The Silent Killer

While there are alot of 'silent killers' out there, such as radon & radiation, I'm not talking about killing in the physical sense of the word, but in the emotional, pyschological sense.

WARNING:This post is not for the weak or faint hearted-read at your own risk!

Everyone is familiar with the silent treatment...either by receiving it from someone or maybe you've even used it as 'punishment' toward someone else...when you were like 5 years old. But as we've gotten older, MOST people stop using that form of revenge because they have realized that the silent treatment doesn't punish anyone but the one who uses it.

Allow me to elaborate....when we were young, the worst case scenario that two friends could imagine, especially girls, was that you didn't speak to each other-for whatever reason. It could've been that one friend got in trouble and was on phone restriction, or that your parents didn't want you to hang out with a certain person, so they wouldn't allow you to talk to them? Or if you've ever used the silent treatment on someone, chances are that you were mad or upset with them for some reason and wanted to 'pay them back' by not talking to them...Maybe you've been upset with your parents and refused to speak to them at some point in your life? This would be giving them the silent treatment.

Regardless of the reason, the silent treatment has one purpose, and one purpose only--to create distance in a relationship. While most of us have grown into mature adults who recognize the uselessness in such a childish form of revenge, there are some who continue to utilize this form of punishment in hopes that it will allow them to get their way or change something, i.e. decision, situation, etc. of someone else. What they do not realize is that the silent treatment is very effective, but not in the way of punishing someone else or making someone feel guilty.

After much debate & years of studying this mystery known as the silent treatment, I have come to conclude that there are only two consequences of this juvenile retribution, and both are more harmful to the giver than to the receiver. One inevitable consequence is completely unbeknown to the giver because they themselves are ignorant of the damage it is causing, and that is their own restlessness and inability to get over situations.

Think about it with me for a second, if you're not talking to someone, how do they know that they should feel regret or sorrow? The average person is not a mind reader, and without being told, most people don't even realize they have done something to offend someone or hurt someone's feelings, that is, if it wasn't an obvious act intended to insult the person. So, the giver of the silent treatment is the lone receiver of any feelings of anger, letting it eat them up inside, and this feeling will not be conquered until they are willing to let go of their childish games and face the facts, or the truth, or the person. However, most people who use the silent treatment can't face any of the aforementioned alternatives because they are too afraid of simply confronting the problem, just like we were when were young and childish. Am I right or am I right?

Unfortunately, the second result of the silent treatment is the most damaging to the giver-yet they are completely oblivious to it because like I mentioned before, they cannot face the reality of the situation and refuse to accept responsibility for their actions, or lack of-and that would be the killing of communication. At first, lost of communication doesn't seem so bad, but think about it this way-if you were lost at an airport, and all the cell phone towers were down, and the intercom system had failed, wouldn't that be a reason for panic? And it's not just the communication that suffers, but if left untreated, the relationship begins to suffer as well. As the years pass, and the silent treatment is still used as a tactic to manipulate someone, eventually, the relationship will die-and that's a fact. Think about Tom Hanks & Helen Hunt in Castaway-they could not communicate with one another, and by the time Hanks was rescued, Helen was married with a family...because she had assumed that he had died, right? Makes perfect sense and no one was upset with her for moving on with her life!

So what's the remedy to this silent killer of relationships? It's as easy as breathing...you grow up, pick up a phone and at least act like you care about someone else other than yourself. I've noticed that the ones who use the silent treatment or more immature than my 4 year old nephew, and if anyone knows children, you know the hardest thing for them to say is that they are sorry. Why is it so hard for someone to admit their failure? We are all failures in some sense of the word and we have all fallen short of the ideal; therefore, 'Sorry' should be a word that is as familiar to us as 'the'.

And there has become such a bad connotation associated with the word 'confrontation' that some adults are actually scared of it! To me, that is ridiculous! The only reasonable way to solve any problem is to confront it-not acting like it doesn't exist and upon running into it (or the person) again, acting like nothing ever happened! There is absolutely nothing wrong with confrontation, in fact, everything about it leads to solutions! It is a practice that should be used more often, and one that givers of the silent treatment are usually petrified of because it entails looking someone in the eye and having an adult discussion, which is way beyond their capabilities-this, my friends, is very, very sad. For the most part, I think adults would be willing to put aside their fears before allowing a relationship with someone they care about to be ruined, but I have been wrong before-just once or twice maybe:)!

To sum things up, the only way to describe givers of the silent treatment is immature ignorant people who are too self absorbed to realize that the only thing they are actually giving is a wide open invitation to the silent killer.