Have you ever been involved with a toxic person? They will not use physical violence to break you but the narcissistic silent treatment or toxic violence to hurt you. Learn all about them below!
How do you deal with living with a narcissist who gives you the silent treatment?
Someone who will live with you in the same house while literally ignoring you? What if this continues for days? weeks?
Ideally, this would be a two-word answer: no connection. But in real life things don’t always work out perfectly and people sometimes need to live with narcissists – so let’s dig into this.
What is the silent treatment?
The silent treatment is a manipulation tactic where a toxic narcissist stops talking to you for days, hours, weeks, or even months to punish you for some perceived bad thing. It can cause severe emotional and psychological harm if you don’t realize what’s going on.
What is the goal of silent manipulation therapy?
The silent treatment allows the narcissist to take the “spotlight” from you—even inside your own head. It’s one way they can kind of become the center of your life.
Their goal is to get you so obsessed with figuring out what needs to be done to solve the problem that you may stop thinking about yourself, which can result in your boundaries being violated one by one until the narcissist can completely control you.
It’s normal for you to stop trying to take care of yourself in the process because you’re so focused on the narcissist.
Understanding the silent narcissist therapy
Awareness is the first step on the road to healing from narcissistic abuse, and that means avoiding re-creating the kind of environment that will allow these toxic people to thrive in our lives again.
Believe it or not, this is just one of the many signs of gaslighting and emotional abuse that you will notice if you are in a toxic relationship with an abusive narcissist.
And in the case of a covert narcissist, you may often find yourself getting the old silent treatment—AKA the elimination phase.
The first thing you need to do is educate yourself about the situation.
I always say knowledge is power, and the first fact you need to know about this issue is exactly why narcissists give you the silent treatment in the first place.
Related: Are You Being Protected or Manipulated? 15 Signs to Help You Tell the Difference
Why Narcissists Use The Silent Therapy (The Psychology Behind Toxic Silence)
See, whether they consciously realize it or not, narcissists are kind of attached to “pushing buttons” to get what they want.
Now, you might be wondering what button they’re trying to press when they’re silent, right? You might be surprised to find out that it’s not about being driven crazy by lack of communication or pure boredom – it’s about playing on your worst fears.
And I bet, one of your worst fears is the fear of being alone in the world with no one to help you, support you, or be there for you. Am I right?
And I think if you are currently involved (or previously involved) with a narcissist, you think about all sorts of little things the narcissist did to manipulate your fears.
Conquer your fears and move on with your life!
So, by verbally and emotionally “cutting you off,” the narcissist is offering you a taste of what life could be like without his gorgeous, God-like persona (did you spot that irony there??).
So here’s the way it is – the narcissist ignores you, belittles you, and devalues you because he’s playing on your fear of being alone. He is hoping that this silent narcissistic rage against you will force you into submission and be the narcissistic little supply he needs.
In addition, the silent treatment works especially well on sensitive, empathetic people (who are often very attractive to narcissists), because we are obsessed with responding and trying to soothe the feelings of the people around us, especially those we love.
Do you feel me?
How do you deal with the silent narcissist?
Well, how do you deal with this behavior without completely losing your mind? The good news? You don’t have to take it for granted, and there are ways you can work around the silent treatment of narcissists.
If you are going to stay in the relationship because you have no other choice, you can play the game. To do this, make sure that you take care of yourself and that you don’t allow yourself to become overly isolated.
Keep in mind that one of the narcissist’s playbook moves is to isolate you from others in your life – the silent treatment will make you want to oblige in some cases, and you may end up isolating yourself.
Find something you enjoy doing to get you involved and don’t be afraid to kind of enjoy taking a break from the drama if that’s at all possible.
But in the end, the best option is to leave, not call, and move on.
With that said, we all know that sometimes that’s easier said than done — and we all have our reasons for the choices we make and why we “don’t leave if it’s so bad.”
So, as always, I want to say that if you are being physically abused, none of the following will be appropriate, and I want you to get help now – stop reading and start packing, sister.
Related: When Love Becomes Sacrifice: Signs That You’re Giving Too Much In A Relationship And How To Cope
Make no mistake: the silent treatment is abuse
The truth is, the silent treatment is painful and makes you miserable. As someone likely to be codependent, you may feel that you need to right whatever wrong you have done to get the narcissist to be nice to you again.
But the truth is, that’s exactly what a narcissist wants – for you to bend over backwards to please them.
All the while, the narcissist has no intention of letting this happen – they will only stop using the silent treatment when it feels right for them or they want or need something from you.
But if you’ve been working on your self-esteem, learning how to set appropriate boundaries, and realizing that you’re worthy of love and respect – you’re already well on your way to learning how to disarm the silent narcissist.
You don’t have to just accept that and carry around this false hope that one day the narcissist will change. (Chances are, that won’t happen.)
How to disarm a narcissist who uses the silent treatment
Visualize this. You’re getting the silent treatment again, which is a beautiful part of the neglect phase that anyone who’s been down the path of a narcissist can remember.
You may have been accused of being selfish or of ignoring a narcissist’s emotional or physical needs, of being dishonest, arrogant, lazy, or any number of other derogatory descriptions.
(But, for the record, what happens most of the time is projection—narcissists project their flaws onto their victims. So as always, it’s all about the narcissist, not about you.)
Assuming you are going to play the game, this is what you do for the silent treatment.
Next time you encounter the icy, loathsome silent treatment of yet another perceived breach, I want you to come back here and read this article again.
And I want you to remember that this is a game of control – the narcissist believes he can control you because of his lack of communication and caring.
Related: To My Toxic Half, This is My Final Bow and Last Goodbye
The only way to regain power here is to refuse to respond. You go on with your life as if he doesn’t exist, or you do what you normally do and blatantly ignore his behavior, no matter how upsetting he is.
