The day that something snapped in her brain

Dear Bloggers,

If one day you have the feeling that something in your brain just snapped.
I take care of my wife in times for better and for worse that is what I promised her when we married 20 years ago. And now that has become reality.

"She was still in bed because she had to get up later than me. I was up at 4.30 in the morning to go to work as I am a commuterbus driver. She talked about a snap in her head that she had felt on her job yesterday but there was nothing strange to see. It turned out that she could not get out of bed. She had woken up from the alarm clock and could not filter the sound properly. It's like there are ringing a lot of bells and she could not stop it. 

 

She also noticed that her right side did not work too well.
Obviously she wanted to get up. But it failed and so she was laying next to the bed. She knew that this was trouble and all the things she learned at the Red Cross as a rescuer and she began to check out all the signs of a cerebral infarction. Once in front of the mirror, she smiled at herself. I do not have a slanting mouth so that is all that matters. Eventhough she did not manage to talk properly and she seemed to be a bit confused. Just go to work dear, I'm taking good care of myself today. The day passed and when I came back home she was laying on the couch and looked at me with teary eyes.

Only then did she warn me by crying very hard and said she would like to shout and scream like a wild animal. There is such a pain in the back of my head and on this side of my face I feel nothing. When I sat down next to her, she was a little panicky and tried to talk to me what was not going to well. Fortunately, she was consiousness and we found together that it looked very similar to the picture of a stroke. Then the mill was turning. And so we crossed all of a sudden through the doctor's office towards the hospital, no serious brain injury was detected. But what was exactly the cause of this was not really clear but it according to the doctor it seemed to be a part of serious stress.

After half a night at the hospital, we returned home and she told me that she was very afraid of getting a stroke. Still somehow it kept worrying us and we were forwarded by our own doctor to see the neurologist for further and deeper research. Due to the serious anxiety and panic disorder, it was all very complicated to get an MRI scan. But together we can concur the whole world.

Once at home, the misery got started and was for real. I had a full-time job in addition to it I had to take care of my wife and two children, My working hours were quickly reduced from 40 to 36 hours. She could not take care of herself for the hours she was at home. Most of the day she slept and I had to leave her home alone for several hours, I could not live with this. What I also arranged before I went to work, I fixed her medication, prepared a sandwich for her and made sure she did not had to miss anything. Nothing really worked out and she slipped slowly into the abyss.

As a blessing in diguise I had to be unemployed and sit home for a half-year in connection with my temporary contract and enjoy a benefitpay. I have visited many hospitals in this year and psychological helpers our car brought us everywhere. A deadly tiring route for the both of us.

It's amazing she has not even once been taken to a mental hospital and for everyone it is a big surprise because in this total period of 24 months with the help of a psychiatrist and to deal with a complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and a pretty intensive treatment for this, she has been advised to spend a day and to search for a daycare to find some balance. Now her days are filled with a morning spend at a care farm and 1x physio gym. She has always been a busy and active person. Her job was call centre agent and she was a specialist in solving complaints. Now she has now been disapproved for work for 80 to 100%. 

 

I did not cancel my job to help her but I work a 32-hour contract with a few good appointments with the planner and together with our eldest daughter we are doing fine. We put ourselves in such a way as caregivers do because the only alternative was a hospitalization / nursing home. We do not have a personal carebudget because this is not indicated, and unfortunately my salary is not big enough for hiring a nurse 8 hours a day for private guidance and for domestic assistance.

She can do quite a lot and even though she has already being picking up a lot of things, it's no longer as it was before, and she can not do as much anymore as in the good old days. Her long-term memory is as good as before, but some moment she no longer knows where she has left her glasses. The sense of time she has lost with some regularity. 

 

She can get into a panic attack at any time if something happens in her area that she has not provided. Her senses such as hearing, brightness, light, smell and taste are severely affected and seriously reinforce more than necassary during the bad periods. I therefore try to protect her all day from too many incentives of this kind. Unfortunately, I can not always be as successful in this regard. Nevertheless, she is accepting her situation slowly

Besides being a partner and her sweetheart, I became mainly her driver, nurse, butler, caregiver, supervisor, spokesman, administrative / agenda administrator etc. etc. Her hobbies are now a little puzzling and working a bit on the tablet.

Together we were always active in the neighborhood and we were happy to help with friends, acquaintances and family. All practical / physical hard work is going to be pretty good. But what we miss the most is walking hand in hand (although this happens sometimes more and more often.), We cannot say spontaneously anymore: "Let's go on a trip for a weekend," an old-fashioned steamy night (even a little bit of cuddling is not always possible No longer we can be unprejudiced intimate). What I miss the most is being the equivalent in a conversation (if that's possible because these kind of things are often too tiring to hold the concentration). I never know how she will respond as it is differently due to the PTSS or because she can dissociate sometimes completely. I often see that when I tell her things, it does not come to her completely. Also, she often can not remember all of it and I havr to tell it again.

And then ther is the worry about the finances. Previously, we both had jobs with related to it a fairly good income. Now we only have her benefitspayment and my 32-hour salary. In addition, we have two school-aged children therefor you will pay enough, which remains after deduction of transport costs, school fees and daycare expenses. We live in a private home which is not really suitable for someone who suffers from conversion disorders, which makes climbing stairs difficult sometimes. We are looking for a nice bungalow so we can sleep on groundlevel, but how do I sell our current property. Fortunately, as what has happened to many other homeowners, the mortgage is not heavily underwater. But a bungalow often costs quite a bit more. I get that residual debt for what we have to take on as extra mortgage we will never be able to pay this all back because I'm not in a position to work more because I want to take care of her and I need to take care of her.

And then the decoration of our house is cheerful but not too crazy because that is not possible anymore. Anyone who comes will agree with us. As this situation now it is not ideal. No, we know that it isn't ideal, yes we realize that. But how would you be doing this...? Nobody has an answer to these questions. I do not want to buy new furniture in the wild, as it shows afterwards that it might take several years to sell the house and move and maybe it might turm out different.

Let me make one thing clear PTSD will hit the whole family.
And one more thing ........... My wife fortunately has no admission indication for a nursing / nursing home. Because then she should live there seperate from us. We do not want that, our children are entitled to have a loving mother and I would like to offer my life for my love. She's only 47 years old and I'm 49. But our life never gets back to how it was. Yep, and all of this has been done to her at her workplace by a couple of sick types who will call themselves Team Leader. And as I feel now, my life will never be really fun anymore and I've had my best days in live already. A PTSD gets the both of you and will hold you hostage. These kind of things are too sad for words.

The Old Sailor,

Trying hard to win the war within yourself

Dear Bloggers,

My wife is going through some traumatic times as she is emotional abused for almost three years in a row by two psychopathic and narcissistic persons (managers) that did everything to bring employees down that didn't fit into their profile. The company gives them a lot of freedom and it is a very sick atmosphere. A lot of former employees signed for their resignation and got a few months pay so they agreed to keep their mouth shut. My wife wasn't in the flow for leaving the company as she enjoyed what she was doing and this was against all the expectations of her manager. He was not amused with the fact that she was putting up so much resistance to keep her job. 

She kept up the fight for three years and dragged herself to work everyday. I pulled the plug in February of 2014 and she was tired and mentally so beaten up. In the last two years we have been trying to get her back on her feet with psychological help and psychiatric assistance. She has been checked on a medical scale by a neurologist and she was tested on defects by a neuro psychologist, lucky enough that there is no damage found in the brain. She is diagnosed with Complex PTSD with a panic and a anxiety disorder. Our wonderful future has been destroyed by two bastards that should be held responsible. 
 
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, is mostly associated with soldiers returning from war. After the horrors witnessed in such an unnatural setting, many wo/men have a difficult time returning to “normal” life, often suffering from flashbacks, panic attacks, and severe anxiety.

Contrary to popular misconceptions, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Acute Stress Disorder (or Reaction) are not typical responses to prolonged abuse. They are the outcomes of sudden exposure to severe or extreme stressors (stressful events). Yet, some victims whose life or body have been directly and unequivocally threatened by an abuser react by developing these syndromes. PTSD is, therefore, typically associated with the aftermath of physical and sexual abuse in both children and adults.

Any traumatic event can trigger it. Rape, assault, acts of physical or verbal violence, even repeated emotional abuse or the sudden split of a significant relationship, especially if abuse was involved.

Repeated abuse has long lasting pernicious and traumatic effects such as panic attacks, hyper vigilance, sleep disturbances, flashbacks (intrusive memories), suicidal ideation, and psychosomatic symptoms. The victims experience shame, depression, anxiety, embarrassment, guilt, humiliation, abandonment, and an enhanced sense of vulnerability.

My wife is rather ashamed to admit that she has experienced them all. These last few weeks have made me realize just how deep the managers have traumatized me, she said. It was my husband who noticed, actually. He said that I was exhibiting symptoms of PTSD, and he was right. How embarrassing to be experiencing PTSD because of such a short-lived work-relationship. But all of a sudden there it is.

However, this reaction doesn’t reflect her or her ability to cope with it, as much as it speaks to the depth of the abuse. The depth of the trauma caused by emotional, cruel verbal, and even narcissistic pressure abuse, not to mention the sudden change in her personality and subsequent abandonment.

The first phase of PTSD involves incapacitating and overwhelming fear. The victim feels like she has been thrust into a nightmare or a horror movie. She is rendered helpless by her own terror. She keeps re-living the experiences through recurrent and intrusive visual and auditory hallucinations (“flashbacks”) or dreams. In some flashbacks, the victim completely lapses into a dissociative state and physically re-enacts the event while being thoroughly oblivious to her whereabouts.

In an attempt to suppress this constant playback and the attendant exaggerated startle response, the victim tries to avoid all stimuli associated, however indirectly, with the traumatic event. Many develop full-scale phobias (agoraphobia, claustrophobia, fear of heights, aversion to specific animals, objects, modes of transportation, neighbourhoods, buildings, occupations, weather, and so on). My wife has somethings the other way round for example she has no more fear of heights and isn't afraid of spiders anymore. Strange how the brain works

Her fear has been so great, that an email from him throws me into a panic attack, knowing that it just contains more pain. She doesn’t read them when they come in. In fact, she does not longer know if they are coming in or not, thanks to email filters that just delete them before we will even see them.
Thank goodness for technology.

Emotional abuse, like gaslighting as well as so many other insidious forms, is hard to recognize and even harder to prove. Let me first of all explain the gaslighting effect: “Gaslighting is an insidious form of emotional abuse and manipulation that is difficult to recognize and even harder to break free from. That’s because it plays into one of our worst fears – of being abandoned – and many of our deepest needs: to be understood, appreciated, and loved. The abuser is usually a very insecure person. He has a need to put others down in an attempt to make himself feel better. He must be seen as right at all times.” Often, the only indication that your partner is causing emotional damage is to trust yourself and how you feel.

• Are you asking yourself if you’re crazy?
• Are you questioning reality?
• Do you feel blamed for everything in the relationship?
• Do you feel unsafe to talk with your partner about anything? 
  
  
  
   
  

Certainly not all charming people are predators or abusive, but it is something of which to take note, especially if they are particularly charming. Please, please look closer, or perhaps, take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Find out about their past relationships. How many? How did they end? Do they take responsibility for their actions? Their words? Are they relatively consistent in their words/actions?
indication: They don’t take responsibility for their own actions.
Please believe me when I say that these actions are insidious. I mean it. They are so subtle and often covered up by grand gestures of love and excessive affection. It is very intoxicating and convincing, but beneath it all there might be a constant assault on your sense of self through gaslighting and other forms of covert abuse.

The first step is recognizing abuse as abuse. One very surprising thing I learned about this over the past few weeks is that some types of emotional abuse feel like love. Another reason the trauma is so deep: it’s not just the damage , but it is unhealed damage from a lifetime of emotional abuse.

Research PTSD and Emotional Abuse. If you are exhibiting any of the signs, you might be trapped in a betrayal or trauma bond with the abuser. This makes it even harder to get away and heal.

Let us all learn how to protect ourselves from such people, for in this society, there is no other recourse. No way to prove it. No way to make them accountable for the damage they cause. Our only hope of defense against this type of abuse is to recognize the danger early, reinforce our armor, and get away before a trauma bond can be created. Slowly we start with counseling. To me it’s an interesting one, and it might be helpful to you, reading this blog, as it shows how one is in so much denial at first because of the shock and disbelieve, and how, if you commit to healing, you can uncover some pretty horrific things and extensive PTSD.

My wife quotes: “I might never be working again and damaged for life. Still, I’d rather know, accept, and heal than to fall into the same trap with another predator”.
Let's hope the future brings better times.



The Old Sailor,

The scars on my soul are telling a story

Dear Bloggers,

I'm having trouble working out where I am and who I am. Somehow, this isn't disturbing, it's simply puzzling to me. I'm in a puzzle and need to put together the clues to work out what this is all about.

Images are popping up in my mind and somehow the pictures are mixed up and there are people who have never been there before and that makes it complicated. I'm sitting in the centre of a row of beige plastic chairs. When I turn my head, I realise that my wife,is sitting next to me. A ring of beige chairs also lines the walls. Other people, scattered around the room, are sitting here with worried faces some of them are crying or looking down and shuffling their feet. I get the feeling that they don't want to be here.

A beeping sound is coming from somewhere. To my right, people are moving through an automatic door. I look up and see a young woman behind a glass window. She seems to be mentally losing it, as they just confirmed that her boyfriend has died in the chaos that is out there, and her dark hair hasn't been brushed recently. She's on the phone and taking notes. All of a sudden a few people show up to me and I realize that I can not see there faces and I frown when they approach me, as I don't really want to speak to them. I am not the one that should give them answers, I send them over to the other side of the room and I see them sitting down with the policeman who has a copy of the passenger list and they are being desperate for good news.

We seem to be in some sort of waiting room, but I don't know why. I am wearing my military camouflage uniform sitting with my helmet in my hands. We are sitting in a sports hall which has been decorated as a waiting area with here and there a few tables where policemen are trying to give as good and as bad information . For most of the survivors the waiting is hell.

The sunlight is slanting through the windows on the far wall is soft; it must be the morning light, then. My dear God we have been here for hours and still they are bringing people in. Local cops, people from the Red Cross and other persons like psychotherapists, priests,ministers. The major is running the operation. And our duty has been taken over by the own countries army and we are waiting to get the clearance that we can go back to our base

In one corner of the room, on a low table, there are piles of magazines. I walk over to pick up a crying girl and then sit down with her again. This is a young woman I guess in her late teens or early twenties approximately my own age but she has lost everyone that she was with. My heart breaks when I see her and send my buddy to find someone to comfort her. As for us it's about time to leave.

Off to my left, a child is whining. I turn to see a man and a woman, both big, with a girl aged four or five. They look tired, as parents do when they've been up during the night with a grumpy and worn out child. Soon I am absorbed by their interactions; it's like watching a show. The father lifts the girl on to his lap, looking strained. The mother holds up a children's book, reading to her. The child listens for a while, fidgets, and cries again. The mother tries to interest her in one of the toys from a box in the corner, but it doesn't work. Now I know what this is like; I'm a parent, too. They're doing their best in this bad situation.

How did I get to this room? A fragment comes into my mind, a dreamlike image of driving us to the chaotic scene and me being impressed by the sea hawk helicopters that are flying on and off. It is what I can see from our military vehicle window. Did this really happen, or am I imagining it?

I turn to my wife and see that she's crying quietly: her cheeks are pink; the rims of her eyes are red. She's sad about something, but I don't know what. I put my arm around her shoulder and pat her gently. "It'll be all right," I say. She quiets a little. All the other things are in some kind of blurred image. And I wander what her problem is, somehow I cannot reach her. It is a disturbing feeling and I feel powerless. How in the hell can I help her when I am in this state of mind.

As we sit there, I feel as if I'm in a sound bubble, into which the surrounding noises don't intrude. The crying girl doesn't irritate me as I think she might have at another time. Instead, I feel a well of stillness inside. I keep turning the pages of this story of my life. Get up soldier it is time to stand up to your troubled mind and help the one you love with all your heart. The road will be long and tough sometimes inhospitable sometimes, but she is not afraid as she has a well-trained soldier at her side. But there is no way back and it looks like our horizon on fire as the sun goes down slowly.

As far as I can tell, it's not long before we are taken through a door. It opens, like magic, into a wide, yellow corridor with a side table, a high metal chair, and shelves along the walls. Have we really been here? Did we do anything good for those people? And why am I mixed up with all those emotions. And why am I dressed in full combat gear with a loaded machine gun? I left the army in the autumn of 1987 that is more then 25 years ago.

A young military man who says he is a doctor asks us to sit in the chairs while he stands before us. He's wearing ordinary clothes and looks tired, speaking slowly and softly. He probably wants to go home. The doctor would like to thank us for the quick responding to the scene. And gives our sergeant a phone number for the ones who might need help. At the moment we do not need anything but want to go home. We are all trained to kill people but in this case this were civilians who just had a good time and were killed in a weird kind of disaster. In this case we could not save them. Man this has impacted our team the guys have gone quiet as we have seen all to much.The guys are all silent and some are staring with bowed head to the floor. the situation we ended up in was totally insane. And no one had the strength to say anything. It was quiet and lonely it felt like a slap in the face.

Memories lost: I don't know how long I'm with the doctor perhaps one or two minutes and when I look up he's gone. There's that puzzling feeling again: was he real, or am I in a dream?

Back in the corridor, a man and a woman tell me I am to have a EMDR session. The thought excites me. I don't think I've ever had one before, but I know what they are: I've read reports from EMDR patients as psychology fascinates me because the brain is something very special, detailing the effects of a brain that is able to send people in the right or wrong directions. They have a lounge chair and mentally they push me into another corridor of my mind. In and out of the disaster we go. It is sad and reliving it is absolute no fun.

They say the session is over, but I don't remember having it. How odd! I'm walking with a woman, also dressed in blue; she's told me that I'm having the next session next Thursday. I'm not sure if I've been in state like this before, but I'm so tired that I think it would be great to get my life back and being able to sleep without nightmares again.

The next morning is different from the day before. It feels as if I've woken from a dream. I'm sure now that I've been there and that woman next to me in my memory is not my wife but my late buddy who died of cancer a few years later in hospital, and that something really has happened to me. I remember more clearly the whole situation was so crazy before we came in. I'd woken with a headache, walked to the kitchen, taken a Panadol, and gone back to bed. That's the last memory I have on this weird mixed up dream.

The phone beside my bed rings, interrupting my reverie. It's traffic control if I could work today. “And I respond yes of course what time should I start?”

"I'm woolly in the head, as if I'm not sure I'm really here," I reply to my wife. "I've got a mild headache, too." and still you are going to work she says. I call it therapy as my brain has to work in a different way. I jump out of bed and head for the bathroom. Brushing my teeth, shave and hop into the shower.

It's three months after my initial psychologists admission, and two months after I was formally discharged from therapy again, where I spent eight unsettling and confining sessions. It's mid-afternoon and I'm reading a book. It's easy to follow, and it doesn't matter if I've forgotten some of the earlier details. I like the way of writing, and I am fascinated by the story: I'm not the only one on a path of survival. Initially I tried reading a story of a deeply harmed woman that has survived a war, but it was like struggling through thick, deep mud.

I would read a page, and by the time I reached the next, I'd forgotten what the previous one had said. I go back to reading, settling comfortably into my chair; the idea of seeing the doctor slips into my back pocket. But my brain continues processing this information in its own way.

Then, a thought comes suddenly to my mind: if I've had a set back, and that's not physical… I haven't had a mental breakdown. It all came up again due to a very different situation. They harmed my wife and the killing machine was woken up from the dead end corner of my brain. I was going to take this bad ass out of his magic life. And everyone that would be in the way. The bastard has been lucky that he wasn't home as I had figured out were he was living. I couldn't stop the blindness and the deep angered soldier that was taken over. Lucky part of the situation was that he was not home as I still see him as the enemy. Thank God I did not harm anyone. Relief floods through me. Fucking fantastic.

Recovery: All of this happened on the evening hours of the 6^th of March 1987 But cue seven months of visits to doctors psychotherapists and a series of tests. I've been told that I should exercise, walk on flat ground if I go for a walk, read nothing harder than the newspaper. I try to follow doctor's orders to take it easy and avoid stress. The stress thing is a process of discovery. The invisible hole in my head is a trickster; I don't know when or how it's going to trip me up next. My body's not behaving properly either. And that came up years later due to a stressed life.

I'm anxious to get on with my recovery, and the more I read, the more it seems like a computer-based cognitive training program is what I need. The program should concentrate on building the basic auditory skills first, and then the components of speech and finally comprehension.

Now the situation has stabilized and I am calm again, yet I must give closure to the old situation and learn to live with what happened then. Furthermore, I will have to build on a completely new start for my wife because she never will be the same again and will have to learn to live with her post-traumatic stress disorder. Will I ever find the peace and able to deal with the false world that simply seeks to amass money and is not looking for happiness.

It is the time that heals all wounds, but there is always a scar on my soul and that scar will fade with aging. Sometimes it will itch and sometimes it will be hurting and feel like stabbing but it will never disappear. It's something you learn to live with and gradually no one is sensing that you have a scar. "In peacetime you are much more affected by the war." said an old veteran a couple of weeks ago.

 

The Old Sailor,

The Silent Abuse or the Mind Game

Dear Bloggers,

Today I will write about what is happening in my neighborhood to a person that I love. But her boss is an absolute ….. and a bully from the high end. He is probably brought up with this behavior as he is from a total different culture as the Western European one. He really knows how to bring someone down and abuse them until they are leaving.

Crazy enough the company gives them a free hand to play their game unless someone stands up to him and complains. We have all suffered many forms of abuse during your school time  or at work or even maybe at home but the least talked about is “The mind game” otherwise known as the silent treatment, 

Deliberately ignored to cause harm to another person’s mental well-being, sent to Coventry and it’s one of the most harmful methods of abuse used by abusers who feel that: “If they do not use their hands to physically abuse then it isn’t abuse.”

Wrong way of thinking, I would say.

It is abuse to ignore some ones needs emotionally and make them feel worthless and depressed and will cause long term damage that in many cases can lead to the victims’ physical health being harmed.

To deliberately cause harm to someone by use of the silent treatment, deny a person any emotional care, deny them any praise, starve them of love, affection, compliments, positive feedback, to regularly reject, degrade and deny a person any emotional responsiveness and to ignore a person’s needs is mental abuse or also known as psychological abuse.

It is repetitive abuse that’s aimed at controlling, diminishing another person’s well-being in order to hurt, punish, harm or control them. The silent abuser is able to switch himself off emotionally to the pain and suffering he is causing his victim and will deny he is the problem and he may tell himself or others that he is the victim.

You will stop being a victim when you become the abuser

The abuser is capable of closing down all reasonable sense of emotions and turn into a cold heart very fast as he withdraws into his own world without any care for his victim’s distress.

The abuser will behave in society charming, calm, happy, he will be seen by others as a pillar of society, gentle natured, helpful, kind, caring and fool the outside world into thinking he is abused and his partner is the abuser. This is classic for a mental abuser. They will have their partner labelled as a mental case whilst he plays the victim and saint and makes her the subject of every ones rejection by labelling her with an unbalanced mind.

The true victim will be further rejected not only by her abuser but also by his friends, work colleagues, family and others he is likely to meet. The abuser needs to feel in control and he will seek constant approval from those around him and convince them that he’s the true victim. They will offer him advice and he will feed off their pity which will make him feel even more in control as he plays the victim.

The true victims may withdraw from all social activities, work, stop seeing family, they stop being fun, will see everything in a negative light, stop eating which is the start of dangerous health issues, cry alone, send text terror messages as a means to fight back which only gives the abuser more ammunition to abuse her with as he will use that as a further excuse to ignore and make her look bad in front of others.

The abuser will happily share the text messages because he wants everyone to see him as the victim. The true victim will stop functioning on all levels as the mind games take over her life. She will find it hard to think of anything else but what is happening to her. The victim will fight with her own mind and struggle to work out if she is being abused or is she truly the problem. The victim may start behaving irrationally from the stress caused by the mental abuse.

Mental abuse is not normally seen by anyone on the outside looking in because they see the abuser as a strong, calm, caring and sincere person and will not be able to see the true character behind the person in front of them that they think they know so well.

Do you really know the person standing next to you?

Out of all the abuse I suffered the one part of the abuse I have always struggled with is the “being ignored” because when I begged for the abuser to stop no one listened. The more I was ignored the more it built up an extreme and unlikely intolerance for being “ignored” which has stayed with me as an adult. I left care with that intolerance to the ugly side of human nature that sees many people misuse the silent treatment to harm others.

Some justify this behavior and kid themselves that it’s in some way an honorable stance to take. Ignoring someone briefly when done to express dissatisfaction is very different to the silent treatment. To ignore someone as a regular means to punish, hurt or upset someone as payback or for whatever reason, it is in my opinion and the opinions of experts to be considered one of the worst forms of mental abuse that exists in human nature. It causes irreparable damage to a person’s mind and will see the victim’s behavior change slowly but noticeably when it’s out of control by others who are close.

There are times the abuse continues and the victims show now outward signs to those who are close whilst the mental abuser gets to witness the dramatic and extreme behavior change in direct response to his/her mental abuse in the “silent treatment”.

The silent treatment is a form of punishment and control and the person using it to harm another feels a lack of care and cannot or will not communicate as she/he watches the victim slowly deteriorate from being a lively happy and fun person into becoming withdrawn, reclusive or maybe verbally aggressive to the abuser in a vain bid to stop the abuse of the mind.

The person dishing out the “silent treatment is FULLY aware of the damage they are doing and they are FULLY aware that all they need to do to stop it is to simply talk to the victim. The abuser will not talk to the victim and when he does he will constantly lead the victim into a false sense of security at leisure. Then ignore again.

The abuser will provoke any situation with silence which triggers off the victim who can never work out what has happened to warrant more silent treatment and again the victim finds himself/herself fighting desperately with the abuser in a vain bid to stop her/him giving the silent treatment all over again.

The victim’s behavior can change so dramatically he/she is hardly recognized as being the same person. Every time the silent treatment begins the victim is pulled further and further down and the abuser sits back and carries on with daily chores blatantly ignoring the victim whom is obviously so distressed that no normal thinking individual person could sit back and watch such a shocking display of suffering.

The victim may withdraw completely, stop talking i.e. friends, stop socializing, stop eating, start drinking, stop working, start text terrorism against the abuser as a defense mechanism of protection but it never works, suicidal thoughts, self-harm and that’s just a few of the side effects of a victim suffering from mental abuse.

The “silent treatment” otherwise named as “deliberate intent to ignore” or “Attachment” which means absent to cause harm which is where an abuser completely cuts the victim off and the abuser will not budge. They often acknowledge in their own minds that the victim is suffering but do nothing about it and walk away and simply ignore it.

The latter is a very dangerous form of mental abuse.

I have often heard stories of men ignoring their partner after causing her such distress that she has taken to self-harm or attempt to take her own life from where the mental abuse has weakened her once strong mind into a nerve wrecking display of self-doubt and depression. The abuser will hear her calls of desperation and he will empty himself of all emotions and walk away. He will show no emotions as she tries to take her own life. He will convince himself that she deserves it for hurting his feelings by trying to fight back. 

It’s not often friends get to witness the mental abuse of the systematic silent treatment from a partner because it is silent but in some cases friends will witness erratic behavior of the victim and they can’t quite understand what’s going on because the victim will blame everything but her abusive partner. It is rare anyone on the outside of the relationship sees the suffering of the victim as the abuse often like most forms of abuse stays “within the immediate relationship”. The male abusers friends will only see this charming friend they all love because he will do anything for them but seldom do his friends or family witness what he is doing to his partner. They will only see the abusers partner’s displays of distress.

The “silent treatment, ignoring or Attachment treatment” abuser is fully aware of their actions and fully aware they are causing a significant amount of harm to the victim in most cases but there are those who do believe they are the victim. The victim may at times have the odd outburst in front of others or in a public place. The abuser will then inform his family of every little thing his victim partner does as he seeks refuge and portrays himself as the victim in need of support because he has a totally “maniac” partner whose lost the plot.

This form of mental abuse is often used by the man more so than a woman. It is still a common thing in many cultures were man and woman are not seen as equals.

Eventually once the victim has been totally broken down by the mental abuser she will give up fighting back and beg for forgiveness and beg the abusive partner to forgive her. She may well go to the extremes to try and make it up to her man because she has been broken in and is now under his mind control. The man will continue to use this method of mind control and ignore, use the silent treatment or attachment tactics until his partner has been totally exhausted, feels totally helpless and it opens her up to being controlled so the man gets what he wants.

Sadly this form of abuse has seen the deaths of women who self-harmed or attempted suicide as a cry for help and those cries for help ignored by the abuser and have resulted in her death.

Self-harm - deliberate cutting or mutilation of one’s own body including rip hair out, stop eating, stop going out, withdraw from society, cut off their hair, stay in bed, over eat or attempt suicide.

The reason I am touching on this subject is because I found on the Internet a number of women who are going through this same process right now with their partners or have just left such an abusive relationship and sit in silence blaming them-selves.

I also want to touch on this subject because I am a survivor of abusive behavior during my army days and I myself have gone through the mental health process and contrary to what people believe, I still cannot stand people that are not open to me. All because of one lunatic guy my life has changed as I don't trust a lot of people. And still it is not easy to write about this as the guy who attacked me with a combat knife had totally lost his mind. And yes I have been lucky that my mates saved me that day. I got counselling and the attacker got fired.

Let me go back where I was. Men who have been abused as children physically, sexually or mentally or suffered abuse by a parent due to the damaging effects are well known for using the “silent treatment, ignoring and attachment methods to punish and control their partners. These men will convince themselves they are not abusing because they haven’t physically hit the woman and he will convince her he’s very good to her by not saying anything.

He will almost always convince himself he’s the victim and show no remorse at all for the suffering he is causing by punishing and controlling someone he claims to love. These men are often found to not contribute to the relationship they are in and show little or no care or respect for his partner and will continue to expect her to hold the entire relationship together all by herself whilst he laps up the comfort of control and does nothing to help contribute or support the relationship. He will not show emotions when challenged or he may eventually turn to violence.

Regardless of the circumstances, mental abuse and the negative power of the “silent treatment, being deliberately ignored or the attachment abuse is never the less very damaging for those on the receiving end and needs to be address by either the abuser entering therapy or for the victim to leave the situation.

If the man recognizes he’s an abuser he can seek help from a professional help. The victim must seek professional help to get out of such an abusive relationship before she is so worn down it will diminish her life slowly but surely.

When does the silent abuse turn into physical abuse? 

The Old Sailor,