The silent treatment is a passive-aggressive form of emotional abuse and it can happen in any type of relationship, not just romantic relationships. The silent treatment is about being denying connection with another person. A narcissist may refuse to speak to you, look at you, text you, or touch you.
Narcissistic silent treatment is when a narcissist ignores and avoids interacting with you to punish, control, or communicate that they are unhappy with you. It's a form of manipulation, and this toxic behavior can negatively impact the victim psychologically and emotionally.
Interrupting and monopolizing conversations: Narcissists tend to present as self-absorbed, and they prioritize their thoughts and needs before everyone else's. As a result, they often interrupt, ignore, or hog the attention.
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.
Narcissists love attention, even when it's negative, so it's usually best to simply ignore their obnoxious behavior.
One of the main reasons why a narcissist ignores you is that they want to control you. More likely, they want to regain control of you. A narcissist uses ignoring people as a way to punish them. Especially if they feel like you are pulling away.
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.
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.
If someone displays unmanageable emotions and easily flies off the handle, this is a serious red flag. Responding with uncontrollable rage or the "silent treatment" could point to abusive (physical or emotional) behavior in the future, says Trombetti.
Saying 'No', enforcing boundaries and challenging them are some of the tips on how to checkmate a narcissist by making them fear you. Holding them accountable, publicly exposing them and going 'no contact' are other strategies on how to outsmart a narcissist.
They try to influence them negatively by undermining their morale and showing no appreciation or sympathy towards them. Narcissists always appear superior and look down on their coworkers. This can result in a toxic workplace environment, which has a negative impact on employee satisfaction.
Depending on the method used, it can make the person on the receiving end feel powerless, invisible, intimidated, insignificant, “dissed”, looked down on, disapproved of, guilty, frustrated, and even angry. Let's start with some four common examplesof silent treatment (there are more):
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.
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.
Enactors of the silent treatment punish their victims by refusing to speak to them or even acknowledge their presence. Through silence, the enactors "loudly" communicate their displeasure, anger, upset and frustration.
The silent treatment is a manipulative tactic that can be used in order to control a situation or person. It is often used as a way to punish someone for something that they have done in order to get them to change their behaviour.
Giving someone the silent treatment. Consistently avoiding eye contact or direct communication. Insults passed off as harmless sarcasm or teasing. Quietly sabotaging a colleague by deliberately stalling important tasks, holding back key work-related information, or being intentionally inefficient.
Ignore it. It will infuriate your narcissist if you act like nothing is going on and go about your day. They want a reaction — that's why they're giving you the silent treatment. If you don't react, they don't get the emotional supply they're looking for, and they end up feeling frustrated.
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.
Put Your Needs First. Narcissists make others feel guilty about being happy because they expect everyone to put the narcissist's happiness first. If you're not constantly praising them or accepting their criticisms that make them feel superior, they won't be satisfied.
At first, a narcissist will try to please you and impress you, but eventually, their own needs will always come first. They will text you whenever they want to, even if they know you are in an important meeting or exam. They don't care about the time or who you are with.
The Purpose of the Silent Treatment
Essentially, the point of the silent treatment is to make the victim feel confused, stressed, guilty, ashamed, not good enough, or unstable enough so that they would do what the manipulator wants.