Have you ever been in a situation where you felt horribly uncomfortable in your own home or your own office?,
and you realized it was because you were getting the silent treatment from someone you loved or worked with or someone
who cared for you supposedly?, have you ever had the silent treatment from a narcissist?,
you know how painful it can be and that's exactly what we're going to talk about today at QueenBeeing.com.
Narcissists and the silent treatment.
So let's get started. (Closed captioning provided by Athena Moberg and
CPTSDfoundation.org. My name is Angie Atkinson and on this channel, I offer free, daily video coaching to help you discover,
understand and overcome
narcissistic abuse and toxic relationships. I like to call it toxic relationship rehab.
So if that sounds good to you, hit that subscribe button and let's get going.
So if you've ever experienced the silent treatment - you know it's painful, you know
it can make you feel awkward and uncomfortable and even if that person isn't doing anything but not talking to you,
sometimes that energy feels like it almost pokes you. It's so
big and heavy. Kind of feels like something's sitting on your chest and you might find yourself; if you're anything like me,
constantly trying to fix it, trying to think of things that you can say that will make them really
understand finally what you've been trying to say all this time and unfortunately it doesn't always work out that way. So
we're gonna kind of dig into this a little bit, take a look.
Here's an example of how the silent treatment kind of happens in a relationship.
So our couple is going to be called Jack and Jill. Jack's a narcissist Jill is his victim. Lately,
she's noticing that he's going out all the time, he's not responding to her when she calls him,
she feels really upset, neglected, anxious.
So she does what almost everyone would do and she tries to talk to him about it during the next time they're together.
Well at that point he pretty much tells her she's full of crap, overreacting. He says I'm done, I'm going out, that's it.
He leaves, he goes out with his friends, he gets drunk. She tries texting him;
he sees the text, but does not respond to that. Later on she brings it up again
and he basically ignores her, gives her the silent treatment, doesn't respond to her and at this point she begins falling, she's falling,
she is getting sicker, she is getting more upset,
she is feeling more alone, and he keeps going out and getting drunk. So she decides she to try something new.
She starts googling stuff.
She comes up with this amazing idea and she thinks you know what, maybe this is really gonna work. I can talk to him,
I can fill him in. I figured out this is exactly what he needs to hear.
So she's got a plan, but will it work?, she isn't sure. So the next day Jill decides
she's gonna have a discussion with jack and she thinks he's gonna see the light. Very quickly
She realizes this isn't gonna happen and she's back in tears. Meanwhile, jack has nothing to say about it.
He's quiet, confused you know, innocent. Next thing you know,
he's on Facebook talking about how terrible his life is and all of his little flying monkeys are
comforting him and feeling sorry for him and meanwhile here's Jill over here holding the responsibility for this "problem" in their relationship.
This is the silent treatment. In case you weren't aware,
the silent treatment is just another way that the narcissist attempts to control you.
It is a form of emotional abuse and it's usually used by narcissists or people with narcissistic tendencies.
It is all about putting the narcissist in the position of being in control of the situation
and it's designed to help the narcissist make you shut your mouth, as in to avoid you
asserting yourself or having any opinion whatsoever. In some cases, they do it in order to increase
the conflict, make it more difficult for you, avoid resolving the conflict because that makes you uncomfortable and they like that feeling.
Sometimes it's about not taking personal responsibility
or not making a compromise and in many cases it's about punishing you for something that they think you did wrong, like a perceived
ego slight. Of course what happens is, very often exactly what they want to happen.
That's they get a reaction from you and they feel like they are in control of you.
So you obviously; you're an empath, you understand how to deal with people, you have the ability to compromise, a strong
conflict resolution skill set, you probably in general don't even enjoy conflict.
So during the time that the narcissist is being silent,
you're probably trying really hard to get in touch with them, to figure out how to fix what happened.
Try to make them understand you, just like Jill did in our example,
but of course this is generally met with contempt, disdain, more silence completely ignoring you,
whatever and basically this makes you feel like you're nothing, like you're so insignificant, that you don't matter or that you and your issues
become less and less real. More and more
non-existent. For the narcissist
of course; that makes you feel like you're not good enough, like you have nothing to offer,
like everything's your fault and before you know it you might find yourself
apologizing to the narcissist, even though clearly you're not the one that should be apologizing. Most
narcissists are about as emotionally mature as a toddler or maybe up to a five or six year old child.
They kind of pout, they don't want to play with there friend in the sandbox,
they fight with their friends on the playground, they decide they don't want to share their toys or whatever.
That's the same kind of thing and just like a five-year-old, like we've talked about recently, a narcissist acts just like a child
emotionally. They might refuse to talk with you, angrily storm-off and then you are left feeling like what in the heck just happened?,
I'm confused, I'm rejected, I don't understand what the heck just happened.
It's the same deal with a child on the playground,
but in this case, since the narcissist gets to decide
whether or not they're going to talk to you or give you a "chance",
well then there's this false, but strong sense of control.
So the narcissist will then demand that you apologize for whatever it was that you may have done some BS, made-up
transgression or maybe just the fact that you had the nerve to... I don't know, set a boundary or ask for equal treatment.
Sometimes this makes the narcissist want to abandon you and then you start the discard phase and this is when you might start actually presenting
the ultimatum and say look this is it. I need to know, yes or no.
So then at that point the narcissist might decide to end the relationship rather than actually admit being
abandoned, because they might think - well now you've set this
ultimatum and you're saying you're gonna leave if we don't fix this and so I'm just gonna leave you instead, alright.
So, how do you deal with the silent treatment when you're dealing with a
narcissist. Like I've talked about many times, you've got to understand that narcissists are limited people.
They do not have the ability to feel empathy or to compromise or anything like that.
So if you are in a situation where the silent treatment has become one of the ways your narcissist controls and abuses you,
understand that you don't need to tolerate it. To be honest with you
the silent treatment is one of the most cruel, immature, sadistic ways that you can be psychologically abused.
It's all about getting that false sense of control
and in order to sort of reclaim the narcissists fragile ego, to give it some stability again.
So that's why they cut the contact,
that's why they stopped talking. When we're talking about a more extreme narcissist or a sociopath or psychopath;
It gets even worse, because then they are all about
control and power and then the healthy boundary that you've set or the issue that you brought up,
it becomes a narcissistic injury, their little ego gets involved and my gosh this is when you get the silent treatment.
You suffer, you feel completely bewildered, confused,
emotionally devastated and given that you haven't had the opportunity to clarify anything or to get closure on the situation
you know, you become
devastated. You create your own closure or you don't get any at all. Now
the first step that you can do to deal with the silent treatment is to get off the merry-go-round, because when you do that,
your head - it's gonna spin and
you will learn that if you choose to stay no contact at that point your head will eventually slow down.
You will stop spinning, you will feel better.
If this is happening to you and you've tried to share your feelings, you've tried to make your point, make, set your boundaries,
whatever, you have to recognize that
you're not the problem here, if it's a chronic thing that's going on and on, you got to step away from it and you've got
to stop walking on eggshells in order to keep that person happy, because they won't be happy.
You have to understand that a narcissists communication patterns -
they remain the same regardless of who they're talking to and dealing with and this is true with you,
it will be true with the new supply
if one comes along, it will be true with everyone in their life who they're close to and
unless the narcissist chooses to change something or is willing to change something then nothing changes. A narcissist does not change.
Yeah, in healthy relationships,
this type of behavior can be changed because both partners at that point would be willing to work on it.
It's just dysfunctional, but not unhealthy.
But when you get to an unhealthy relationship with someone who is pathologically narcissistic, you've got to be focusing on yourself
now, you've got to focus on self-care and quite honestly again
you just have to learn that sometimes it's just you have to walk away and detach in order to avoid
feeding into the mind games. The
narcissist will try to suck you back in if they think that you're happy with them not talking to you.
They will try to Hoover you, but remember they also want you to chase them and beg for their attention.
They want you to feel out of control and like nothing.
And so if you want to win this deal, if you want to stop being treated this way
don't try to win back their approval. Don't try to get their attention. Take a minute, reevaluate,
is this really something I want in my life, do I need this relationship here?,
and if I don't, what can I do to get out of it. If they're giving you the silent treatment,
consider it a break,
consider it a period of freedom, so you can take some time and think about how can you take better care of yourself and what
kind of support can you get to move forward?. What do you need to move forward away from them?
That is what I would suggest; someone who really cares for you and really loves you would never treat you that way.
They would make some effort to meet those needs that you have and not neglect them my friend. You are worthy,
You deserve to be seen. You deserve to be heard.
You deserve to be in a relationship where your needs are met and your voice is heard. You don't deserve to be silenced.
Take care of yourself and know that you deserve better than the silent treatment.
Now this brings me to the question of the day and the question of the day is,
Have you experienced the silent treatment from a narcissist and if so, how did that work for you?
and what would you do today, knowing what you know now -
differently. Share your thoughts, share your ideas, share your experiences in the comments section below and let's talk about it.
You never know, your comment might help a fellow survivor to actually just feel a little better today.
You could even save someone's life, it's worth it. Alright before I go
I want to just really quickly give you a peek into my amazing channel members and offer them a shout out.
Thank you so much for being a part of this channel for helping me to make this channel better for everyone else and
to spread my mission even further, I really appreciate you. I really appreciate that
you took a chance on me and that you're here supporting my mission here at YouTube to help survivors of narcissistic abuse
discover, understand and overcome their situations so that they can evolve and become the people they truly want to be. Thank you,
it means so much to me. My awesome channel members and inner circle
include; Angela Falesetta. Susan Marion. Roxanne
Antle. Deborah. Lorenzo D. Life's Revival. Tricia Wolf. James F.
Marlene. Jen Archer. Sarah Lee. Patricia Keenum. Delilah de ballsack and
Dilah Berg. Alright, now that's all I've got for you right now,
but as always thank you so much for being a part of my day and a part of my life and hey!,
thanks for letting me be a part of yours,
it really does mean a lot to me. Now before I go make sure you take a look at the videos
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