Silent Treatment - Rethinking the reason

[Skip]

Silent treatment is abuse!

I read this a lot lately.  Is this always true or is it more complicated than this?  :)o we need a deeper, more emotionally balanced understanding.

Here is an essay:

https://bpdfamily.org/2008/07/silent-treatment-when-your-partner-acts.html

I think its fair to say that silent treatment is not always intentional abuse.  It can simply be coping (escaping).  It can also be manipulation. Regardless of the driving force, it is most often hurtful to the receiver and so it is easy to see why we think it is always abuse.

No contact is not always intentional abuse, as we all know.  It is often coping (avoidance - space to heal). There is a parallel here. It can also be manipulation - and regardless, it is also hurtful to the receiver, if the receiver is trying to reach out. Thoughts of severing contact often come as a response to periods of extreme frustration and/or hopelessness and so its easy to see why many of us see it as healthy coping.

We (bpdfamily) doesn't recommend either of these methods as first choice for dealing with other people. There is a practical, not altruistic reason. They are conflict. They tend to trigger abandonment anxieties, rejection anxieties, feeling of disrespect and worthiness, and shame - on both sides of the relationship.

But clearly, at times, severing all contact necessary.  The only point of talking about this here is to encourage members to weigh the tradeoffs of the benefit of space vs the separation anxiety.  If you think about it as it relates to your, it should be clear.

We recommend that if you are on the receiving side of severed contact, that it is best to depersonalize it as much as possible as it may be about the other person coping (not aimed at you) or it may be a cheap shot (and you shouldn't take it as more than what it is). The best way to handle being cut off is to not fight it. Fighting it often rewards / enables it.

No Contact - If the relationship has ended (the partner says done) and I stop initiating contact, this is normal.  I'm not even sure why anyone call this no contact. Its really ending pursuit.  If I contact the partner in this case, I'm really boundary busting.  We need to respect "I want out".

It only really becomes NC when I don't respond to the other persons attempts to contact me.  If I do this to manipulate, punish or control, this is abusive.  If I do it to detach and I'm committed to moving on, while it still might feel abusive to the receiver, I can justify it for my own mental health.

Controlled contact is an easier alternative - simply taking the incoming call and keeping it light - staying away from the emotional aspects of the relationship. It's weaning the parties off of one another. Don't use a sledgehammer if a screwdriver will work. 

Don't set yourself up to fail - take the the path that most fits your situation and your psyche.  And when advising others, don't tell them what to do, tell them understand and analyze the tradeoffs.

Silent Treatment - If some one needs space and takes it, it's reasonable.  If you reach out to them and they respond "I need space" - we should give it.  This becomes abusive when the other person shuts us down to manipulate, punish or control us.  

[cosmonaut]

Good points, Skip.  I wanted to add that I don't believe that my ex was using the silent treatment punitively much of the time.  I think she used it to escape, like you say.  ST might not really be the best term for that, and perhaps we are causing confusion in doing so.  I think the problem comes from the fact that this is not natural behavior in a relationship, and it is a difficult concept to convey.  I know that before I discovered BPD, I had no framework for understanding what was happening.  Now, in hindsight, the push/pull dynamic is so clear, but at the time I couldn't understand how everything would be fine with my ex and then she would go silent on me.  Perhaps "shutting down" would be a better term?

Edit:  What I did the time I described above was clearly the ST since that was willful and punishing.  I deeply regret that, especially now realizing that she probably wasn't trying to hurt or punish me with her silence (much of the time).  It was still incredibly hurtful, of course, but I don't think she meant it to be abusive.

[Turkish]

Good points, Skip.  I wanted to add that I don't believe that my ex was using the silent treatment punitively much of the time.  I think she used it to escape, like you say. 

So was I. So was my Ex. I remember maybe two months before she moved out, I did what she always said she resented me not doing. I saw she was upset and asked her if everything was ok. She passed by me and angrily said, "it's nothing!" And retreated to the couch to go to sleep. I let it be. She needed to withdraw to cope with whatever emotions she was trying to deal with at the time. We were no longer together, so I didn't see any value in pursuing it further.

[cosmonaut]

That's a good point too, Turkish, that sometimes we can use silence as a means to escape ourselves.  Might not be the most healthy way to cope, but it doesn't mean that we are intending it to be punishing either.

Thinking about this some more, these are some of the things my ex would say to me when I would talk to her about what was going on and why she would go silent:

- I feel so irritable I can't even stand myself

- I feel really mean and I don't want to hurt you

- I know I need to learn some better ways to handle stress

- I just need some time to think

- I need a lot of alone time

This doesn't really fit what we think of as ST, which is more used to control and punish.  Maybe I should be using a different term for it.

[EaglesJuju]

My pwBPD uses the silent treatment as a coping mechanism.  I have been directly told that when he speaks to me sometimes, he cannot handle it (the emotions) because it is too painful. Basically it is avoiding his own feelings of shame, pain, and sadness. Afterwards, he feels bad for not speaking to me and that adds more shame and self-loathing. It is really sad. 

[Maternus]

I must admit, I went NC in the first days after our breakup, to manipulate my ex. But I had to break NC to move out of our house, and every time I had contact with her, I felt more depressed than before. I was quite happy, when I had no reason to contact her again. I still have her email-adress, I still have her number on my smartphone. I don't have the need to contact her, but I want to know, if it is her who contacts me.