Blog 1/3: When SILENCE hurts, and when it can heal

THE DARK SIDE OF SILENCE - 9 Ways Silence Can Harm

As a child, I often found myself trapped in the eerie quiet that fell over our home whenever my parents fought or withdrew.

I remember one time when my father stopped speaking to us, for days. He did not speak to us or eat with us and slept rigidly with his back to the door and did not even make eye contact. The silence wasn’t peaceful; it was a like a shimmering vibrating glass wall. A wall I could see through but could not touch or breach. I tip toed around trying to keep quiet and wondered if i had disappeared. I kept thinking: What did I do wrong? How can I make it better. But I never got an answer.

Then suddenly, as if nothing had happened, everything would return to "normal." My mother would cook with the radio playing, my father would read the paper and eat his breakfast and chit-chat about a party or a dinner that night and I was expected to pretend the freeze never happened. No explanation, no apology, no closure. That cycle repeated over and over. I remember once even apologizing for something I hadn’t done, just to restore the uneasy calm. That early conditioning taught me that silence was a weapon and I, the unintended casualty.

We often hear that “silence is golden." It is often romanticized as peaceful, spiritual, and healing. But in many families, relationships, and social systems, silence is anything but peaceful.

• Silence can feel like abandonment and rejection.

• Silence can feel like a punishment.

• Silence can destroy a person’s sense of safety—and of self.

When used with cruelty, indifference, or power, silence becomes a weapon. Not the stillness of meditation or reflection—but a cold, calculated withdrawal meant to control or erase. Such silence can cut deeper than words or swords.

Silence isn’t limited to dysfunctional childhoods. It continues in adult relationships, workplaces, and even spiritual spaces.

We don’t often recognize the abusive power of silence because it hides behind the absence of action. There is no raised voice, no name-calling. Just nothing. But that "nothing" can be terrifying.

Here are 9 ways that i understand how silence is used as a form of emotional abuse, especially in early life (the last one is the most heartbreaking) :

1. The Silent Treatment as Punishment

In many dysfunctional homes, one or both parents use silence as a way to punish their children. At such time one or both parents won’t speak to them, won’t explain what they did wrong, and maintain a cold, punishing silence for some time, even lasting for days. This ambiguity forces the child to internalize blame, creating confusion, anxiety, and fear.

Often, (as in my story) the parent will suddenly resume normal behavior without explanation, forcing the child into a false sense of normalcy. In other cases, the parents may negotiate a behavior from the child which they want in return for resuming talking to them. In many cases, the child ends up apologizing for something they never did, simply to restore peace.

This silent treatment teaches one chilling lesson: You are only loved when you comply.

Children can internalize this pattern and grow into adults who people-please, self-silence, or crumble in the face of rejection.

2. Disguised Abandonment Without Explanation

Some children are sent to hostels or let with relatives’ homes for long periods, sometimes with little to no emotional preparation and may feel discarded. The communication with parents may be cut off or limited. There may be no clarity on when or if they will be reunited with their parents.

In this silence, children become vulnerable to shame-based control, bullying, or even abuse by caretakers.  With no emotional safety bridge to their parents, they learn early: “My voice doesn’t matter.” This creates deep-seated insecurity, fear of abandonment, and a hunger for approval.

3. The Scapegoat and the Collective Silence

In family systems, there’s often a child who resists, bends or breaks the rules altogether or just does not fit in the role rest of the family members wish to cast them in. The truth-teller. The cycle-breaker. The scapegoat.

Instead of being heard and understood for their uniqueness, they can be punished with social exclusion (also see point 7 below). Families often operate through unspoken rules. The rest of the family may stop talking to them altogether, a chilling form of psychological exile meant to bend them back into conformity.

This can break a person’s spirit, especially because the silent rejection is coming from the family which is supposed to be a source of love, safety and support.

This form of silencing doesn't just hurt. It can gaslights. It implies: You’re the problem for seeing things another way.

4. Solitary Confinement: The Systemic Parallel

In prisons around the world, solitary confinement is considered one of the harshest punishments.

Depriving a person of human interaction causes measurable psychological deterioration: disorientation, hallucinations, emotional collapse, even psychosis.

5. Romantic Stonewalling : Control through Passive Aggression

When a partner refuses to communicate after a disagreement, not to create space but to exert control and punish, it creates an emotional freeze.  They may withdraw affection, communication, and emotional availability .

The other partner is left spiraling and emotionally wounded.

This is not conflict resolution. It's emotional manipulation. It sends a message: "You only get my love if you obey my rules."

6. Ghosting

Some people use silence to exit a relationship without accountability. They disappear slowly or suddenly, leaving the other person drowning in self-doubt.

It’s not just hurtful. It’s dehumanizing

7. Selective Silence and Social Control

In workplaces and social groups, silence is used to exclude, punish, or suppress dissent. A colleague may be left out of emails or instant messaging groups. A whistleblower may be met with organizational silence. A friend who speaks an uncomfortable truth may suddenly find herself ghosted by the group.

This kind of silence is compliance by omission. It says: “Fall in line—or disappear.”

8. Religious and Cultural Silence

In certain cultural or religious settings, people are told to stay silent about injustice, abuse, or emotional wounds. "Just pray. Just forgive. Don’t speak ill of elders."

Many victims (especially of incest, or domestic violence) are asked to keep quiet and not talk as it will bring bad name to the family. But this enforced silence doesn’t cleanse. It wounds and poisons. It tells survivors their voice is a threat and silence is their salvation, that they do not deserve justice.

9. Internalized Silence: When We Turn Against Ourselves

Perhaps the most tragic outcome of punishing silence is when we begin to self-silence.

• We stop asking questions.

• We stop setting boundaries.

• We stop telling our truth, even to ourselves.

This is the silence that kills slowly: the slow suffocation of your authentic voice. It is the final defeat when we give in to the rules of : Don't Talk. Don't Feel. Don't Trust. Don't Remember. Don't Be!

The Physical and Emotional Toll of Silent Abuse

The abuse through silence doesn’t leave physical bruises, it takes root within, muting the person’s inner voice, creating confusion about what is real, and making them doubt their feelings, perceptions, and worth. The internal scars are lasting.

• Emotionally, the targets may:

  • Doubt their perceptions and reality (gaslighting).

  • Feel chronically anxious or hypervigilant.

  • Lose their sense of worth, identity, or voice.

  • Develop people-pleasing, perfectionism, or deep shame.

    
    

• Physiologically, this kind of chronic emotional stress can lead to:

  • Sleep disturbances, migraines, or digestive issues.

  • Symptomatic body aches and pains with no diagnosable origins.

  • Autoimmune conditions, due to suppressed emotions.

  • Long-term nervous system dysregulation (fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses).

When your nervous system is trained to fear rejection or silence, even a pause in conversation can feel like abandonment. This isn’t oversensitivity—it’s trauma memory.

The Good News

There is a way out.

We can learn to discern the difference between silencing and sacred stillness. We can reclaim our voice—and choose when, how, and why we stay silent.

But before we explore the healing power of silence, we must name how it was misused.

If silence has hurt you, know this: Your voice was never the problem. Your voice was the threat to someone else’s comfort, not your truth.

Coming Soon: Parts Two and Three

The Restorative Power of Silence: Reclaiming Stillness, Rebuilding Voice. In the next parts of this series, I will explore how silence, when chosen mindfully, can become a force of healing, presence, and integration.

I will also share practices that help transform toxic silence into peaceful stillness.

If you would like to share your stories of weaponized silence, write to me on aatman.innersoul@gmail.com

Warm regards / Shangreila Sharma