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,