The Silent Treatment in Childhood
In a Narcissistic Family system, the silent treatment is a weaponized tool for control. A silent treatment is a generational pattern, ingrained into their fabric of a person’s being from their own childhood. They learned it was a way to communicate. For the person wielding the silent treatment, it’s a modeled pattern of protection. Steeped in their own shame, they were stuck in their own wounds of rejection and abandonment, masking unhealed attachment wounds at its core. If they didn’t have the capacity to develop emotional awareness, the pattern continued with their own children and/or other relationships. It was safer to stare into an eclipse and burn their retinas rather than look in the mirror and ask, “How can I do it differently?”
The silent treatment isn't just a tactic; it's an emotional grenade. To be on the receiving end, feels like a detonation in the mind, body and soul. It left a trail of confusion and hurt. The thoughts we find ourselves spiraling into sound like, “What did I do wrong?” “I’m worthless.” “I’m bad.” It’s a building of internalized intense beliefs and emotions, transforming into a relentless Tsunami of self-doubt, guilt and shame, crashing the shores and eroding self-esteem into obliteration. It can make you feel like nothing. Like you don’t exist.
I was Invisible
Silent treatments lurked in the dark corners of my childhood. It cast tendrils of seductive darkness waiting to lure me in, only to suffocate me in its isolation, holding me prisoner. This was my mother’s most brutal weapon used against me. She was like a general with tactical precision to strike and at any unsuspecting moment. Her soldiers were silent shadows that shackled me, squeezing out any safety, wrapped tightly in her shadows that suffocated any love that existed. It had a devastating impact how I learned to exist in my life. She didn’t shut down, she actively weaponized her silence. A series of ruptures in our relationship that wasn’t just damaging at the time but felt like a boulder hurled into gentle waters that created ripples far beyond the eye could see into the future. I could feel the emotional energetic cutoff. An invisible impenetrable wall erecting between us, while I was captive in her unresolved pain and trauma from childhood. I’d feel nothing from her. She’d talk through me to my dad or one of my siblings. I ceased to exist in those moments to her. “Tell Maria, to pass you the pees and then hand them to me.” We weren’t sitting at a palatial dining table in some palace. We were crammed around the breakfast nook. Just ask me to pass the fucking peas, woman!
I’d trip over myself to get her to engage, anticipating her needs, contorting myself to fix it, fawning, doing anything possible that could make her happy, to get her love back; to release me from the hold of her contempt. It was met with stony silence with no eye contact. She’d look in my direction, right past one of my shoulders into the distance, like I wasn’t there. Not even worthy of eye contact. At bedtime, I was expected to give her a kiss on the cheek, hug her and say, “I love you.” I’d get nothing in return but the humiliation of silence, while my family watched, probably relieved AF it wasn’t one of them. I’d try to skip the nighttime ritual because it made me feel like I wasn’t even a person. I couldn’t escape it though. She was relentless in her cruelty. She’d address my dad to summon me; thereby getting her need of affection met, leaving me feeling untethered in my aloneness and shame. Or, she’d make a loud “AHEM” sound, until I complied. I had nothing to anchor me as a child to her. I was in a free fall in the dark abyss with no safety net. She was a statue cast in marble, sitting on the floor, immoveable. Impenetrable. It reinforced a budding set of beliefs that I was bad, worthless, and unlovable.
The Valuable Lesson of Seven Dollars
My first silent treatment that I can specifically recall, was when I was seven years old. She had stormed into my room, urgently demanding to borrow money to pay the paperboy. I didn’t have much to my name at that age. I coveted any money that came my way and hid it in a drawer. Wanting to please her and excited to feel needed, I quickly opened the drawer and felt my heart plummet into my stomach. I could’t find it. Stop lying! I know you have it. I need it NOW! I begged her I was telling the truth. She was caught up in her own shame, her own money scarcity activated, taking it out on me. I had a total of seven dollars, crinkled single dollar bills, smoothed out and folded over, tucked away in my little night stand. “You are such a selfish daughter that you can’t even help me.” “I can’t trust you to tell me the truth! I need to pay the paperboy, we are behind a few weeks. How dare you, Maria!” My growing panic caused me to rip apart my drawer, yanking it off the track, desperate to find it in order to please her. My heart pounded to the rythm of her footsteps stomping away to the front door. I was fearful of the punishment she’d inflict; it could be anything. I was paralyzed in guilt and shame. I wasn’t lying. After sticking half my little body to look into the dark crevices of the tracks, I had found it. It was wedged behind the drawer. I rushed out to the living room, relief flooding my body, while clutching the seven dollars like victor with a trophy. “Mommy! I found it! It had gotten stuck in the drawer. I wasn’t lying!” By then, she was sitting on the couch. She turned her head to me, her face blank, eyes a blackened void and in lifeless voice said, “Don’t lie to me. You were selfish. Leave me alone.” The silence was deafening and I was swallowed whole into it. No matter how much I begged her to hear me, she refused. She abandoned me; refused to speak to me, no matter how much my little seven year old body was heaving with sobs, seeking comfort from the one person who was supposed to give it. I backed away, stumbled back into my room, curled into a ball on my bed and wept. I am bad. She hates me. I am nothing. It created a black hole inside of me that had far reaching consequences into my adult life and relationships, while I begged her as a child to love me. I’d cry asking her to say it back to me. I learned seven dollars held more value than I did.
I Learned I was Worthless
There was one time she could have changed the course of the trajectory for us since she was the parent with all the power. It could have changed how I saw myself, how I was primed for future relationships, and even for herself to experience something different that she didn’t get as a child. It would have required courage from her to make the shift. It was ONE TIME. It’s a snapshot of her face that resides in me of that moment. I don’t remember the age or the circumstances that initiated the silent treatment. She was sitting on the floor in the living room, doing her best rendition of human marble statue, and I was desperately sobbing over and over, “Do you even love me??” My hot tears that rolled down my cheeks causeing a fissure in her stony marble façade. Her humanity had slithered its way out into the atmosphere in the room. I felt and saw the micro expression of pain flash across her face. Her eyes fighting back tears. She felt what she was inflicting and what it was doing to me. We both had raw shame emanating sucking out the air in that room. I wanted her to save us, save me from drowning in it. And within seconds, she found a power stronger than I could have imagined and drew it all back in, sealing the emotional vault shut. That was a pivotal moment. Instead of turning towards me to make it better, she opted to shut me out. She chose herself over her own daughter. I was vulnerable in my humiliation, deserpate for connection and feeling safe. It was a defining moment for both of us. She learned to harness her power. I learned I was worthless.
The Complicit Parent
Where there is a narcissistic, there is a complicit parent. My dad didn’t stop this. In fairness, he was often on the receiving end of some form of silent treatment. Sometimes, when I reflect back, I think we are tag teamed. He was an adult though. A grown ass man, who was a firefighter who worked his way up to Battalion Chief. I guess fires were safer than dealing with my mother. Send him into a billowing mass of flames and black smoke and he did the impossible to save lives. He was a hero in his work, respected and an incredible leader to his men. I can’t help chuckling that he’d rather have braved vicious fires and the real possibility of death than face the wrath of my mother. I was his daughter though. Why couldn’t he be brave for me?
He was part of that abuse because he was complicit. In public, she was covert about it. I was expected to smile, dote, pretend everything was normal, all while she had that look in her eye letting me know it wasn’t over. It was crushing that no one, not even my dad, was willing to stop her; to cast a shield over me to protect me. My superpower was being the ultimate chameleon; constantly adapting to her needs and the environment. In public, we played the role of the ideal family. I was a perfect daughter with a token smile on my face who was quiet. The complicit parent is the maladaptive advocate. In my case, it was my dad. He was too busy saving himself and aligning to be on her good side, and I was left drowning in a rip tide trying to pull me under.
It never occurred to my dad to end it. Only my mother held the power. Like a flick of a switch, it was back to normal and never to be discussed. I wasn’t allowed to challenge or even share how it hurt or how confusing it felt. The older I got, I tried. Then I’d be gaslit by both parents with, “You deserved it.” “You’re so sensitive.” “You’re so emotional.” “You’re so dramatic.” The only apology occurring was the one she demanded from me. I had to literally apologize for causing her to give me the silent treatment. My dad backed her on this instead of stepping up to be the parent I needed to anchor me in this family system. Who was protecting me? She was a mastermind at coercion, fully making me believe I was the party at fault. Maybe she had some guilt; there was never an apology or explanation to reinforce it was her stuff getting in the way. Instead, there were times I’d get a little token of a gift, It’d be on my bed or desk. That was also the calling card, to let me know it was over. That was my normal.
When We step into Adulthood
There was devastation in this emotional and psychological abuse. Silent treatments in childhood felt like death by a thousand cuts to the psyche. It impacted our first experience of what love was and how we learned to exist to seek it out. We learned our needs don’t matter in a relationship. It’s an agonizing experience of having love withheld with no explanation. We found ways to escape the pain of the repeated abandonments in childhood. One way of coping is often the need to escape; excessive daydreaming of to be rescued and loved, reading, sports, overfilling our schedules to avoid the emotional pain, looking for love in unhealthy ways, limerence, addictive behaviors to numb out; anything to let us flee the emotional wreckage that resided in us. We shoved it down. We exiled them to not feel.
It the tone for future relationships. We unconsciously sought out the most difficult person, desperately wanting to be chosen by them. If they chose us, maybe there was some value to us; no matter the cost of how we had to get it.
I understand it was never about me. It was her own pain she couldn’t handle. I made it my responsibility and blamed myself. I believed I was the problem. Who wouldn’t if that was their experience of love by a parent? It’s heartbreaking to think in that one moment, she could have chosen differently and broken a cycle. She could have become the cycle breaker. And instead, she elected to continue as is, because it was safer for her. She witnessed her daughter in deep pain she caused. It was safer for her to retreat inward and shut me out.
As children, we blamed ourselves. Our parents couldn’t be bad. In turn, we learned that we were bad and protected them so we could be safe in our own logical way. This experience was like compound interest added to our already low self-esteem. It didn’t just stop once we reached adulthood; it continued to add how we experienced relationships and perceived ourselves. It compounded in one of two ways. We developed empathy by becoming extreme people pleasers, perfectionists, overachievers who are hyper vigilant to any barometric emotional shift in the climate. Or we continued the pattern with no awareness of the damage; stuck in our wounds. What happened to us wasn’t our fault; it’s our choice in how to move forward in our healing journey.
How to move forward:
It takes time. And a fuck ton of therapy.
Grieve what you didn’t get and what you needed as a child. Context and understanding are important. The best way forward is to learn how to feel emotions and work through the painful emotions stuck in the body from those experiences.
Inner child work and reparenting.
Practice compassion and be gentle with yourself.
Learn how to set boundaries.
Journal: Write about the experiences to give yourself permission to acknowledge that this happened. It was real.
Find a therapist who is specialized in Narcissistic Abuse and understands the nuances.
EMDR, Internal Family Systems and Somatic are great treatment methods to healing.
Your thoughts and feelings deserve to be heard, not buried. You matter. You deserve to heal from this pain and live a life that allows you to recover and be the best version of you.