This is a difficult, and painful, subject for me to write about – but, since I know I am not alone in struggling with certain types of silence, I am opening this up to a wider audience than my own, at times troubled, mind.

Silence can be golden: A soft and gentle radiance which lightens the heart and provides wings of peace for the soul’s ascension.

By contrast, silence used punitively can break spirits, force tendrils of terror into the psyche – and create a long-term inability to cope with certain powerful, if misdirected, triggers.

Sending to Coventry sounds such a humorous, light-hearted phrase to use for a specialised, highly dangerous, form of mental and emotional abuse, doesn’t it?  I am not talking here about the cold shoulders we all give one another from time to time, nor the froideur which tends to accompany any kind of domestic rift.

No. I am thinking of the malevolent training of the mind which comes courtesy (or should that be ‘discourtesy’?) of a sustained and deliberate withdrawal of voice, look, touch in order to punish the victim – often for imagined slights, always as a means of control.

This kind of silence is poisonous in the extreme – and can cause serious damage, if used for long enough (and I am talking years, even decades, not days here); it can create an absolute terror of any kind of angry silence, and a profound fear of abandonment. The one being ignored will go to almost any length to put a stop to the silence: Grovelling, pleading, apologising (even if not at fault), having sex with the silently aggrieved one, giving money or presents – even accepting physical violence and agreeing that it was deserved.

The snake image below was chosen deliberately because these silent abusers often use their eyes to mesmerise and intimidate and, coiled in their fury, they are as unpredictable serpents: The victim never knows when they are going to strike, or whether they are ‘hungry’ or not.

The victim learns very quickly that silence has occurred because they are deemed to be at fault in some way – and this, in turn, causes a terrified and speedy glance through all recent behaviour (often in vain) in order to locate the sin and appease the other.

I was subjected to this kind of abuse over a long period of time – and it has left deep scars. It has made some very mundane and ordinary human situations extremely difficult for me to deal with.

Gaps in communication with close friends and family can leave me utterly panic-stricken and as bereft as a small child. I become convinced, very quickly, that I must have transgressed; that the silent other no longer wishes to have anything to do with me; that I am not worthy of friendship/sibling bonds.

In the past, such silences have reduced me to frozen terror and/or tears.

Recognising the symptoms and understanding the back story has proved helpful, however: A spell of counselling, with the local Talking Therapies Team, was extremely useful – and gave me questions to apply, as well as strategies to use.

That instinctive rush of toxic adrenaline still kicks in automatically, the Amygdala not being a reasoning part of the brain; fight or flight (in my case, the latter) will still rear its ugly head and hiss through glistening fangs – but I am getting better, slowly.

It is not that I lack imagination, sympathy, empathy or understanding of other people’s lives: I know, logically, that quiet phases in a bond are healthy and attributable to life’s rich pageant playing out its colourful scenes; I know, with my adult mind, that it is not personal; I know that people are busy, stressed, off-line, away, doing other things.

But – and this is, I feel, the crucial point – that lizard brain is more akin to the instincts and reactions of the infant self than the adult. Babies scream because they are hungry or cold or in pain or lonely. We, by and large, do not – because we have learned that food is available, heaters can be turned on or off, analgesics can be downed, friends summoned.

I believe, however, that long-term abuse can reduce us to infant status in certain triggering situations. Mine, as I have said in this post, revolves around certain kinds of silence. I suppose, at some very deep level, I believe that the other will never come back; that I will never be forgiven; that something I have done or said or been has snapped the bond completely.

I do know that the origin of the baby-like fear predates the adult abuse: I was left, with relative strangers, aged thirteen months, while my next sister was born – and, long story short, was punished for wetting the bed. I felt utterly abandoned, I am quite sure.

I am determined to turn this problem around. I always recognise when its deep feelings are with me, and have adopted a question to use at times of actual panicking crisis: Has this person ever used punitive tactics, silence or otherwise, in the time we have known one another?

And, of course, the answer – generally a firm, ‘No!’ – reassures me and tells me that, actually, most silences are non-toxic and do not need to churn me up inside at all. In the rare (very rare) cases in which a ‘Yes!’ answer comes back, I know how to deal with this too – but that is for another post!

Control by toxic silence does exist. It is a weapon of choice. The vast majority of people in my life would not dream of stooping so low, however – and, with that in mind, I am hopeful that I will, eventually, be able to exorcise this particular demon – and face life’s social silences with equanimity.