Narcissistic silent treatment is when a narcissist ignores and avoids interacting with you to punish, control, or communicate that they are unhappy with you.
If you were to use the silent treatment against the narcissist in your life, you would be making it very easy for them to manipulate you into a negative interaction because you wouldn't be making conscious and well-informed decisions.
Ignoring a narcissist may result in them trying to get your attention through various means, including apologizing and begging for forgiveness or smearing you to others. If you want a narcissist to go away, you must ignore them consistently and permanently, or they will likely try to hoover you back into their life.
Well, silence can be a powerful tool when dealing with a narcissist. If they are used to dominating the conversation, silence can make them uncomfortable. You can force them to confront their behavior and make them fear you by remaining silent.
By establishing boundaries, enforcing consequences if necessary, sharing emotions with others, and speaking up for yourself; you will take away their power, thus protecting yourself from the narcissist's silent treatment.
Although narcissists act superior to others and posture as beyond reproach, underneath their grandiose exteriors lurk their deepest fears: That they are flawed, illegitimate, and ordinary.
The best way to deal with a narcissist is to ignore them. By doing this, you take away their power and control. Narcissists thrive on attention and need constant validation. If you can learn to ignore them, they will eventually get the message that you're not going to put up with their behavior and move on.
If you didn't know already, the silent treatment is when someone refuses to communicate verbally and/or electronically with someone who is willing to communicate. A narcissist's silent treatment can last for hours, days, weeks, or even months.
Silence keeps the abuse intact. One of the tactics a narcissist will use in the beginning (or really, at any time of a relationship), is the tactic to keep you silent. Abusers groom their target with the purpose to manipulate for their benefit.
Type As can also be dangerous to narcissists
Although they can be targeted, type A people can also become a narcissist's worst nightmare. One of the most important defenses against dark personalities is having strong boundaries yourself, and type A people are usually aware they have the right to build them.
Narcissists are highly sensitive to criticism or any perceived threat to their self-image, and they will go to great lengths to protect it. If you criticize them or challenge their dominance, you will trigger a defensive response.
The silent treatment might be employed by passive personality types to avoid conflict and confrontation, while strong personality types use it to punish or control. Some people may not even consciously choose it at all.
A narcissist uses ignoring people as a way to punish them. Especially if they feel like you are pulling away. Or, you've inflicted a narcissistic injury on them. A narcissist has a fundamentally unstable sense of self.
Most narcissists can't tolerate being ignored; the act of silent treatment strikes the narcissist much harder because of their need to feel validated. As the narcissist understands that you are intentionally ignoring them will deflate their inflated ego.
Narcissists feed off of people's emotional reactions. If they are ignored and they don't get an emotional response, they feel helpless, powerless, and impotent. They don't care what reaction they get as long as they get you to react. Narcissists spend all their energy trying to control others and push their buttons.
Narcissists don't like being ignored by anyone or anything. The narcissist perceives your withdrawal as a personal attack. People with narcissistic personality disorder don't understand healthy personal boundaries and won't suddenly have any respect for yours.
Ultimately, when you learn how to get out of a narcissistic relationship, the narcissist is shocked. They believed that they had complete control over you, and they never thought you'd leave.
To narcissists, ordinary people (i.e., nearly everybody around them) aren't worthy of attention, so being ordinary would leave them unworthy of the spotlight and left to suffocate.
One particular type of toxic narcissist is the psychopathic narcissist, who will embody some of the unstable, aggressive qualities of psychopathy. This person will often be violent and show no remorse for their behavior.