Saying Nothing To Tell You Everything
The Silent Treatment. One of our most potent methods of manipulation. Whether it is a present silent treatment where we talk to everyone else around you but not you or whether it is an absent silent treatment where we disappear and cannot be found or contacted, we know that this is highly effective. It does not matter if the silence lasts for ten minutes or ten days the impact on you is considerable and your reaction is always the same. That is, of course, the main reason that we do it. You will repeatedly ask us what is wrong as you fail to understand what it is that we are doing. You will hang around us, if that is possible, asking the same questions over and over again.
“What is wrong, please tell me?”
“What is the matter, I wish you would tell me?”
“What is it? Why aren’t you speaking to me?”
Your concern mutates into frustration and anxiety and even occasionally anger. All of these states suit us as we drink the fuel you are providing to us. If we absented ourselves then we will face a slew of text messages, e-mails and voicemail messages as you keep ringing every five minutes trying to establish contact with us. After a time the nature of the questioning changes as you shift from asking us what is wrong to hauling yourself over the coals. It is all so predictable. You ask yourself what is it that you could have done which has caused us such offence that we are no longer speaking to you. You analyse everything you have said and done over the last hour, the last five hours, the last day. Did you insult us in some way and not realise? Surely it was not that comment about our tie, that was a joke. Was that the catalyst for this silence? Did you fail to kiss us on our arrival home? You cannot remember but these days you often find that is the case since the days all seem to merge into one as you pad around trying not to tread on those eggshells. If only the tiredness would lift. You might be able to think straight then and be able to ascertain what is going on. You keep providing us with different suggestions and scenarios as to what has happened. You grope around, utterly unsure as to what it was that proved to be the trigger. You issue apologies and it gets to the point that you do not even know what you are apologising for but that does not matter does it? All you want is for this horrible silence, the aching absence to end. It has happened before and then it ended as arbitrarily as it arrived. You cling on to the hope that it will end as it did last time but then there is that gnawing doubt which keeps manifesting in your mind. What if it won’t end? What if this is it and we have gone for good? Surely not and for what reason? The doubt is horrible and you feel a rising sense of panic which causes you to redouble your efforts to find us and offer yourself up in sacrifice in order to get us to come back. Time after time we do this to our victims but they do not realise what our silence really means. They are trapped by fear, paralysed by indecision and this is naturally how we like it. This confusion and inability to really see what is going on serves our purpose.
What is our silence really telling you? It is telling you how we enjoy to play fast and loose with your feelings. It is telling you that we do not care about you. You mean nothing to us other than the fuel you provide. We are reminding you of how inferior you are to us. You are nothing more than an appliance which we can switch on and off, pick up and put down at our convenience. We are trumpeting our lack of respect for you and your identity. We are heralding our flagrant disregard for your well-being. We are telegraphing our disdain for our supposed responsibilities. We are reinforcing that you do not matter. Instead, you seek to eradicate the silence, you plan and arrange to do anything which you hope will dispel the absence of communication. Too caught up in trying to remove the unpleasant sensations that wrap around you, you fail to see the clear message that we convey to you each time we behave in this manner. We are behaving as we did when we were told we could not have another biscuit and we sat sulking until our worn-down parent gave in. Most people grow out of such conduct but not us. We saw the power it would wield over certain people (others of course would never countenance it and we knew never to show it to them or suffer the consequences) but everyone else would flock around us, flapping and attending to us and we realised just how we could wrap people around our little fingers so they gave us what we wanted. It was not the extra lollipop or permission to play out for an extra hour. It was attention and attention laced with emotion. Fuel. We may not have realised it then but we took this childish response and turned it into a weapon which causes you fear and frustration every time we unleash it. If only you could understand what we are really doing, then you would understand just how much we are truly telling you by saying absolutely nothing.
12 thoughts on “Saying Nothing To Tell You Everything”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
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This article truly resonates with me. I’ve known my covert narc 8 years and during this time I’ve gotten the silent treatment hundreds of times. Some lasting days, others weeks or even months . Before I knew what he was I used to get very upset, and tried messaging him or calling, I even wrote postcards or letters to him and contacted his relatives. I basically made a fool of myself.
Thanks to the work of H.G. And others I know what he is and why he is doing this and I no longer chase him. I’m presently on a silent treatment for over 4 weeks now . This started two days after we spent a fantastic time together, after he promised that things will be fine. Things are not, of course. The cycle continues and it’s up to me to stop it. Now at least I’ve accepted the reality of everything and I refuse to become upset. He simply is what he is and does what he needs to do.
You are welcome and yes, it is up to you to stop it.
What happens if they do not look for you, if they do not call, if they do not write, if they just let you go, again and again … Why do you come back?
Fuel.
I’m not sure if i was DLS or IPSS but was in competition with another IPSS which is being switched up to IPPS. I confronted him cheating and lost. He hoovered and was somewhat successful I obeyed some physical requests but rejected others . He rejected next day saying he was going to now do the right thing and stay faithful to IPSS saying he obviously is still attracted and always will be but wanted to stay friends. That lasted a week, during which he was flirting with me still at work. Now I get silent treatment. What is going on?
I recommend you organise an email consultation so you can provide me with more detail.
How do I do that?
Sorry. I figured it out. Thank you
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I actually take the silent treatment as they don’t care less it’s painful to accept but I know it’s the truth I don’t chase after my narcissists I never have I let them go , many times I have been Hoovered back and they have another piece of me but I’m learning to love myself first and ignore them the longer the discard the easier it is
Empathic types aren’t necessarily so fragile. If someone is being cruel, it’s a reflection on the state of their own life. No point in taking it personally, no reason to accommodate. I’ve been subject to the silent treatment – unless there is a valid reason to be concerned, they get silence in return.
Hello, H.G.Tudor.
As I read and comment on your magnificent posts. Some memories come to mind. And I’m going to relate one of them.
I am remembering that on one occasion, I criticized your way of acting and behavior. Never during the time that my relationship with him lasts, I saw him this way. He went crazy…
I had already been discarded and replaced with a new partner, or so I thought. At the end of the year we went out to party, surprisingly he spent more time with me than with his official partner.
This always amazed me, and I asked myself this many times. Why?
who dates me and spends more time with me than with his official partner?. Now I understand everything, much better. I was his constant, his IPPS in the process of being discarded until he was decommitted, 4 years later.
I still remember those criticisms and my words.
Since I was dating this girl, I thought I was in love.
But that end of the year, that we went out together, notice that extreme that he didn’t go out with his official partner on such an important date.
At the end of the year in the disco in front of me, he flirted and had sex with another girl, I had a hard time, and I gave him what he was looking for and we all know what he was looking for, fuel. And I, as a good codependent, gave it to her in abundance. She also passed it that night, she was radiant with happiness.
I, as the supreme empath and absolute fool, in my head, was also thinking of the girl, his official girlfriend.
Then back home my critique came out of my mouth like a thought.
And I commented without much emotional attention because I was speaking for the other girl.
M….(Somatic Narcissist) Dude, You don’t love anyone!
And the other candid soul, Sleeping in her bed and you cheating on her. If she found out about your behavior. God bless you, how repugnant you are, you know that with your behavior you can beat some disease venerate the other girl, what a disgusting person you are, man.
You don’t know how he got!…. Oh, my God! That wasn’t human!
She told me everything, that I was nobody to criticize her behavior etc. The red face and the bloody eyes and the veins of the neck, came out, the truth.
He opted for a silent treatment and left.
He told me everything, I was frightened, because I had never seen him that way. Then, as a good codependent, I ran after him, begging and submissive, to try to calm him down. Now I laugh at my totally wrong behavior. You imagine it.
I used to say to him: “But boy, what’s the matter with you, why are you getting like this? Forgive me, I won’t do it again.
I suppose I gave him some kind of fuel, with my attitude, to be able to calm him down minimally.
But come on, I paint myself black the second. And so I remain, I would look like your slave of tropical Africa. Conga jajajajajajajaj.
And I never really saw him again in that state.
I think that in that occasion I took away with a stroke all the fuel so arduously collected on New Year’s Eve.
The silent treatment had its effect because I kept my best weapon, the criticisms about it. Error Error because it’s what fucks him up.