“Sometimes another woman’s story becomes a mirror that shows me a self I haven’t seen before. When I listen to her tell it, her experience quickens and clarifies my own. Her questions rouse mine. Her conflicts illumine my conflicts. Her resolutions call forth my hope. Her strengths summon my strengths. All of this can happen even when our stories and our lives are very different.” 

One of the really difficult things about living with family estrangement is our experiences can seem so disconnected from those of other people who aren’t estranged. Maybe you have found yourself in the awkward situation of trying to explain why it is that you don’t maintain relationships with someone(s) in your family, or why it is that you don’t want to, or they don’t want to, or maybe that you don’t know what they want, or sometimes even what you want.

This feeling of disconnection can be amplified when other people, some very well intentioned, are full of advice about what you should do, should feel, should think – even though they may have no idea about the complexity of your family circumstances or any experience with estrangement themselves. Whilst I don’t believe direct experience is the only way someone can understand or appreciate an issue, I do think it can be helpful. I also believe if we have no idea about another person’s experience we should tread very carefully before telling them what they should think, feel or do.

Many of us have searched long and hard to find validation for our experience of family estrangement. This is a worthy yet difficult quest because information about family estrangement is very limited and there are very few communities that support people who are estranged. These numbers shrink even more for those who have chosen their estrangements and who have no intention of reconciling with their absent family member(s).

We need validation.

Not only positive validation, and reassurance – but also validation that we bring our humanness to estrangement. This is to say, we make mistakes, we have regrets, we aren’t always the people we wished we could be. Sometimes we are to blame. Sometimes we need a kick in the insight pants.

We benefit from the stories of others who are experiencing estrangement. The good stories, the content and happy stories, the better off on my own stories.

We also benefit from hearing the stories where other people fall down, make mistakes, feel bad, or sad, and maybe wish that things were different. We need all the stories, because our story is all of those stories.

When we are deep in our grief, we are encouraged by the stories of those who grieved and came out the other-side.

When we are  smug that we are blameless and find ourselves caught up in blaming and shaming others, the stories of others who have been hurt and shamed can lead us back to self-reflection.

When we are so angry that we feel we will never experience peace again, we are inspired by the stories of those who have overcome anger and found that peace.

When we are damaged, broken and hurt beyond reckoning, we are given hope by the stories of those who healed and who have built happy, fulfilling lives for themselves.

Sometimes we get upset or angry when our experiences are challenged. Sometimes we are unable to see that questions or gentle prodding to consider other possibilities is not, in fact, invalidating – but is rather an opportunity to experience our fallibility and an invitation to consider ourselves human.

How validating is that?!

” Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself  to be made a victim. “

What happens when we actually don’t want to be silent? When we have plenty to say and lots of good reasons to say it, but we find ourselves unable to speak?

Maybe we try to raise our thoughts, feelings or issues of concern only to find we are shut down overtly through ridicule, threats, or hostility.

Maybe when we try to speak the other person shuts us down covertly, resorting to manipulation, tears, heavy, long-suffering sighs and maybe we find that our efforts to communicate turns the other person into the perfect portrait of a victim.

Maybe the other person deflects, offers rationalizations, justifications, excuses that dismiss or minimize our perception and experience. Maybe we find ourselves becoming the issue, the problem person, the bad guy or the bitch.

Maybe the other person abandons the conversation and/or us, when we dare to raise issues or communicate something that the other person doesn’t want to hear, face or address.

All of these are strategies, some conscious, some not, that derail conversations, re-position issues and shut conversation and people down. They are all forms of bullying that fall along a continuum from outright aggression, through to passive aggression. They all have a way of silencing us. We become victims and are held hostage to silence as a way of maintaining the relationship or defending against the fall out that arises when we try to communicate.

This is feedback.

If we find ourselves in relationships where it is unsafe or impossible for us to speak, we are in a no-win situation. Yes, we can seek out better ways to communicate and practice our communication skills. What we cannot do is gift another person with insight or force them to engage. Eventually we must weigh up our silence and the reasons for it and ask ourselves the hard questions:

1. Does this relationship allow me space to communicate?
2. Is there an understanding of communication as a process, where there is room for people to communicate – perhaps imperfectly?
3.  Is there a consistent commitment to work through problems, miscommunication, emotional intensity and so forth, to reach understanding?
4. Does my communication matter? Does it lead to enhanced understanding, resolution of issues and change?
5. Do I feel better, or worse after trying to communicate?
6. Is my silence the cost for maintaining this relationship?
7. Am I victim of my own silence?

At the end of the day,  relationship without the capacity for communication, is not much of a relationship at all.

When it is genuine, when it is born of the need to speak, no one can stop the human voice. When denied a mouth, it speaks with the hands or the eyes, or the pores, or anything at all. Because every single one of us has something to say to the others, something that deserves to be celebrated or forgiven by others. ” 

Not everyone who goes silent is doing so to punish or hurt someone else. Not everyone is using silence as a tool of manipulation or power or control. Sometimes silence is the final frontier and the end of a long journey to communicate, be heard, resolve things and create change. Sometimes silence means that we have accepted the limitation of our 50% of the 100% required to keep a relationship afloat and healthy. Sometimes it means we are opting for safety. Sometimes it means that we are practising self-care. Sometime it means we are waving the white flag of truce and opting to give up.

If we have been banging our heads on firmly locked communication doors; if we have been tripping over unspoken spoken messages; if we have clearly explained our feelings and set boundaries about how we’d like to communicate only to find the boundaries are consistently undermined or ignored and we find communication never really progresses …. we may find silence is our friend.

I was recently reading a book about dealing with difficult relationships/difficult people. While the author of the book went through great pains to carefully delineate the vast array of dysfunction that drags a relationship down what struck me more is that regardless of the amount of dysfunction the emphasis was on how to manage the relationship and make it last/work, “in spite of it all”. Some of the suggestions included:

1. Be fair, reasonable and forgiving.
2. Let the other person know how you are feeling in non-threatening, non-blaming “I messages”.
3. Set reasonable and logical consequences for the other person’s behaviour, do not protect them from the consequences of their behaviour.
4. Do not be swayed by excuses.
5. Be consistent and swift in enforcing consequences.
6. Set your rules in advance, make them clear and concise and give the other person a copy.
7. Keep your expectations low.
8. Choose your battles carefully.
9. Avoid blaming.
10. Create a strong, independent life so that you are not relying on the other person.

There’s more, but I figured 10 examples were ample.

Although all of these suggestions, on the surface, make sense – they mostly only make sense in context to a healthy, equitable relationship. These suggestions, especially when taken together, sound very much like those we might use to train a dog, or parent a child. They are certainly ways of ensuring that we are being clear and direct in our dealings with others, but in the absence of reciprocity, they are also a way of keeping us locked in a struggle to manage and maintain relationships which are high need, low return, dysfunctional at best, toxic or dangerous at worse.

In any given relationship we ultimately have three choices.

1. We carry on, accept the status quo and do nothing.
2. We attempt to manage the existing relationship with strategies like the above. Sometimes we can move the relationship and person to a less impactful place in our circle of trust. But ultimately we remain locked into trying to manage the unmanageable – that is to say, other people and their behaviour and we hope desperately for change.
3. We seek distance, silence and often end the relationship.

Arguably in seeking to improve relationships, we may do all three things.

Firstly, we may do nothing. We are caught up trying to make sense of non-sense, trying to figure out our role and responsibility in the problems and conflict.  At this point we may work hard to change oursleves thinking if only we did better, did more, did the right thing, did less of the wrong thing … that we could improve the communication and the relationship.

When changing ourselves does not produce change, we may try to push for the other person to change. Sometimes we try to manage or control other people, what they say and do, in the hope that they will realize the problem and also change. Often at this point we get caught up in managing, naming the problems, attempting to identify solutions, setting boundaries or rules and playing referee.

Sometimes after we have done that for however long it takes, we give up. We may still work on ourselves, our health and our healing, but we stop expecting it will create relationship change. We stop trying to manage the relationship and the other person, realizing it has become an exercise in futility. We get tired of playing the bad guy, or being the problem person. We get tired of forcing issues and communication. We seek distance, we talk less. Eventually we shut  down and up.

This doesn’t mean we don’t love or care. It doesn’t mean we are terrible communicators. It doesn’t mean it’s our “fault”. It means we’ve tapped out. We’ve done what we can, we’ve tried everything in our communication book and it just isn’t working.

Communication is a two way street. It requires two actively engaged people to do it. One person can try to carry the burden of communication for two, but eventually even the most persistent of us will give up. We have the choice to see this as “failure” or we can come to the place where we celebrate our increased capacity to discern where our energy is best spent, and who it is best spent with. It’s not our job to babysit other people. It’s not our job to carry the weight of communication or change on our own. We can expect more for ourselves. We are worth it.

Sometimes silence looks an awful lot like freedom.

I have spoken before about triangulation, which  is the communication strategy of drawing a third party (parties) into a relationship or conflict with the intention of building alliances which disadvantage, punish and ostracise another person.

Most of us have done it. Most of us have experienced it. It is a common strategy for reducing emotional intensity for one person, while transferring the burden onto another.

Triangulation is part of a defensive strategy to deflect our personal responsibility, accountability, and ironically, relational power. If we can build alliances which confirm our “rightness”, babysit us emotionally  or validate our actions, we have no need to look at ourselves,  no need to change, no need to grow.

I’m encouraging you to think about triangulation as part of a “silence as a weapon” strategy. When one person is dis-included, or disenfranchised and left out of an ongoing conversation about them, their behaviour and who they are we can rest assured that gossip and triangulation are in play.

It’s not a nice, or a healthy game. We can do better.

Many of us have really good reasons for going silent. Perhaps we have realized that it doesn’t matter what we say, and so we stop saying anything at all. Maybe we have found that engaging leaves us emotionally vulnerable or prone to over reacting. Maybe we think that the best way to make a statement, is to make no statement.

It’s not difficult to justify, rationalize and excuse the use of silence, when we are the ones opting to use it.

Yet most of us will not permit the same rationalizations, justifications and excuses when others are choosing to opt for silence. Could it be that when we use silence we think of it as a defence and when others use it in their communication (or lack thereof) with us, we think of it as a weapon?

What then is the fair use of silence and how do we know if it is being used as a weapon or a defence?

Arguably we have all found ourselves in situations or relationships where silence is a considered choice. Perhaps we are using silence as a time out, or for “taking space”.  Using silence and distance in this way is really about learning to remove pressure from the relationship. For instance, a time out can be a necessity if you find yourself in the midst of a conversation or situation where you are feeling overwhelmed, cornered, or on the defensive. It is equally as useful if you notice that the person you are communicating with appears overwhelmed or on the defensive.

We all have differing needs for space and distance. We all have different capacities to deal with emotional intensity. We all have different thresholds and varying skill levels  for communication. The purpose behind a time out or taking space is not to hurt, punish or disadvantage the other person. It is a constructive, planned, mutually agreed upon strategy to safeguard the relationship and ensure communication remains open and respectful.

10 “rules” for using silence and distance in this manner include:

1. Discussing the value and use of time out in advance, preferably when both people are calm and there is not a pressing issue. Both parties understand the value in taking a planned break, and agree to adhere to the rules.
2. The person requiring the space must give fair warning – “I’m going to need to take some space in the next few minutes.”
3. The person requiring the time out should give a clear indication that they need the space NOW. This can be done verbally or non-verbally. Sometimes people use the classic sports signal; hands shaped in a T signal, others use a firm cut off signal.
4. As soon as the time out is called, the responding person must stop all conversation and be prepared to wait.
5. The person seeking the time out clearly states a time frame. For instance “I need this evening to think about this, or I need a week on my own.” This is a really important part of a respectful time out. It demonstrates that taking space is occurring within the relationship- and is not an ending or exit from relationship. A time out is NOT a threat and is NEVER indefinite.
6.  Both people can make a mental note (or physical one) to help them remember what the conversation was about so then when contact is resumed, so too is the issue.
7. Time outs can involve remaining in the same space, but being respectfully silent. It may mean taking some time away from the other person such as going for a walk, or out for coffee. It may mean taking a break from contact altogether.
8. The person initiating the time out re-initiates contact. If they are prepared to do so before the full time requested has passed, that is okay. If they require more time, they will return to the other person, and let them know that additional time is required.
9. When the person using time out is prepared to re-engage, they will also have a discussion about what caused the need for space. This is not about blaming the other person, it is about taking responsibility for self.
10. They also must be prepared to re-engage with the issue, or conversation that was occurring at the point of requesting time out. Time outs are not evasive manoeuvres, they are temporary breathing spaces in communication.

The use of silence and distance in absence of these rules, has the capacity to quickly deteriorate into being used as a weapon. How might we know that we have crossed the line?

1. When we have not explained in advance that we need to take space.
2. When we do not indicate any time frame for reconnection and leave the other person hanging in the dark. When taking a time out, there must be consideration for the other person’s capacity and tolerance for distance. If we know for instance, that taking space creates anxiety, fear and discomfort for the other person, we are going to want to be sensitive to that; 24 hours as opposed to a month for instance! [For more food for thought on this please have a look at What's Your Attachment Style and Getting Closer.]
3. When we use silence and distance to demonstrate our displeasure or anger or to punish or control another person.
4. Any time silence or distance is accompanied by threats to permanently leave or end a relationship.
5. When the person taking the time out does not take the initiative to re-engage leaving the other person to be responsible to end the silence.
6. When the person taking the time out does not discuss the trigger for the time out, or blames the other person for requiring it.
7. When time out is used to evade, deflect or dismiss inter-personal issues or conflict.
8. When we steadfastly refuse to see, hear, or speak to another person – in essence shunning them.

We must remain aware that for many people the use of silencing and distancing is incredibly painful and frustrating. Using silence and distance as a weapon is a form of ostracism and shunning. When someone experiences  total disregard it affects the part of their brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, which is the  is the part of the brain that detects pain. Thus it is that ignoring another person can create intense anxiety and suffering.   Agreed upon strategies for time out, allow both parties to have their needs considered and respected.

We don’t always have the luxury of negotiating terms for silence and distance. What starts out as a simple need for breathing room, can easily erode into estrangement when we lack the skills to re-engage or we have left the relationship so damaged that the other person is no longer willing to re-engage with us. We need to be able to evaluate the intention of silence and distance (others as well as our own) and as I have discussed in my previous post, The Strangeness of Silence, if there is no communication to explain silence, we will often make our own meanings, and those meanings may have very little to do with the other person’s intentions.

If we feel someone is taking space for defensive reasons, and as a means of protecting the communication and relationship, we will have a MUCH higher tolerance for silence and distance. If we feel someone is taking space to hurt, punish, or control us, our reaction is likely to be negative.

I cannot count the number of times where people have shared that estrangement was silence and distance that simply dragged on, with no real understanding of why. We aren’t taught much about silence and distance in relationship and many of us have troubled histories with attachment . It isn’t surprising we struggle to navigate closeness and distance, speech and silence in any relationship. It should come as no revelation then, that in relationships which feature significant emotional intensity that we are going to see problems.

It’s up to us to learn to see silence as intentional communication, and to navigate its use and meaning across all our relationships. It’s up to us to become aware of silence as defence, and silence as a weapon.

“Taken out of context, I must seem so strange”

I’ve been writing a bit about silence as a form of communication; communication which is intrinsically fraught, and more often than not leads to the erosion of relationship. I thought I would explore a little more fully why that might be.

Communication is never as straight forward as we think it is. We say something and we think we have been perfectly clear and that there is no chance of misunderstanding as a result.

Yet, research demonstrates that there are many places for communication to run amok. A misspoken word, a certain perceived tone of voice, an example which doesn’t resonate or fit for another person, language barriers, differences in communication and interpretation based on culture, age, body language etc.

The actual process of communication relies not on one off exactitude, but rather on an ongoing exchange and continual refinement that relies on two people willingly engaging in the process.

While we are busy tuning into the literal or explicit message being conveyed, we are also busy trying to find context and create meaning. When we are tracking communication we are looking for both spoken and unspoken messages, filling in the sub-context of communication as we go. This is a slippery slope since most of this is guess work until and unless we articulate and reality check our perceptions. This is further compounded because often we are doing this whole making of meaning at a subconscious level and it can be very difficult to articulate what we are picking up.

For example; a husband says, “Do you mind if I go out with the guys after work?” His wife responds, “Fine, I guess.” The husband not only looks at the literal message his wife has given, but also looks for other cues about how she might be feeling. He may tune into her tone of voice, or look to see if she is frowning, or turns away. Based on the unspoken sub-context, he may seek further clarification. “It doesn’t look like you are really fine with that?”

However, if he is determined to have his evening out with the guys, he may choose to ignore the sub-context and only tune into the literal message his wife gives. When this sort of exchange happens, the other person often feels betrayed or wounded because they sense the other person is neglecting to observe the unspoken “agreement” to attend to both the literal words said and the sub-context of the exchange.

It is the ability to pick up and respond to sub-context cues that provides the oil or lubrication for social interaction and creates a buffer where understanding can occur. We instinctively make adjustments to our communication based on subtle or not so subtle cues that we are picking up from the other person and we adjust our communication accordingly. These could be things like facial expressions, body language, a change in tone etc. The more available information we have, the more likely it is that we will refine our communication process to be heard and understood and to allow the other person to feel the same.

The potential for miscommunication is amplified by distance. For instance, phone communication is limited through lack of visual cues. Limitation is again amplified when we speak through text whether a letter, email, instant message, text message or the like in absence of both visual and auditory cues. It doesn’t mean we aren’t still shifting between the literal or concrete and the sub-context of what is being said, it just means it is more difficult to guess, and to subsequently refine what we say to better facilitate understanding and meaning.

When we think of what is going on with silent communication, we are completely missing the literal content of the communication, and are forced to create context and meaning from a very narrow range of sub-context. Lack of content doesn’t mean that we stop attempting to make meaning, it just means we have a whole lot less to go on. The likelihood that a person will correctly identify the sub-context of silence, let alone the literal meaning of it, is extremely remote. If we are using silence to communicate something, we are eliminating the majority of tools from our communication tool box.

If we are opting for silence to communicate that we are hurt, it is quite possible that the other person will interpret the message differently. Instead of seeing hurt, they may see stubborn refusal to engage, anger, power and control. We may be hoping that our silence leads to engagement, apology, a desire to seek us out and resolve the hurt. The other person may instead feel that they are being manipulated and controlled by our anger. The end result of that interpretation is that they will be unlikely to move closer to take care of our hurt.

We will then go on to make meaning of their behaviour. Perhaps we tell ourselves that the other person clearly doesn’t care that we are hurt. After-all, if they did, they would seek to comfort us, right?

This is where we need to be so careful with the way we use silence. We need to understand that when we decide to go silent, communication goes underground. All the cues go missing and all that is left is guessing. Things we say and do lose context, making meaning becomes a crap shoot, and as the quote above so eloquently says, in absence of context, we all seem strange.

Silence, they say, is the voice of complicity. But silence is impossible. Silence screams. Silence is a message, just as doing nothing is an act.

- Leonard Peltier

I begin this post with a confession. Silence is never my first choice. I am a communicator by nature and by profession and I deeply believe in and am committed to the communication process.

All that said, across the years in my life and practice, I have learned a great deal about silence as a legitimate form of communication, no words required. We can get incredibly hung up on words, and often those of us who are most committed to communication have the hardest time hearing and responding to what is not being said. We may find ourselves waiting on words, which may never come, staying hung up on relationships which are frozen in time through lack of intentional communication.

This doesn’t mean that silent relationships don’t progress, of course they do. However, the progression is generally toward increased distance, deteriorating connection and very often emotional disconnection. If that is where you are wanting to go with a relationship, silence is perfectly viable.

One of the images I chose to use in my collage stated, “If you don’t understand my silence, you do not deserve my words.” I think we should think about that a little bit. There are a couple of things that are questionable about that statement.  For one, communication has very little to do with another person’s worth. Communication is as much something we do for ourselves as it something we do for others. We communicate not because someone is worth communicating to, but because we are worth communicating for.

Silence is not a simple statement. It is a highly complex form of communication, that no one should have to decipher. When we elect to be silent, we are in essence giving up the possibility of being understood. NO ONE knows what is in our minds or hearts and the possibilities of what may lie there, are endless. The notion that someone else should be able to correctly figure out what we mean when we turn off speech is preposterous.

It also follows that expecting ourselves to correctly interpret another person’s silence is equally as preposterous. This is both good news and bad news. The good news is that we can let ourselves off the hook. We don’t have to guess. We don’t have to consider worst case scenarios, beat ourselves up or leave ourselves to wonder. When someone else refuses to respond to our offer to communicate, we can be satisfied that we have done the best that we can, that we have held up our end of communication. We can simply acknowledge that the other person cannot or will not communicate their thoughts, feelings or experiences and move on from there.

The bad news is that if we are inclined toward using silence to communicate, we must acknowledge that we are making the choice to have our thoughts, feelings and intentions potentially misunderstood or ignored as well. We must be prepared to acknowledge that understanding and resolution will be denied to us, the relationship will invariably drift or end and that through silence, it is a choice we are making.

Professor Melissa Harris-Perry, has said:  “I feel like talking always brings us closer to understanding, rather than dividing us. It can be tough, it can be a little nauseating, we don’t always have the right vocabulary to talk across our differences, but the talking is always better than the ignoring.”

Sometimes we don’t want to communicate across difference. Sometimes it’s unsafe to communicate. Sometimes it feels pointless to communicate. Sometimes we want relationships to end. That’s legitimate. It is arguable that silence is a sure fire way to make sure that happens. I am not speaking about a “time out”or a “cooling off” period. I’m also not talking about taking needed space and time to gain clarity about what we want to say. When we need that period of time and silence, it is only responsible that we let others know what we are busy with.

We want to use the correct tool, for the job at hand. If increased connection, understanding and intimacy is what we are after, communication is the best tool for the job. If the erosion of connection, relationship, understanding and caring is what we are seeking, silence may be the better tool.

Estranged relationships are silent relationships.

- Fiona McColl

Ahhh it’s bold to start a post with a quote by oneself, but I do so for good reason. I find myself saying that line over and over again. I am often intrigued by people’s response to it, as though it was a new idea or a revelation. In fact, we all know this, experience this and implicitly understand it. Estranged relationships are silent.

Yesterday I put together a bit of a collage about silence. I did this because I wanted to illustrate that people think about, engage or participate in, initiate or accept and certainly make sense of silence in very different ways. We experience silence differently depending on circumstances, whose silence it is and the meaning we attribute to it. This is not limited to other people’s silence, it also very much includes our own.

It could be said that we are frequently wounded or offended by the silence of others whilst seeing our own withdrawal and silence as necessary and deserved. Often we attribute negative motivation to the silences of others, and positive motivation for our own – even when acknowledging the intention of our silence is to punish or wound. Either way, silence fundamentally has communicative meaning … as the image above suggests …. it equals something.

Let’s have a look at yesterday’s collage and see if we can discern what silence equals.

Silence equals peace and quiet, it equals beauty, it equals freedom. We can see there is companionable silence, which allows us to feel known and understood and cared for. There is silence which is able to speak when words cannot. There is silence that is enjoyable and fosters connection to self, to our spirituality and creativity. It would even seem that many of us feel we don’t get enough silence, and find ourselves craving or wishing for it.

Yet, as the images suggest, silence is also the loudest scream. Silence is apparently the way we treat with fools. It is a “scary sound” that has the power to hurt, break hearts or even kill. It is a way we can demonstrate to others that they have “done us wrong” or allow us to show that others do not “deserve” our attention or engagement. Silence can feel like “safety” and even act as “protection”. It can be something we are “bullied” into and find ourselves trapped within. We can suffer or bleed in silence.

We can acknowledge that lying can occur just as effectively through silence as with words. We can see that silence “stands between” creates distance, and is often the loudest sound of all.

In the comments to my Theme of the Week: Silence post, “B” describes her silence with her mum and stepfather as “eloquent”. Edward acknowledged silence as ” a proper response in some cases…” but also identified that being silent might “take a heavy toll”. Sue says she has seen silence used as “both a means of punishment and manipulation” and also as a “ natural response when we ” just don’t know what to do or say.” Sher shared that she sees silence “as a weapon” where the “silencer wields all the power.”

So there is a suggestion that silence can be and mean a variety of things and engender a variety of feelings. How then do we make sense of it? Can we make sense of it? Verbal communication is undoubtedly fraught and very often fails to convey precisely what it is that we mean to say.  It is clear that silence also speaks … but what is it that silence says? What meaning do you attribute to others silence in your life. And, if you were pressed to interpret your own silences, what is it you are trying to say?

I’ve made a bit of a collage of images readily available on the internet that speak to silence. I’d like to talk a bit about silence in relationship, and in particular to estranged relationships. Some of us will have positive associations with silence, and some perhaps less positive associations. I’d like to start this set of posts by inviting you to have a look at the above images and consider your own experience with silence and relationship.

How do you feel about the silence in your relationships? Is silence a significant cause, as well as effect, of your estrangement? Can silence be used as punishment, power and control? Have you experienced this? Should we be expected to understand and make sense of other people’s silence? Should they be able to interpret ours?

What do you think?

PS/ if you click the image you should be able to see it a little larger/clearer