BellaOnline Forums Relationships Relationships Silence is golden?

"Sticks and stones are hard on bones. Aimed with angry art, words can sting like anything. But silence breaks the heart." Phyllis McGinley I received this quote in an email today and it made me recall my younger years. My dad was very abusive in many ways and one of his punishments to us was to give us the "silent treatment". If we disappointed him or did not agree with him, that is what we got. It does break ones heart when they are ignored. As a child, I lived this over and over again. Some times it would last for 6 months! He was not discriminatory about who he did this to in the family. It really makes a person feel like they are a nobody. Unfortunately I and all of my siblings have a tendency to do this now. I really have to fight this struggle within me to not be this way because it is such ugly behavior! It pains me when I hear about or see my siblings doing this to their spouses and children. Has anybody else lived this? How do you get that out of you?

hilpb,im ignored most of the times,just don t ignore youself and you ll be fine.thinking that you exist through people is not really an option,maybe you should accept yourself a bit more and love yourself,so you wouldn t bother about being ignored by others.if someone ignores you like your father s pattern,cause it is a pattern in his case,it brings you or tries to bring you to ignore yourself so he becomes the center of attention,and you therefore become nothing.just try to let this go,cause it keeps you bound.if you try to ignore him in return it makes you like him and brought you probably intomany situations where you ignored others too.

hi gemineye, it does not bother me so much, now that I am older , to be ignored, but as a child it hurt deeply. that and being told nobody cares what you have to say so just shut up, it all hurts and it sticks with me. I think as a child you pretty much do exist through your parents and that image he gave me is what I carry with me. Yes, it was a pattern for him, he did make us feel like we were nothing and he did love to be the center of attention. If you could not do anything for him,think like him or do as he said, he had no use for you. and as much as all of us kids hated it , we have all done it at one time or another. Is it learned behavior? and can we get rid of it? I sure hope so! He is no longer here to do this to us but his legacy,for lack of a better term, is living on. I do fight it because like I said it is ugly. Nobody deserves to be ignored. I do know that I am a good person, at least I do my best, I try to love myself but with many years of it being ingrained in you telling you otherwise, it is hard to believe. Thank you for your thoughts.

so it bothers youthen,just let it gothat s all and a piece of your spirit will come back toyou.

you're right, I guess it bothers me in the sense that I am capable of treating another human in such a way. I will work on letting it go, okay? I would love for a piece of my spirit to come back to me. I think I miss it very much.

yep what you ignoreof yourself will come back

you make it sound so easy.

if look at things with an easy look or a hard lookyou give them the power to be like that.things just are.

otherwise yeai can tell you how i feel things are or i can tell you it is going to take you a million years for you togo through this.
its just what it is a piece of a legacy as you say that is still alive in you in the form of energy that you just need to release by looking at it.if you fight you make it stronger and worse.it s not because something bothers you that it is hard to get rid of it.it s actually neither hard or easy.it s natural.

One of the most difficult things to do in life is to let go of past hurts. Once we learn how to forgive an action by another in the past, we are set free.

Forgiving does not have to mean you condone the action of the person who hurt others -- it just means that what happened is one of the things in life we have to overcome. Once we overcome, our burden is lifted and we walk with a lighter step and our spirit is lifted up.