Shutting down may be an automatic defense mechanism to protect oneself from further emotional distress. Trying to muscle your way through the emotional wave that hits you during conflict can prove to be ineffective, according to a study published in Practice Innovations.
Unintentional stonewalling: Sometimes stonewalling is a learned response that partners use to cope with difficult or emotional issues. People who stonewall may do so to avoid escalating a fight or to avoid discussing an uncomfortable topic. They also might be afraid of their partner's reaction.
Shutting down emotions can be a normal part of human experience, as a coping strategy in stressful situations. Under high stress, it allows your body and brain to protect itself from perceived threats or harm.
Stonewalling is, well, what it sounds like. In a discussion or argument, the listener withdraws from the interaction, shutting down and closing themselves off from the speaker because they are feeling overwhelmed or physiologically flooded. Metaphorically speaking, they build a wall between them and their partner.
For some people, shutting down emotionally is a response to feeling overstimulated. It doesn't have anything to do with you or how they feel about you. If your husband or partner shuts down when you cry, for example, it may be because they don't know the best way to handle that display of emotions.
Differences in emotions in people with ADHD can lead to 'shutdowns', where someone is so overwhelmed with emotions that they space out, may find it hard to speak or move and may struggle to articulate what they are feeling until they can process their emotions.
“In the face of physical or emotional pain, or a traumatic incident, our sympathetic nervous system has three responses: fight, flight or freeze. Emotional numbing is freezing. Our brain shuts down as a protective response to keep us safe when our nervous system is overloaded,” he says.
It's important to remember that shutting down is usually a defense mechanism that people use when they feel overwhelmed or threatened. When your partner shuts down, they're usually not trying to hurt you or end the conversation; they're just trying to protect themselves from feeling overwhelmed.
Your silence shows that you simply are confident in what you've got said which you respect the opposite person enough to listen to what they need to mention. The silence also allows the opposite party to return to their own conclusions which may lead to them digging themselves during a hole.
“Stonewalling is actually a learned defense mechanism that might stem from an unpleasant emotional or physical reaction someone has experienced in the past. Or your partner may simply not be able to express how they feel so instead they shut down,” Dr. Dannaram said.
Why do some people freeze or 'flop'? While freezing might seem like a counterintuitive way to respond to danger, it serves a purpose, just as fight or flight does. Freezing may: Prepare someone for action: A 2017 review suggests that freezing may function as a time for the brain to decide how to respond to the threat.
When you feel stressed out due to an argument, your sympathetic nervous system is aroused. This sparks your fight or flight response that fills you with energy and makes you even more motivated to want a physical act in some way.
In some cases, stonewalling is a trauma response. Those who experienced trauma, perhaps as a child or in previous relationship, will sometimes develop stonewalling as a coping mechanisism. It is a form of self preservation, like someone who passes out under extreme stress.
Your guy might be pained by the role played in the disagreement, and he could be feeling guilty for hurting you. Hence, he can decide to ignore you to figure out the best way to apologize. So, when he goes silent after an argument, this is one of the possible reasons.
Silence may be a part of our personality, certainly, but it may also be a coping mechanism that has prevented us from properly expressing and confronting emotions and feelings. We push the feelings down and replace them with substances to extinguish them.
The 3 day rule after argument is a common practice in relationships where individuals agree to take a 3 day relationship break from each other after a heated disagreement. During this time, both parties cool off, reflect on their feelings/thoughts, and avoid communication with each other.
Sci., Ph. D. writes in Psychology Today, “15 Signs of Verbal Abuse,” a sign of verbal abuse called “abusive anger.” This is when your partner screams and yells at you, or tells you to “shut-up.” Being told to shut up is not just rude behavior.
Depressed partners have been known to push their loved ones away. It's a defense mechanism; it could be because they just feel better being alone or because they just don't have it in them to explain themselves. But the person who loves the depressed partner doesn't always know how to respond to such reactions.
When someone has shut down, they certainly look like they don't care. The facial expression is usually neutral, there is little to no expression of emotion, and voice tone becomes monotonous. Answers to questions are short, and you begin to interpret all of this as indifference.
Silent treatment abuse is a form of emotional abuse in which a person refuses to communicate with you in order to control or influence your behaviors. Taking time to cool down after an argument is healthy, but shutting off communication for a long time, especially in order to control another person, is a form of abuse.
That's what PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) is—our body's overreaction to a small response, and either stuck in fight and flight or shut down. People who experience trauma and the shutdown response usually feel shame around their inability to act, when their body did not move.
The 4 Trauma Responses: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn: Examining The Four Trauma Reactions. According to a research on the neurobiological consequences of psychological trauma, our bodies are designed to respond to perceived threats with a set of near-instantaneous, reflexive survival behaviors.