Gaslighted by Silence
Gaslighting isn’t always loud—sometimes the narcissist says nothing at all. That silence, that cold indifference when you're hurting, is one of the most insidious forms of gaslighting. You’re left doubting your reality, wondering if you’re being dramatic or ridiculous, all because no one acknowledged what happened. In narcissistic relationships, silence isn't neutral—it’s a denial of your experience, and it hurts just as much as the words.
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DISCLAIMER: THIS INFORMATION IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE A SUBSTITUTE FOR CLINICAL CARE. PLEASE CONSULT A HEALTH CARE PROVIDER FOR GUIDANCE SPECIFIC TO YOUR CASE. THIS VIDEO DISCUSSES NARCISSISM IN GENERAL.
THE VIDEO DOES NOT REFER TO ANY SPECIFIC PERSON, AND SHOULD NOT BE USED TO REFER TO ANY SPECIFIC PERSON, AS HAVING NARCISSISM. PERMISSION IS NOT GRANTED TO LINK TO OR REPOST THIS VIDEO, ESPECIALLY TO SUPPORT AN ALLEGATION THAT THE MAKERS OF THIS VIDEO BELIEVE, OR SUPPORT A CLAIM, THAT A SPECIFIC PERSON IS A NARCISSIST. THAT WOULD BE AN UNAUTHORIZED MISUSE OF THE VIDEO AND THE INFORMATION FEATURED IN IT.
Morning. Our daily dose of reality. My late husband used to gaslight me by silence. Me being a serial communicator he knew it hurt me.
Awful and painful.. I’m sorry
@scottessery100Thanks. I never got used to it and that was only 1 thing in his arsenal of psychological abuse and trust me he knew what he was doing. I think that is why I still feel the effects 14 years after he died. I don’t let it dominate my life but I cannot remember as many good things as bad. There were a few good things…..
@jokendrick2124And yet…..you stayed. What does that say about you?
Not helpful
@antarahmoody575It says I loved him. And he had cancer. I would have never abandoned him during those years. What does your nasty question say about you? Are you an abuser?????
This is my covert narcissists go to .. she’s not spoken to me for 3 weeks…. And what makes it worse is it triggers my fathers shutting me out and isolation at school. People don’t understand how much damage it does. Thank you for talking about the pain it causes
They have the ability to trigger any of your bad pasts. That’s what breeches trust. I became isolated within.
Bro 100%, my wife does this REGULARLY. It’s incredibly disconcerting and isolating. A lot of women go through this with their men, but it’s seldom addressed when our wives do it. Yet we’re expected to just eat it and keep doing our jobs as men.
Yeah like when Thanksgiving was the day after one of my twins passed while I was pregnant with her and neither of my siblings said ‘sorry for your loss’ or acknowledged it…
This is what my Narc Ex used to do whenever I was Ill, because it would be an Inconvenience to him. It felt absolutely awful. 🍒
Thank you so much for addressing this abuse. Can you imagine how the slaves felt? This is the number 1 problem. When can we build a civilization that is built first on understanding abuse, personality disorders, and human “operating systems” (to quote Der. Peter Salerno)? Thank you so much for your brilliant insightful healing work❤❤❤
Typically, it is when people who know- stay silent, and by doing so- they enable abuse
While realizing the toxicity of my dysfunctional family while going through the healing process, I reached out to who I thought was a responsible, mature cousin and told her, “No one ever talks about anything that matters”. I never heard from her again. I pour my heart out to my oldest friend (grandfathered in) in several letters over the years and she says nothing about anything ever. I asked her once if she loved her Dad. Silence. How her Mom died. Silence. My theory is that, since she’s Jewish, her father told her, after the holocaust, to never talk to anyone about anything ever. But silent gaslighting is something I de have dealt with my whole life, so thanks for putting a name to it because it is a thing. A very confusing and maddening thing.
I had an incident happen in first grade where a man at the school exposed himself to me. I went straight to the principle to report it, I remember my little self being so mad and wanting to protect the other girls there. The adults just swept it under the rug. My parents did nothing, would not even talk to me about it. Anytime I tried to bring it up I was made to feel dramatic and that it was not a big deal. Maybe they were trying to protect me, but this harmed me way more than the man that was exposing himself. Nothing was done to that man, no authorities were called, nobody would even talk about it to me. That incident did not traumatize me, it was the school staff and my parents that did the harm to me. I felt ashamed for saying anything, like I was wrong. My little first grade self could not understand. I tried to bring it up to my mom again, now being almost 30 years later, and it was still dismissed, she made me feel like it was silly to even mention that it was not a big issue at all. This is such a minor thing compared to the rest of the trouble my parents have caused me, but it stays with me. The narrative continues: you had a perfect childhood, children do not have problems. This narrative was told to us over and over, and the children were blamed for the family issues. (Not the parents horrific divorce, not the fighting between the divorced parents, not the parents talking horrible about eachother, not the new partners that started to come into the picture, not the physical or emotional abuse they put us through, not the moving locations/schools 1-2 times PER YEAR… I went to 12 different schools between K-12). All of this has just been bottled up, it eats at me. The worst thing is being able to see what it did to my siblings, the rest of the family does not make that connection. I can not get over that and I can not forgive what was done to them, or myself. You are amazing #DoctorRamani, thank you for giving us a space to connect with others who have experienced similar things. You are my role model 🙂
I’m right there with you and at 65 if I try to talk with my mother about it ….the same woman who wishes we had a closer relationship…sweeps it under the carpet and tells me it was probably a dream that I had and didn’t really happen….you know, because dreams can seem real….and people wonder why I don’t open up
“Never Explain” The British Royal Family response to accusations of terrible behavior = Institutional Gaslighting by Silence
Thanks Doc.!! In a way you’re talking about The Truth Teller and The Scapegoat!! I’m in your Healing Program and I’m to going to send you a question about how to protect oneself when this sort of gaslighting takes place! Thanks again!!
The silence of the bystanders does more damage than the abuse itself; it is what forces the victim to abandon their own reality just to survive. Dr. Ramani, it is your specific tone—your passion, your assertiveness, and your absolute refusal to mince words—that cuts through that decades-long fog. It reaches the inner child that the silent world tried to bury. Thank you for your relentless service to survivors, and for standing firm in your conviction, even when the sterile academic world tries to label that passion as ‘unhinged.’ You are a lifeline.
Amen
Or they feign innocence, saying, “What are you talking about?” or “I didn’t mean that. You clearly misunderstood.”
It’s really cruel and feels absolutely awful
Yeah ,employing silence is a very effective emotional abuse in relationships,super manipulative..i had a really crab daddy..he was an expert keeping silent as a way to get his own😊
Silence can be worse form of Abuse where a person feels very powerless and ultimately reacts and get labelled as crazy
I went no-contact with both my parents sometime back my father is narsissist and mother is enabler. Both of them use silence and not acknowledging how abusive my childhood was as a weapon. The silence over my wounds and experience drives me completely insane , one of the reasons I went no contact.
The silence, when it amounts to harmful gaslighting, may, indeed, make the receiver feel cut off from himself — and that any reaction is like sliding into an abyss . . .
I have done the calling out as a child and an adult, the world is very cold and cruel, but I believe in me and keep going and trying. I had only me.
Same! It’s nice to see someone else who does that too 💖
Silent gaslighting is a SOUL KILLER when one is in deep grief.
This one hits really hard. This has happened multiple times in my childhood home, in friendship groups in high school, college, and in more than one job as well. My life has been punctuated by this kind of gaslighting. It has affected me in such deep ways. I’m not sure I will ever fully heal/recover from the impact it’s had, but I will never stop working to undo.
The story of my life growing up at 68 finally having the words to describe the abuse -silence when tragedy happened no follow up or just basic acknowledgment that you have ideas and feelings never ever occurred in my family and with a number of friends and relatives so when I started therapy at 18 I had to learn there were more than two emotions, anger, and apathy. It hasn’t been easy, but I’m getting there.