Why do narcissists use the silent treatment? Most narcissists will use the silent treatment against you. Some genuinely hurt people who are not on the spectrum of the disorder may fall silent, but they will talk to you and try to sort it out. Narcissistic people use the silent treatment to control, confuse, concern, worry, and manipulate you, often causing anxiety to those on whom the silent treatment is used.
The narcissist’s silent treatments are a form of psychological abuse, and they can have detrimental effects on those who have suffered from this form of abuse. As you probably know, a narcissist will use it for any given occasion against you. You may not realise that you’ve hurt a genuine person’s feelings, or they might just be so overwhelmed by life that they are isolating themselves to gather their thoughts. It’s nothing personal. These people will come around when they are ready to do so. They won’t want you to feel bad, and most likely, you’ll both apologise to each other, communicate, and open up when you are both ready and reach a compromise.
Narcissistic people, however, will be waiting for you to do all the chasing, working out what you did, and blaming yourself. If someone regularly gives you the silent treatment, blames all others for problems within their own lives, comes across as entitled, rarely to never showing empathy, and exploits people, it is most likely a narcissist giving you the silent treatment to manipulate further and gain control over you.
The narcissist wants attention; the more you beg or plead with them to let you know what’s wrong, the more you message them to try and get in touch, the more they enjoy it. It leaves you questioning what you did and working out how to fix something you didn’t even do. The more they know it’s affecting you, the longer they will continue, and then when they feel like it, they will flick a switch and talk to you again.
The silent treatment is used to get attention and emotional reactions from you, to keep you emotionally paralysed and fixated on them, to assert control over you, and to give them power over you. The narcissist’s silent treatment is used so that you can no longer think clearly and chase them for answers, beg and plead with them to put you out of your misery. This state of mind they place you in leaves you with so many unhealthy emotions, slowly killing the real you from the inside.
Ways they use the silent treatment:
1. The present silent treatment, in the car, on a day out, in the room, at the dining table. They will be silent towards you while happy and talkative with those around you, often using triangulation to gather an army of enablers.
2. Ignoring your messages, perhaps looking so you can see they’ve read them, yet they’ll not respond to cause confusion and pain within your mind.
3. Ignoring your calls, some may even answer yet not speak to you.
4. On social media, responding and liking lots of other people’s comments, yet ignoring yours.
5. Talking to everybody else, either the children or out at a social event, talking happily to everyone yet completely blanking you.
6. Randomly and unexpectedly blocking you on social media.
7. Agreeing to take you somewhere, then falling silent and not taking you.
8. Taking you somewhere and then ignoring you while there.
9. Sleeping in the spare room or on the sofa for no apparent reason.
10. Sleeping in their car, a caravan, at friends’, or your replacements.
11. Walking out on you entirely and doing the vanishing act on you.
12. When you speak, they could be saying to the children or those around you, “Did you hear someone complaining then?”
13. Falling off the face of the planet without warning, friends and family don’t know where they are. One minute, all is good. Next, they are gone for days, weeks, and sometimes months, with no explanation, just gone.
14. Talking over you and only about themselves.
15. Replying to your messages with, “Who are you?”
16. Flying monkeys telling you they’ve seen the narcissist with someone else because you’ve gone crazy.
People who care about you do not treat you like this, never giving explanations or just disappearing, then coming back when it suits them. The silent treatment is used as a weapon to get you to try harder, leaving you feeling crazy. It is mental abuse.
Narcissistic personality disorder is on a spectrum, so some are extreme. You just need to go no contact and leave them be. There are those whom you can grey rock and focus more on your life and less on them, and those whom you can leave be but know how to handle yourself around them if you were unfortunate enough to have to deal with them.
Look into the future six months from now and ask yourself, “Where do I want to be?” Picture yourself there, whatever that place is for you, whether it’s work, money, homes, happiness, joy. Feel those emotions as if you already have it, then take action to achieve it. Now is the time to create a whole new, happier life for yourself. You can, and you will.
The narcissist’s silent treatment.
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Elizabeth Shaw is not a Doctor or a therapist. She is a mother of five, a blogger, a survivor of narcissistic abuse, and a life coach, She always recommends you get the support you feel comfortable and happy with. Finding the right support for you. Elizabeth has partnered with BetterHelp (Sponsored.) where you will be matched with a licensed councillor, who specialises in recovery from this kind of abuse.
How to handle yourself around a narcissist.
No contact or grey rock.
