The Silent Treatment: A Weapon of the Emotionally Immature

Yes, words can cut like a knife, but saying nothing at all is a form of abuse that can hurt far worse.

J.C. Anne Brown
Invisible Illness
Published in
7 min readJun 16
Image: Pexels/Kat Smith

I was white-knuckling it. I was trying my best not to cry.

I swallowed hard, stared through the passenger window, and attempted to distract myself — all while burning hot tears threatened to escape the rims of my eyes.

The silence was deafening.

Few scenarios are more nerve wracking than being in the company of someone who you’re supposed to feel emotionally safe with — but can’t.

Then, there was a tug from deep inside my belly. A kick. My baby.

A pang of regret immediately followed: I wished I was headed to the hospital alone.

When I learned that my husband would be unable to take off work for my final childbirth education class, I invited my mother to be my plus-one instead because isn’t that the kind of thing an expectant daughter asks of her mother? And what newly-minted grandmother wouldn’t want a chance to come in clutch at a time like this?

Mine. That’s who.

Although she accepted my invitation at the time, it was abundantly clear that my mother didn’t want to be here now.

And she would see to it that I pay for it. She would subject me to the method she preferred most to demonstrate her dissatisfaction: silence.

It was the worst kind of agony, but I couldn’t say it was unfamiliar.

I had been groomed to accept it.

The (Not So Sweet) Sound of Silence

Who hasn’t been on the receiving end of somebody’s cold shoulder?

Throughout the years, I have experienced this insidious, passive-aggressive behavior before from co-workers, friends, and boyfriends alike. And regardless of who’s doling it out, I’ve learned that it always hurts.

But it’s a unique brand of torment when it comes from a parent or caregiver, the person(s) who have assumed the responsibility of raising us and are supposed to love us unconditionally. Psychodynamic therapist Anika Bashir, who specializes in treating anxiety and trauma, expounds on this:

When a child is frequently dismissed and given the silent treatment as punishment for an extended period of time, they may grow up to associate any conflict with a withdrawal of love. This can result in pleasing behaviors and lack of boundaries.

The silent treatment creates the ultimate paradox — the quintessential mind-fuck — when the person who feeds you, clothes you, and tucks you in at night is also the one who blatantly discounts your existence whenever the mood strikes. The child, in turn, cultivates a hypervigilance that is as necessary as it is confusing. On one hand, I had learned to read my mother’s moods in a savant-like fashion because, in a way, my survival depended on it — the last thing I wanted to do was make her mad and be ignored. But on the other hand, I was in no way capable of regulating my mother’s emotions in the first place, so it was a game of catch-22 no matter what I did.

A vicious cycle ensued, and I saw no way of getting out: The harder I tried, the more I appeared to fail.

I had often seen my mother shut out my father, too. From the foot of the stairs, an elementary school-aged me had eavesdropped on countless arguments between my parents in which my father had accused my mother of not only ignoring him but also withholding sex as an additional means of turning the knife. Intellectually, I couldn’t fully comprehend the complexity of their disagreement — I do now, of course. Back then, all I knew was that it made me feel awful.

And it made me want to cry, which I also knew was forbidden. There was simply no space for my uncomfortable emotions, only those of my parents.

So I stifled the tears. This was where I learned how to do it.

I came away with the belief that, somehow, both my father and I had become pretty proficient in pissing off my mother. It never occurred to me in my youth that it was my mother with the problem. My takeaway was this: I was messed up. I was flawed. There is something wrong with me.

Image: Pexels/Pixabay

What’s worse, this kind of conduct often flies under the radar, serving as the proverbial elephant in the room in more ways than one — you don’t hear it or see it.

But the intended target damn well feels it.

Kipling Williams, a psychology professor at Purdue University, explains why this is:

Although a perpetrator might use the silent treatment in many different scenarios, this is what every scenario has in common: People use the silent treatment because they can get away with it without looking abusive to others, and because it’s highly effective in making the targeted individual feel bad.

A Pandora’s Box of Torment

The silent treatment isn’t just a matter of someone choosing not to speak; it’s much deeper than that. There’s a lot to unpack, actually, so let’s begin with the origins of this practice.

The term silent treatment originated from “treatment through silence,” which was used in prisons in the 19th century, as it was believed that forbidding prisoners from speaking, calling them by a number rather than their name, and making them cover their faces so they couldn’t see each other would encourage reflection on their crimes.

But the opposite turned out to be true. According to an extensive report on the history of prison reform conducted by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the suicide rate was high and there was little evidence that criminals were actually reformed.

In Socializing the Silent Treatment: Parent and Adult Child Communicated Displeasure, Identification, and Satisfaction, a body of research spearheaded by Christine E. Rittenour at West Virginia University, it was revealed that the silent treatment is more likely to be used by individuals with low self-esteem and a low tolerance for conflict. In order to avoid conflict, an individual will refuse to acknowledge it and will sometimes use silent treatment as a control mechanism.

Therefore, the silent treatment is not simply defined by a lack of words. It is ultimately about authority, domination, and power.

Not Saying Anything IS Saying Something

Cut to modern times.

Although parenting methods run the gamut and can vary tremendously, I don’t think it’s an overreach to assume that most parents would agree that something that has its roots in keeping prisoners in line isn’t a healthy tradition to perpetuate.

Abuse. That’s what this is.

Says Joel Cooper, a psychology professor at Princeton:

Because we humans require social contact for our mental health, the ramifications of isolation can be severe. In the short term, the silent treatment causes stress. In the long term, the stress can be considered abuse.

Although this methodology may be long gone from prisons, the stench of this form of discipline has seeped into parenthood — and, worse, it’s rarely questioned. Bashir adds:

Parents think that the silent treatment is a peaceful form of punishment because no verbal or physical abuse is exchanged. What most parents are unaware of is the psychological damage they can inflict on their children.

Psychologist and rational emotive cognitive behavior therapist Sana Rubiyana agrees:

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but the silent treatment isn’t teaching children a lesson; it’s showing you can’t handle conflicts or regulate your emotions.

Breaking the Silence

So, how long can this exploitation continue?

Stunningly, days, months, years, and, quite possibly, forever.

Writer Daryl Austin of The Atlantic sat down with Williams, and Austin shared Williams’ downright heart wrenching examples in an article entitled, What You’re Saying When You Give Someone the Silent Treatment.

There was the story of an adult woman whose father refused to speak to her for six months at a time as a means of punishing her throughout her life. Her father ended up dying during one of those dreaded periods. And when the woman visited her father at the hospital shortly before his death, he turned away from her and wouldn’t break his silence even to say goodbye.

There was the father who stopped talking to his teenage son and couldn’t bring himself to start again. The father knew of the harm he was causing. “The isolation made my son change from a happy, vibrant boy to a spineless jellyfish, and I knew I was the cause,” the father told Williams.

Finally, there was the wife whose husband severed communication with her early in their marriage. This wife endured four decades of silence that started with a minor disagreement and only ended when her husband died. Forty years of eating meals by herself, watching television by herself — 40 years of being invisible. And when Williams asked her why she stayed with him for all that time, she replied, “Because at least he kept a roof over my head.”

Austin’s conclusion was bleak:

A teacher. A sibling. A grandparent. A friend. Each story that Williams told me was more heartbreaking than the one before. As I listened, the question that lingered most was How could these people do this to those closest to them?

At its core, the silent treatment breaks children and results in the creation of broken adults.

Image: Pexels/Mikhail Nilov

Is this how we want to live? Is this the kind of example we wish to demonstrate?

Really. Let’s think about this.

It needs to stop.

© Copyright J.C. Anne Brown, 2023

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J.C. Anne Brown
Invisible Illness

Wife & Mom | Top Writer: Life, Life Lessons, Mental Health & Parenting | Lover of boundaries https://medium.com/subscribe/@JCAnneBrown