Ever wonder what really happens when you give a narcissist zero reaction? No explaining, no defending, not even a look? Ignoring them isn’t about being cold or playing games. It’s a psychological shift that most people underestimate. After more than a decade of helping clients break free and heal from narcissistic abuse, I’ll show you exactly what no reaction means, what to expect when you go silent, why it works, and how to stay safe and strong no matter how they respond.
To start, deciding to break free from someone with a destructive narcissistic personality pattern can be one of the healthiest, most freeing, and empowering decisions you can make for yourself. That said, because narcissists are wired the way they are, it can also be a tricky road to navigate when you decide to create some distance or go no contact. This is because their fragile ego cannot bear to not be the one in control of both you and the situation. So, one way or another, when you start making moves to distance yourself from a narcissist, you can expect some backlash.
The typical narcissistic abuse cycle happens in three phases: idealization, devaluation, and then, of course, discard. Once discarded, with some time and space, you’re likely to also be subjected to the narcissist’s attempts to hoover you back into the toxic abuse cycle with all manner of gaslighting, manipulation, and deception. But even before that happens in narcissistically abusive relationships, the silent treatment, stonewalling, and ghosting are some of the more commonly used manipulation tactics embedded within the abuse cycle.
So, what does this mean for you? It means they get to give you the cold shoulder, use the silent treatment, stonewall, or outright ghost and ignore you. That’s okay, but you aren’t allowed to ignore them. That’s against the rules according to the narcissist. To be clear, in any relationship, stonewalling can be the emotional equivalent of cutting off someone’s oxygen. The silent treatment is a passive-aggressive behavior by which a toxic perpetrator communicates a negative message to their intended target specifically. They do this through nonverbal communication that often only the perpetrator and the target recognize or understand. Often, no one else sees, feels, or even notices, which serves the narcissist beautifully.
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