Codependent Doctor
Podcast focusing on codependency. Learning how to create healthier relationships, healthier self and healthier lives.
Codependent Doctor
41: When they Stop Talking: The Emotional Toll of the Silent Treatment
In this episode of The Codependent Doctor, I delve into the painful experience of the silent treatment—what it is, why people use it, and how it can deeply affect relationships. I share my own experiences with the silent treatment and highlight how it can trigger feelings of confusion, shame, and anxiety, especially for those who have grown up in environments where silence was used as a form of punishment.
We explore the underlying reasons why individuals resort to the silent treatment, including a desire for control, emotional immaturity, and learned behaviors from childhood. I emphasize that this form of emotional withdrawal is not just hurtful in the moment but can leave lasting scars, eroding trust and emotional intimacy in relationships.
I also discuss the difference between healthy communication and the silent treatment, stressing the importance of expressing feelings rather than withdrawing. For those who find themselves on the receiving end, I encourage listeners to recognize their worth and set boundaries, while also considering the patterns they are willing to accept in their relationships.
As we wrap up, I offer reflection exercises to help listeners examine their own communication styles and conflict resolution strategies. Remember, it's about growth and learning healthier ways to handle conflict without resorting to silence as a weapon. Join me next week as we tackle the topic of love bombing and what to watch out for in relationships. Thank you for being part of this journey towards healthier connections!
I am so excited to share my codependency recovery workbook with you. Click on the link to be brough to Enough As I Am on Amazon.
You know that feeling when someone just stops talking to you and you have no idea why. One minute everything seems fine and the next minute, silence. They won't respond to your text, they ignore you. When you walk into the room and you're left running through every conversation in your head wondering what did I do wrong? It's confusing, it's hurtful and it can trigger this deep panic, especially if you grew up around people who use silence as a way to punish or control you. Today we're talking about the silent treatment, what it is, why people use it, how it affects relationships and how to handle it in a way that protects your peace and supports healthier communication. Because the truth is the silent treatment isn't just cooling off. It's emotional withdrawal and it can leave lasting scars if it becomes a pattern.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Codependent Doctor, a weekly podcast focusing on all things codependency. Are you struggling to love yourself, feeling burnt out or having trouble forming loving and meaningful relationships? I can help you heal from the past and move forward with healthier selves, healthier relationships and healthier, more fulfilling lives. Join me as we reclaim your authentic self. I'm your host, a family doctor and fellow codependent, dr Angela Downey. We can do this together. Here we go. Here we go.
Speaker 1:Hello to all my wonderful podcast listeners and welcome to the Codependent Doctor. I'm your host, dr Angela Downey, a family doctor and fellow codependent. Today I am feeling super grateful for you, my dearest listeners, the people who have stuck with me through all my podcast learning challenges and still show up week to week to listen. I'm so glad to have you on my team and on my journey. And if you're listening for the first time, or if someone has sent you this episode and said you need to listen to this, welcome to you as well. I'm glad to have you here as well. Welcome to you as well. I'm glad to have you here as well.
Speaker 1:After last week's episode, I asked you what you were grateful for and you delivered. Thank you for all your replies. It was fun and uplifting to read. I'm going to pick a few every couple of weeks because I think that we all need to hear the good stuff. The first one is an email I got from Beverly who said I'm grateful for my daughter Barb, who lets me live with her and she takes care of me. She brings me to my doctor's appointments and makes sure that I get all my medication. That's so great, beverly, and I'm glad that you've got great supports at home. I also got a DM from Piper who's grateful for spring weather, where she finally gets to sit on the deck absorbing the sun and to watch the birds and the squirrels play. I love hearing this kind of stuff, and focusing on what you're grateful for really helps you to notice what you already have, instead of only seeing what's wrong or chasing things that you might not ever get. So keep them coming. You can email me at codependentdoctor at gmailcom. You'll find my email address in the show notes.
Speaker 1:This next episode is going to hurt a little bit, so I'm kind of glad that we started on this positive note. Have you ever gotten the silent treatment? It sucks, it seriously. Seriously is the worst. It causes so much confusion, hurt, and it can bring up all kinds of shame. You don't know what you did wrong, no one's telling you, so your brain just jumps straight into the worst case scenarios it must be my fault, I must have messed up, maybe they don't care about me anymore. And the longer the silence stretches, the heavier it feels. And instead of fixing the situation, the silent treatment creates even more distance, anxiety and fear. So today we're going to talk a little bit about why people use the silent treatment and how damaging it can be, even if it's unintentional, and how you can start handling it in a healthier and more empowering way, whether you tend to give it or receive it.
Speaker 1:At its core, the silent treatment is when someone intentionally refuses to communicate with you, not because they're taking a healthy cool-down period, but as a way to punish or control or withdraw from you. It's not saying I need a minute to breathe so I don't say anything that I regret. It's saying I'm going to shut you out so you know that you've upset me, and I'm not going to tell you why or how. The silent treatment is a form of emotional withdrawal torture really and, whether people realize it or not, it's meant to make the other person feel uncomfortable, guilty or desperate to make things right, even when they don't know what they did wrong. It creates this power imbalance where one person holds all the cards. You don't get my attention, my affection or even my words until you earn it back. Is what it's saying. And, just to be super clear, taking a healthy break during an argument is not the same thing. There's a huge difference between saying hey, love, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed and need some time to cool off. But I care about you and I want to come back to this. Can you give me 30 minutes or so? Versus silently cutting someone off without any explanation, leaving them anxious, guessing and scrambling to fix things that they don't even understand.
Speaker 1:The silent treatment isn't about healthy space. It's about using silence as a weapon. I've been on the receiving end of the silent treatment several times in my life, and usually always from the same person, and I have to say it's such a cruel thing to do to someone. It's not just awkward or uncomfortable, it leaves real scars that can last a long time, sometimes for years, because the silent treatment doesn't just hurt in that moment, it's going to plant seeds of doubt and fear that stick around for a long time and it makes you second guess yourself constantly. What did I do wrong? Am I even worth talking to? And even if the relationship moves forward after the silence breaks, a part of you struggles to fully trust that person again, because deep down you know that at any moment, if something goes wrong, they might just shut you out again and leave you in the dark. The truth is the silent treatment is a form of manipulation, whether it's done consciously or not. It's about punishing someone without having to say the hard things out loud.
Speaker 1:I want to shed some light on why people use the silent treatment. Understanding it doesn't excuse it, but it's going to give us some insight. And maybe it's going to give us some insight and maybe it's going to help us respond differently instead of just getting stuck in the pain. One big reason people use the silent treatment is a way to regain power or control. When someone feels hurt or rejected or powerless, they might turn to silence as a way to even the playing field a little. It's going to flip the script. Instead of saying, hey, what you did hurt me, they just shut you out and they make you feel powerless and desperate. Instead, it's going to shift all of that emotional weight onto you and, whether they realize it or not, that silence becomes a form of control. I'll talk to you when I decide that you've earned it. I'll reconnect with you when it feels safe or satisfying for me. It creates this dynamic where you're left scrambling to fix something, even when you don't know what you're fixing.
Speaker 1:Another reason people use the silent treatment is emotional immaturity or a fear of conflict. Some people literally don't know how to handle their anger, their sadness or their disappointments in a healthy or a direct way. They don't have those tools, or maybe they're too scared to have those hard conversations that are needed in relationships. Conflict can feel really overwhelming or terrifying, so instead of risking vulnerability, they retreat into silence. It feels safer to shut down and to wall off than to say I'm mad, I'm sad or I need something different from you. But silence doesn't actually make the conflict go away. It just festers underneath and makes the relationship weaker.
Speaker 1:And for a lot of people the silent treatment is a learned behavior, something they picked up early on, often even without realizing it. Maybe growing up, love was withheld when someone was mad. Maybe in their house nobody talked about hard feelings. If you upset someone, they just iced you out. No discussion, no repair, just cold, painful distance. So when they feel hurt, as adults they repeat what they know If I'm mad, I disappear. If I'm hurt, I withhold affection. That's just how it works. It's what feels familiar to them, even if it's toxic. And underneath all of these patterns, the need for control, the fear of conflict, the learned shutdown, is often this simple truth. Most people who use the silent treatment don't know how to express anger, sadness or hurt in healthy ways. They weren't taught to have this safe, honest, emotionally mature conversation, so instead they reach for the only tool that they know, even though it causes way more harm than good.
Speaker 1:I want to explore what it's actually like to be on the receiving end of the silent treatment, because if you've ever been through it, you know that it's brutal. First, there's this overwhelming feeling of being invisible. It's like one minute you're a person and the next minute, poof, you don't even exist to them anymore. You could walk into a room, text them, call them, and it's like your air. That feeling of being seen one moment and ignored the next, can mess with your entire sense of self-worth. It sends this really painful message You're not important enough for me to even acknowledge at the moment.
Speaker 1:And even if they don't say those words out, loud silence can scream just as loudly as shouting sometimes. Loud silence can scream just as loudly as shouting sometimes. And there's the confusion and rejection, the anxiety that builds when you have no idea what you did wrong. You replay every conversation in your head, you try to decode their last text. You wonder if you missed a signal, said the wrong thing, didn't notice something, or you may have said something that may have been misinterpreted by them, and because you don't have any information, your brain, being the brilliant problem solver that it is, starts filling in the blanks, and almost always, with the worst case scenarios, I must have done something awful. Maybe they hate me now, maybe I'm a terrible person, maybe I don't even deserve to be loved.
Speaker 1:And if you have any abandonment wounds especially for those who may have grown up around unpredictable caregivers or unstable emotional environments the silent treatment doesn't just hurt in the moment. It hits that old, deep fear I'm going to be left, I'm going to be forgotten. If I make one mistake, people are just going to disappear on me. It reactivates those childhood survival instincts that tell you that it's your job to fix this, your job to be perfect, your job to win their affection back at any cost. And so you might find yourself apologizing for things that you didn't even do, bending over backwards or shrinking yourself down smaller and smaller, just to try to get that connection back. But if there's one thing I want you to take away from today, it's this the silent treatment isn't your fault. It's a reflection of how the other person handles their own emotions. It's not a reflection of you or your worth.
Speaker 1:Being on the receiving end of silence is painful because it taps right into the human need for connection, for belonging, for feeling seen. And when that connection is ripped away without any explanation, it doesn't just hurt your feelings, it shakes your very foundation of feeling safe and valued. The silent treatment is actually so harmful, not just for the person receiving it, but for both sides of the relationship. It's going to erode trust and safety and emotional intimacy. In a healthy relationship, whether it's with a partner, a friend or even a family member, you need to feel safe. You need to be able to mess up sometimes. You need to know that conflict happens and it's not going to cost you the relationship. But when someone uses silence as a weapon, it sends the message you're only safe with me when you're perfect or being who I want you to be, and that starts to chip away at the very foundation of emotional intimacy. You can't build closeness with someone that you're secretly afraid is going to shun you whenever they're upset.
Speaker 1:Second, the silent treatment teaches people to fear conflict instead of work through it, instead of learning. We can disagree and still love each other, or we can be hurt and still stay connected. The silent treatment teaches us that conflict is dangerous. If you upset someone, they're going to disappear and over time that fear can make people suppress their feelings. They're going to walk on eggshells and avoid honest conversations altogether, just to avoid being punished with silence. And the silent treatment doesn't actually solve anything. It might make one person feel powerful or in control temporarily, but it doesn't lead to any kind of resolution. The hurt doesn't get processed, the misunderstanding doesn't get resolved. Instead, the hurt just sits there completely unspoken, building resentment, deepening mistrust and making the next conflict even harder to navigate. It's like putting a band-aid over a broken bone. It's not going to do anything. The real injury is still there and now it's festering underneath.
Speaker 1:And the last way that silent treatment can be harmful is that it can really escalate codependent patterns, especially in people who already struggle with self-blame and over-responsibility. If you grew up feeling like it was your job to fix things, to keep the peace, to make everyone happy, then being on the receiving end of the silent treatment can trigger deep survival instinct to over-apologize, over-explain, over-give, just to win that connection back. You start believing that you have to work to earn someone's words, affection or attention back, and that can trap you in a cycle where you're constantly chasing emotional crumbs just to feel okay. So I want to make a really important distinction here, because not all silence is bad, and this is something that often gets misunderstood.
Speaker 1:There's a big difference between a healthy cooling off period and the silent treatment, and knowing that difference can change the way that you think about conflict and how you handle it. First, taking space can be incredibly healthy if it's communicated with care and respect. When emotions are running high and you're worried, you might say something that you regret. Stepping away for a little while is actually a really smart move. It gives both people a chance to calm down a little, gather their thoughts and come back to the conversation from a more grounded place. The key here is communication. A healthy cooling off period sounds something like hey, I'm feeling overwhelmed right now. I need a little time to calm down, but I care about you and I want us to work through this. Or I'm not in the right headspace to talk about this right now, but I do want to talk this through. Let's come back to it when we're both ready. Even just a sentence or two like that makes all the difference. It says I'm going to step back, but I'm not abandoning you. It keeps the connection intact, even while creating some breathing room. Then you go and you take some time to think about it and you come back to it, whether that's after 10 minutes, an hour or the next day, as long as it's been communicated that you will come back.
Speaker 1:Now the silent treatment is a whole different story. The silent treatment isn't about calming down. It's about punishing. It's about making the other person feel isolated, confused and anxious, and doing it on purpose or at least without care of how much it hurts that other person feel isolated, confused and anxious, and doing it on purpose or at least without care of how much it hurts that other person. When someone gives you the silent treatment, they don't say I need time, but I'm coming back. They just disappear, shutting you out completely, and you're left guessing. Are they done with me? Did I cross some invisible line? Am I supposed to fix this somehow, even though I don't know what I did? It's silence as a weapon instead of silence as a tool for healing, and the damage it causes is real. It chips away at trust, it creates insecurity in your relationship and it makes conflict feel unsafe. Not because disagreement is scary, but because abandonment feels like it's always just around the corner. Now I want to take a second to talk to anyone who might be realizing oh my gosh, this sounds just like me. I give the silent treatment. First of all, it's okay, take a breath. This isn't about beating yourself up, and it doesn't mean that you're a bad person. It usually means that you've been using a defense mechanism, one that maybe you didn't even realize you were using.
Speaker 1:A lot of us were never taught healthy ways to handle conflict, anger or hurt feelings. So we shut down, we pull away, not because we're trying to be cruel, but because it feels safer than saying something messy, emotional or vulnerable. And here's something really worth exploring. If you notice yourself doing it, what's the feeling underneath that silence? Because usually it's not about wanting to hurt the other person, it's about protecting yourself. It could be fear, maybe the fear of saying the wrong thing and making it worse. It could be feeling completely overwhelmed and not knowing how to express what's happening inside you. It could even be a leftover survival skill from childhood, where you learned that, when things got tense, silence would keep you safe. Understanding what's underneath the shutdown is so important because when you know why you're doing something, you can start to choose differently. And that brings us to the good news.
Speaker 1:There are healthier alternatives to the silent treatment. You can still take space when you need it, but you can do it in a way that keeps connection and safety intact, instead of shutting down completely. You could say something like I'm upset right now and I need a little time to gather my thoughts, but I want to come back to this and work on it with you. Or I'm feeling too angry to have a calm conversation right now, but I care about you and I want to work on this. I just need a little bit of space first. You see the difference. You're still honoring your own emotions, you're still creating space that you need, but you're letting the other person know you're not being abandoned. I'm not punishing you. I just need a moment to be able to show up better. It's a small shift, but it's a really powerful one, and the more you practice it, the more you realize you can have big feelings and healthy communication. You can protect your peace without punishing the people that you care about. And if you're the person who's on the receiving end, I feel your pain.
Speaker 1:Being on the receiving end of silence is really hard. It's confusing and hurtful and it can really mess with your head if you're not careful. This is so important for you to hear. You don't deserve to be ignored. No matter what happened, no matter what disagreement took place, you didn't deserve to be frozen out, punished or made to feel invisible. A healthy conflict involves talking, understanding, maybe even arguing a little, but it doesn't involve pretending that someone doesn't exist. That's not love, that's not respect, and it's really important for you to know that that's not respect. And it's really important for you to know that.
Speaker 1:Second, don't beg, don't chase or over-apologize just to get the other person to break their silence. I know it's tempting and I've done it time and time again. When you're anxious and hurting your survival brain is going to kick in. Maybe if I just say sorry one more time, maybe if I just explain a little better, maybe if I just try harder, then they're going to talk to me. But chasing someone who's punishing you doesn't actually rebuild trust. It teaches them that it's okay to shut down and that you'll do all the emotional labor to fix it, and that's not a pattern that you want to keep reinforcing for their sake or yours. So instead, focus on your own boundaries. You can be open to reconnecting without sacrificing your dignity. You can say something like I'm open to talking whenever you're ready to communicate respectfully, but I'm not okay with being ignored. That way, you leave the door open without chasing, begging or abandoning yourself in the process. You protect your heart and your self-respect at the same time. Also, it's really important to consider what patterns you're willing to accept long-term in your relationships.
Speaker 1:If someone keeps using silence as a weapon and they're not willing to acknowledge or work on it, you have a choice to make. You get to ask yourself is this the kind of relationship that I want to keep investing in? Can I thrive in a connection where I'm walking on eggshells or always afraid of being shut out? And if the answer is no, that's not weakness, it's wisdom and you can do something with that. Maybe this is something that you both can work on and heal from.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about what healing actually looks like if you're stuck in a silent treatment dance with someone that you care about, whether you're the one who tends to shut down or the one who tends to be on the receiving end. First, both people have to be willing to acknowledge the hurt, and this is so important. You can't just sweep it under the rug and pretend that it didn't happen. You can't hit the reset button by acting like everything's fine when, deep down, things still feel raw and unresolved. If you skip over the hurt, you're going to build resentment instead of repair. So there has to be a real vulnerable moment of acknowledgement, something like I realized that when I shut down, I made you feel abandoned. I realized that when I shut down, I made you feel abandoned. Or when you stopped talking to me, I felt hurt and confused and I didn't know how to reach you. That kind of honesty lays the groundwork for actual healing, not just surface level peace.
Speaker 1:The next piece is to build new agreements on how you're planning to handle conflict differently in the future, because conflict is going to happen. That's just part of being human and part of being close to people. The goal isn't to eliminate all arguments. The goal here is to fight fair and to love through the hard moments and stay connected even when things get messy. One really powerful agreement you can make is this If either of us need space, we're going to communicate that instead of hitting the silence button. That little sentence can take a situation that could have turned into days of silence and hurt and instead keep it grounded in love and respect. Another important agreement is to use words to express feelings, not withdrawal. Even if it's clumsy, it's probably going to feel a little bit uncomfortable at first, but even if all you say is I'm feeling really overwhelmed and I'm not sure what to say yet, that's still communication and it still keeps the relationship alive. And listen these changes, they're going to take time.
Speaker 1:If the silent treatment has been a pattern for years, it's not going to go away overnight. But every time you choose honest words over silence, every time you create a safe space for cooling off instead of freezing someone out, you're building a healthier, stronger, more real connection, and that's what real repair looks like. So, as we wrap up today's episode, I just want to leave you with a little encouragement If you recognize yourself anywhere in what we talked about today, whether you've given the silent treatment, received it or gotten stuck somewhere in those patterns. Please hear me when I say this it's not about shame, it's not about blaming yourself or labeling yourself as toxic or broken. It's about learning. It's about noticing old survival habits that maybe used to protect you and now realizing that they don't serve you anymore, and that's growth. You can learn new ways to handle conflict, you can learn how to communicate even when it's messy, and you can protect your peace without punishing the people that you love and without abandoning yourself. It all starts with awareness, and if you're here listening and thinking about this stuff, you're already on your way. You're doing the work and that's something to be proud of. Thanks for hanging out with me today and remember you're always allowed to choose healthier, kinder ways to show up for yourself and the people that you care about.
Speaker 1:Here are some reflection exercises for the week if you'd like to do some journal work. How did conflict and communication look like in the home that I grew up in? When I feel hurt or overwhelmed, do I normally react and what would a healthy response look like? Have I ever felt like I had to chase someone's attention or approval after conflict, and how did that feel? If you have a moment, I'd really appreciate it if you could subscribe to the podcast and maybe send this episode link to someone who's often on the receiving end of silent treatment. I think they need to hear this. I wish you all a great week as you learn to foster a better relationship with the most important person in your life yourself.
Speaker 1:I'm going to meet you here next week for another episode of the Codependent Doctor. When I'm going to be talking about love bombing, when too good to be true is showing up at your house with flowers and a playlist. Take care for now. Thank you for joining me and I hope today's podcast resonated with you. Click, like and subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes and to help others who might benefit. This podcast is not meant to provide medical advice and should not replace seeing your doctor for mental health concerns. If you're having a mental health crisis, please present to a hospital, call 911 or your local crisis helpline. I'll talk to you next week for another episode of the Codependent Doctor. We can do this together.