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Janet Ballard's avatar

🖤 The silent treatment is an all encompassing terrorization technique which produces the shame of deep abandonment wounds. As a child, you learn that that you must have done something so horrible, that is so unforgivable, that would make the one you love dearly, or whom you look to for survival, cut off communication and leave you without explanation. You were supposed to be able to read their minds, you know, “if you really loved them”! What is left is shame. There’s no redemption in this situation, because the only person who can lift that shame and provide reconciliation is the silent one. There’s nothing that cuts deeper than this technique, because it causes the victim to abandon oneself powerlessly in shame, seeking the “forgiveness” of the silent one. As one who grew up in a home with this challenge, I have spent my life searching deep within for the elusive triggering “nugget” that relives this painful wound of abandonment every time someone I love goes silent. 💔

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Cynthia Winton-Henry's avatar

I believe being shunned is the worst experience a person can have, the absolute opposite of being seen and loved. Shame is the result and it calcifies around our soul making spontaneous loving presence very difficult. Thank you for sharing your process and making hope real.

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