After July 3 I went looking to find out the whys and wherefores of silence and the silent treatment. Essentially I wanted to know what the motivation is for the use of such a damaging tool. There is no doubt in my mind where its use in my family has come from...it is foreign to us, so that really leaves just one person.
What I found was interesting and enlightening. Many people use the silent treatment as a self defense mechanism. A sort of...I don't want to deal with this so I will say nothing device. Yet others use this technique to inflict pain on others. The silent treatment actually causes physical pain; it affects the part of the brain that registers pain. This is why a time out is effective on children, they are ostracized, and ergo feel pain and want to be back part of things.
I'd expect that the danger in using the silent treatment on adults may have rather different outcomes and indeed the psychological journals that I read stated such and indeed there are very different gender outcomes too. The outcomes are typical but of course with any human behavior there is always room for the exception. Men tend to just deal with the silent treatment and to a large degree that's what I've done. I think. I have moved to a rather indifferent place with respect to my brother and his wife.
This isn't to say that I'm not baffled at times. July 3rd was just one of those times. In the end, I figured it out and in the end my conclusions are pretty much in line with what's been typical in the last twenty years and to that end I feel...well...a little sad but mainly indifferent.
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