Here's why the silent treatment can be damaging: It can cause emotional trauma. A person who is ignored feels a wide range of confusing emotions. They may feel anger, sadness, frustration, guilt, despair, and loneliness, all at once.
Silent Treatment – What It is and What It's Not
But here's the thing about blatantly ignoring someone: not only is it rude, immature, inconsiderate, cruel, and petty, it's downright emotionally (and sometimes physically) damaging. Ignoring someone is not an act of love. In fact, silent treatment qualifies as abuse.
Punishment: If a person uses silence to punish someone or to exert control or power over them, this is a form of emotional abuse.
Research finds that feeling ignored can affect people's sensory perceptions, such as feeling that surroundings seem quieter. Being ignored creates feelings of self-doubt, feeling a lack of control, and feeling not worthy of attention.
The silent treatment is a particularly insidious form of abuse because it might force the victim to reconcile with the perpetrator in an effort to end the behavior, even if the victim doesn't know why they're apologizing. “It's especially controlling because it deprives both sides from weighing in,” Williams said.
Some reasons why your partner may rely on the silent treatment include: They have poor communication skills and don't know how to express their needs or emotions. They struggle with control issues. They are not self-aware enough about their use of the silent treatment to make changes.
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.
Is Ignoring Someone Psychological Manipulation? The short answer is that yes, the silent treatment can absolutely be a form of manipulation. People use it to hurt and control partners. They may even use this as a way to get someone to act a certain way.
Is ignoring a form of disrespect? But here's the thing about blatantly ignoring someone: not only is it rude, immature, inconsiderate, cruel, and petty, it's downright emotionally (and sometimes physically) damaging. Ignoring someone is not an act of love. In fact, silent treatment qualifies as abuse.
Worse still, studies have shown that the pain of being ignored is worse than being bullied. You are experiencing social pain, which you feel when you're being ignored, overlooked or rejected. The problem being social pain is very real because it shares common neural pathways to physical pain.
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.
What is the intent of ignoring someone? When you ignore someone, you are essentially giving them the silent treatment. And what does that really do? It is a passive-aggressive way to deal with something rather than facing it head-on.
"By. acknowledging a petty problem you give it existence. and credibility." - Robert Greene.
Feeling left out of the group conversation, zoning out, and looking unengaged are common reasons people get ignored. People will subconsciously feel like you're not part of the conversation anymore (even if you're physically still there), and they'll ignore you.
The silent treatment (also known as withholding) is used to punish and regain control of a person. It may feel good to ignore your partner when you feel slighted but, it keeps you from finding real solutions to the problems that are bugging you the most.
"Snub" is the correct verb, and a better noun form is "one who snubs."
Tell the person how the silent treatment hurts and leaves you feeling frustrated and alone. That's not what you want or need in a relationship. Explain that you can't resolve issues this way, then be specific about those issues. If this sort of behavior is a relationship deal-breaker for you, state it plainly.
The silent treatment is widely regarded as a form of emotional manipulation and even psychological abuse. It is the act of ceasing to initiate or respond to communication with someone else or refusing to acknowledge them altogether.
Manipulators are experts in exaggeration and generalization. They may say things like, “No one has ever loved me.” They use vague accusations to make it harder to see the holes in their arguments. This tactic used by manipulators is meant to poke at your weaknesses and make you feel insecure.
The silent treatment can be deliberate and enacted with some pleasure and cruelty, which is why it is named as an indicator or aspect of abusive relationships, and can be a form of domestic violence.
The silent treatment, a form of stonewalling, is a tool used by narcissists to punish someone who has behaved in a way they don't like. Most people want to right wrongs and if they feel like something negative has happened in the relationship, they want to discuss it to lessen tension and to protect the relationship.
Narcissists also gaslight or practice master manipulation, weakening and destabilizing their victims; finally, they utilize positive and negative emotions or moments to trick others. When a narcissist can't control you, they'll likely feel threatened, react with anger, and they might even start threatening you.