Trust
Here’s Why You Dislike Being Ignored
Have you ever felt intense and overwhelming anger after being ignored by someone in your life? It would be a surprise if your answer was no. In fact, being hurt or angered when someone ignores you is an entirely natural reaction.
While most people have been ignored at some point in their life, that doesn’t diminish the fact that being given the silent treatment can be an extremely painful experience. In fact, it can even be considered a form of emotional and psychological manipulation and abuse.
If you are having a hard time maintaining your emotional health when being ignored, consider contacting a remote relationship coach. In the meantime, keep on reading to learn why being ignored hurts and what you can do about it.
Why Does Being Ignored Hurt?
When someone ignores you, you may start feeling unworthy, unimportant, or unlovable, especially if you are ignored by someone you care about. Whether it’s your partner, parent, or boss, it is entirely natural to feel hurt when you don’t get the response you expect from them.
Although you are bound to feel hurt after being rejected or ignored, keep in mind that it’s not necessarily your fault. You shouldn’t strive to change yourself to get their attention or affection, but simply remember that people have their own emotional struggles which may cause them to act in certain ways towards you.
For instance, they may have been a victim of emotional neglect in their childhood or they might simply be overwhelmed by other matters in their life. But regardless of the reason why, your sense of worth should never depend on other people’s attention and opinions of you.
What Does Being Ignored Do To The Brain?
In addition to the negative emotions you might experience after being ignored, it has been shown that the silent treatment can actually have physical effects on your brain.
Brain imaging has been looking at this since a 2003 study in which people left out of a simple ball-tossing game showed more activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, an area tied to the unpleasant side of physical pain, and the more it responded, the more hurt they felt. In people fresh from an unwanted breakup, looking at a photo of their ex engaged regions that also register bodily pain. The overlap is real, but it is not the same signal: a closer look found the brain’s patterns for physical pain and rejection are distinct. What being ignored reliably does is set off an alarm for a threat to belonging, and in one lab study, being shut out of a conversation by two real people was enough to raise blood pressure.
Kept up for weeks, being frozen out by someone you count on shades into loneliness, and loneliness is linked to:
- Headaches and stomach trouble. Among about 2,700 young Swedes followed from their late teens into their early twenties, the lonelier they were, the more headaches, stomach aches and trouble falling asleep they reported.
- Broken sleep and fatigue. Lonely people sleep about as long as anyone else but sleep less efficiently, waking more in the night.
- Higher blood pressure. In a four-year study of adults in their 50s and 60s in Chicago, the lonelier people were at the start, the more their blood pressure rose.
- Blood sugar. Among about 4,000 older adults in England, people who felt lonely “some of the time” rather than “hardly ever” had about a 40 percent higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes over the next decade.
- Slower healing. Couples who stayed hostile with each other across both a supportive talk and an argument healed small test wounds at 60 percent of the rate of less hostile couples.
These are patterns across groups of people, not a forecast for you, and most come from studies of loneliness and of conflict between partners rather than the silent treatment itself. The effects may be exacerbated if you are subjected to the silent treatment for prolonged periods of time or the person who is ignoring you is a particularly important figure in your life, such as your parent, partner, or boss.
What Does It Mean When Your Partner Ignores You?
If your partner is not responding to your texts or calls, you probably feel hurt, confused, or angry. While this is completely natural, there may actually be a reasonable explanation for this behavior. Here are some possible reasons:
This simple explanation is actually more common than you may think. Many individuals don’t like or don’t know how to express themselves over the phone, and your partner may feel the same way.
Although you probably want to be the focus of your significant other’s life, it may be the case that they have other problems in their life that have to be dealt with before speaking with you.
Although you probably feel extremely hurt because your partner is ignoring you, you should consider the fact that you might be smothering them. Give them some space and see what happens.
If you tend to be demanding towards your partner, they may feel like you only contact them when you need something that they are not able to give.
There’s no point denying that it is a possibility that your partner may not want to be in a relationship with you any longer. Try talking to them openly and see if there are any issues that you two should work on.
Is Ignoring Someone Manipulative?
While there are many logical reasons why someone might ignore you, some individuals may use the silent treatment as a manipulation tactic. They may know exactly what makes you tick, and being ignored tends to achieve that precise effect on most people.
The person who is ignoring you probably knows exactly what they are doing to your emotional state, and they might use this to their advantage, causing you to think about them more and be more vulnerable to the rest of their manipulation tactics. The silent treatment is often used as part of narcissistic abuse, hand in hand with gaslighting, deflection, stonewalling, and other abusive behaviors.
How Do You Respond To Being Ignored?
If you are being ignored by someone close to you, you are probably looking for a way to deal with all the negative emotions that the silent treatment brings about. Here are some tips, as long as it feels safe to do so:
- Take a step back
Your partner may simply need some space to collect their thoughts and deal with their own emotions. Give them time and work on yourself in the meantime.
- Distract yourself
Find things to do in order to keep yourself from obsessing over the person who is ignoring you.
- Check if they are actually ignoring you
The whole deal may simply be a misunderstanding or the person may be dealing with other personal issues.
- Try not to overreact
Yes, being ignored hurts, but remember that the individual ignoring you may be trying to achieve exactly that. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
- Communicate
Your partner may have some concerns about the relationship that they are afraid to bring up. Try speaking with them without anger or bitterness.
Looking For A Relationship Coach Online? Contact PIVOT Today
Remember that it is entirely natural to feel hurt and confused about your relationships with other people. You never know exactly why people are treating you the way they do, and it’s not your responsibility to waste energy trying to figure it out. Instead, focus on your own wellbeing and health.
PIVOT can help you with that. Whether you want to speak with a relationship coaching professional online or spend five days with us at the Glass House retreat, don’t hesitate to give us a call. We are looking forward to listening to what you have to say. Contact us today!
