ask me why but it does bring my dark side out…
This would be playing in the background when I go for the kill…
https://youtu.be/sfhkXxmnYHc
You crack me up DC!!! LOL
😈
I always said the silent treatment wasnt a punishment….it was a reward!
HG. Can a narc have traits of both the greater and the lesser? The comment about being incarcerated got me thinking. (Not for murder but GBH…apparently).
Thanks in advance…
yes it is possible, for instance brutal physical violence is the hallmark of a Lesser, but you may have somebody who is Greater in all other respects but also engages in brutal physical violence. This would most likely make that person a Lower Greater.
HG. I am very happy that I found your page. I have lived In a very abusiv relationship with my ex. He loved the silent treatment. He forced me to be silent for as long as a months. He always said to me If I only keep my mouth shout everything will be fine. All that you written here he did to me. Over and over again. Finally one day I had to call the cops. I had no choice. The abuse just got worse. He force me to do things I did not want to do. Terrible things. He love to stare. Loved to see me scared. Always use me. Never kind unless he wanted something. I broke up with him. Told him If he ever contact me or even look at me I will call the police. I ask him to leave me alone. He answer he left me and that I will never see his face again. Now It’s almost one months since we last talk. I think he will keep his promise.
As I have said in previous posts, I am working at moving on and progression is pretty good, but not 100% yet.
So…we’ve been chatting, all fine and suddenly he’s gone. The only thing I did was mention in my last correspondence was a couple of future goals of mine. Nothing particularly impressive. Just two things (exercise wise) I plan to do in the near future.
Two possible scenarios.
1) He’s jealous (and I know he is) of me having the time to ‘play’, while he’s working. He’s always put me down for my lifestyle. I have too much time on my hands, SOME people (him) have to work, I should get a job (I have one), lucky for me I have so much time to exercise, he works really really hard…blah, blah, blah.
2) He can see I’m actually pretty happy at the moment and wants to put a spanner in the works.
Now surely he can’t be giving me the ST for that, could he?
The silent treatment is a response to being wounded as it is the ignition of fury and manifests as cold fury. The fact that you have time to play is perceived by him as a criticism because he does not have this time (and owing to his sense of entitlement) he believes that he should have this time. Your happiness (without him) also is a criticism. You should be pining and upset, not happy.
Darkness wrapping its arms around
Tightening ever so gently,
chills that send sivers
Isolation in the dead of night
Silent screams
A moment of relief
That stops the screams
Sooths the pain
Arms so warm bring comfort again
Then once again the cycle repeats
The end is the beginning,
the beginning is the end.
Round and round once again.
He went from cold as ice (since July) to super nice (today). Not falling this time!
Reblogged this on NarcMagNet69x96.
sooo f***ed up.
Made NO CONTACT super easy! 😀
No one’s allowed to be that rude and disrespectful to me, ever again *f.r.e.e.!*
Being Silent Back
The ultimate defense.
That’s what I’ve done, Louie. He discarded me 8 months ago and I haven’t bothered with him at all. I told myself from day one … “two can play at that game”. I often wonder how he likes being criticized in the same way. 🙂
I’ve dealt with a Greater and a Lesser, and I have to say The Silent Treatment only worked on me with The Greater. When The Lesser gave me The Silent Treatment, I enjoyed it.
I didn’t have to talk with him, listen to his blah blah blah’s, pretend he wasn’t an Idiot……..it was bliss.
It gave me validation of what he was, proof. It also gave me time to plan my escape. Let me add, when dealing with a Narc, pack some patience in your pocket, because all of them have the Patience of Job!
Ha ha ha, that made me laugh. After a while I really enjoyed the silent treatments too…. especially when he’d take off the whole entire day! The day then became MINE, MINE, MINE!!!!