The silent treatment is a punitive tactic often used after the narcissistic discard. In fact, when he realizes that the latter will hang completely from his lips, his task can be defined as finished. And that way he will use the punitive silence to abandon and move on to the next prey. But do we understand better how this mechanism works, and especially how to react?
What is the silent treatment?
As the name says, this treatment is a behavior used by the narcissist to punish the victim. It’s a very strong action, in fact, removing the word completely, eliminating it from social networks or ignoring it, makes it vulnerable and confused.
The victim will never understand why and above all will start to ask a million questions to understand what he was wrong and why the so much love that there was before has become a cool oblivion between the parts. It should be noted that here the victim has no fault and that this is a common attitude in the narcissist.
How to Respond to the silent treatment?
Before answering this question, we must ask ourselves: “What does the narcissist want with the Silent Treatment?”. The answer is soon said: He wants attention! To be more clear, the narcissist decides to act through the Silent Treatment because by now he knows that the victim in question is completely dependent on him, has become bored and wants nothing more than to find a challenge much more enticing, that is, a new prey to be seduced and dropped into the net.
Meanwhile, punitive silence is not really a form of disinterest, but a way to control the victim from a distance and see if he keeps looking for him. The more pressure she puts on the narcissist, the further away she will be, knowing that one day she will be able to come back as if nothing had happened.
But to respond properly to the treatment of silence we must learn to respond with further silence. There are no tricks or magic, just to prevent the narcissist from returning. Because his is a twisted game, he only comes and goes because he wants to feed on what are the attentions that others are able to give him.
How Long is Silent Treatment?
It doesn’t have a specific time, it can last two weeks like two years. What makes the times lengthen are the feelings that the narcissist perceives. In fact, although he is not at all empathetic and incapable of feeling, he is on the contrary very sensitive to the emotions that others feel.
This means that he knows perfectly well when a person is ignoring him out of anger or disinterest, he has trained during his growth to understand how to manipulate others and therefore the tricks that are put in place to try to cheat him, are of no use.
The treatment of silence will end when the victim demonstrates to the narcissist that he no longer has any interest in him, and here it may take the mysterious return. In fact, it is often thought that during this phase the narcissist forgets you, but in reality he could go back to knocking on your door and try some technique to hang up that will not be successful because by now the victim will be completely exhausted.
The only way it’s going to last is if the victim blocks his contacts…
We must also specify that if the victim is good at keeping the game, not looking for it, to make his life go on without suffering too much, then most likely the punitive silence will last less time. But here we must be careful, in fact, if the victim is not completely cured of the affective dependence of Narcissus, then here he will try again to seduce her, All to get her back in that state of mind where he can have complete control and then disappear again.
This game could go on for years and that’s why the victim should avoid taking back the narcissist in their life. It would become a stressful and stressful situation at the same time, all in the hope that the narcissist will change, but unfortunately it will never happen.
The first months without the narcissist
The first few months he won’t be heard will be tragic, the victim will enter a real state of depression. After attempting a recontact that did not go well, it will simply take some time to get back on track.
The advice is never to act out of anger, so any kind of action taken must be for your own good and not for a feeling of hatred towards the narcissist because in this case it would still give him a nice satisfaction. Acting out of love instead will prove to Narcissus that without him, finally, you can start to live again!
Resources:
- https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/silent-treatment#:~:text=The%20silent%20treatment%20is%20a,of%20relationship%2C%20including%20romantic%20relationships.
- https://www.healthline.com/health/silent-treatment
- https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/03/psychology-of-silent-treatment-abuse/618411/
