Is Stonewalling a Form of Abuse?

We often hear terms like; gas-lighting, stonewalling, passive-aggressive behavior, and the silent treatment, but let’s be honest, do you know what these terms mean?

More importantly, when you are faced with one of them, could you (1) spot the behavior and (2) handle yourself to not feed into the abuse?

Stonewalling is in the middle between gas-lighting and the silent treatment. Stonewalling is a learned behavior. It is a defense mechanism someone learned to cope with what is happening. It is when the person you are trying to resolve a problem with is unwilling to talk. They are unreachable and appear not to care.

When someone feels threatened, or they feel they are at fault, they will become defensive and use this tactic. Their insecurities run so deep they cannot hold onto themselves through interaction, but they also cannot soothe themselves after, so they shut down. They fear abandonment and do not speak their truth in fear of someone leaving them.

A person might use this tactic to hurt another like the silent treatment, but they might also use it because they are overwhelmed during what is going on.

What does Stonewalling look like?

• When someone ignores you when you are speaking.
• When the person you are trying to talk to and handle a problem, the person suddenly becomes very busy and cannot talk.
• When someone makes fun of how you feel.
• When someone rolls their eyes throughout the conversation and refuses to focus on you during the conversation.
• When the person only wants to avoid the situation or problem rather than come in a resolution to make things better.
• When the person begins to feel defensive after you bring up your concerns, but still avoid chatting about everything.

You can see that there are parts that look like the silent treatment; they look like withholding, and parts of the abuse look like gas-lighting. Those parts are meant to confuse the victim into thinking something is wrong with them.

Sometimes a person may not even realize that they are stonewalling because this approach to handling life is something they learned as a child. It is a communication pattern within that person.

They both cannot handle conflict, perhaps because of a deep-seated root feeling of not feeling good enough or feeling like everything is their fault that they avoid at all costs.

This unhealthy form of communication can be healed if someone is aware that they shut down. The problem arises first within the person to learn how to manage their own inner self during these interactions, which will then allow for healthier forms of communication.