Silent Treatment

Do you hear that?

Neither do I.

Do you know what that sound-you-don’t-hear is?

It’s the sound of a marriage dying. It’s the sound of trust being crushed under your shoes into dust. It’s the sound of a heart breaking while another sits in cold indifference. It’s the sound of a promise being broken.

People give a lot of lip service to the silent treatment. Yet sometimes I don’t think it’s really understood for the emotional abuse it entails. It’s not just someone being quiet or needing some space. It’s the intentional and with malice aforethought ignoring of another human being, one who, no matter how irritated you might be with them, doesn’t deserve to be ignored.

Ignoring someone is a statement that they don’t matter. It’s you looking someone right in the eyes and telling them that they, as a person, have no value to you. Their feelings move nothing inside of you, and their hurt is nothing next to your need for superiority and  being right.

I still remember your empty words: love forever, without conditions. I can hear your voice as you proclaimed that you were different, you weren’t like other people, and you were the only one who could love me in this way.

For those of you in the back, these are the people you watch out for: the ones who say that “no one can love you like I can,” or “your friends/your past partner/your current partner/your family don’t have your best interests at heart, and only I do.” These are the hallmarks of an abuser who wants to isolate you from your support network, because that’s when they can really get into the down and dirty of destroying you. If you have your support network around you to constantly point out how abusive this person is, they wouldn’t be able to abuse you in the way they desire.

And I remember you, and your desire to hurt me. I remember how you expertly isolated me, or tried to. I confounded your plans, though, when I wouldn’t cut people out of my life. I’m troublesome, in that way. I don’t throw people away … unlike you, who casts out people who you’ve used up like an empty container.

That’s not human.

For as long as I live, I’ll never forget being so low that I begged you to answer me, sobbing, and looking into those eyes that had so fervently and earnestly promised to love and care for me forever, and seeing cold vindictiveness as you turned on your heel and walked away. As the silent treatment went on, and I started bargaining for a response, your eyes started broadcasting a twisted delight in my pain. I can’t even begin to express the horror at looking in your eyes and seeing both pleasure and disinterest at my pain, and a sick interest in watching me suffer.

What the hell is wrong with you?

The silent treatment is perhaps one of the most insidious and cruel things someone can emotionally abuse another with. Maybe you think you’re superior for reducing me to tears over and over … but you’re the one far beneath me. I’m the one who returned all your cruelty with continued kindness and trust, even when you clearly didn’t deserve it, even when my support network was practically screaming at me to run – and far away. You have no idea what you threw out like garbage, because you’re too busy with your next throwaway abuse victim to look back.

But at the end of the day, you’re the one who is truly alone, because you’ve earned no one’s trust and possess the love of nobody. You can have 100 partners but you have yet to love a single person.

How sad.