I've noticed that when living with other people (roommates), I easily get stressed to the point of panic and mortification, if there's a tense silence in the air, and nobody is talking to me or reacting positively to my attempts to communicate. This very often is the situation, since I'm living with roommates I don't know well, and who do not have any incentive to be friendly, or are generally just not very polite people. It is normal and fine that we all stick to our own business and ignore each other. But it gets me stressed and I find myself feeling like I am despised by them, even if they don't do anything to me, or complain about me at all.
I'm generally feeling more relaxed with the rare roommates who are more social and accept my invitations to watch a movie, or go to a walk together, or just have a conversation; suddenly it's all okay and I can go on without second-guessing if something is extremely wrong. But this is rare and most of the time I can't count on it.
I believe that this is happening because of the past 'shunning' or 'the silent treatment' abuse tactic, I believe the two are very similar. Shunning is generally something that happens within a cult; when a certain member is 'disobedient', which means, they question something, complain about something, try to do something against the rules (which is in reality a completely normal thing to do), or just find themselves at the wrong side of the leaders, they'll be shut out from any and all communications. Other members will not be allowed to look at them, talk to them, help them, they'll sometimes be forced to preform some humiliating activity or be isolated and locked up until they've managed to 'redeem themselves' (whenever the leaders decide it's been enough and the shunned member is unlikely to 'misbehave' again). The function of this is to not only stop the victimized member from being allowed to think and act freely, but also to scare everyone else who starts thinking into the 'forbidden direction', they will not dare to voice it seeing someone being punished so harshly for that same behaviour. The victim will feel completely alone against the world, despised, and eventually they'll be forced to say that they're in the wrong, even if their original 'crime' was something completely normal, logical and human.
I believe that the 'silent treatment' is almost the same thing, only it's happening in more intimate setting, within the victim and the abuser directly. It usually happens after the abuser does an act of abuse, or the victim does something that is perfectly okay and normal but the abuser wants them to not be able to do that, that's when they start the 'silent treatment', to convince the victim they're in the wrong, they're responsible for whatever just went down, and they now need to suffer the consequences, which is the abuser withholding any attention, affection, familiarity or communication from them. It usually happens after the victim has already been isolated from everyone else they could rely on, so it means the victim is effectively cut off from the world. The victim will usually be stuck in this isolation, rejection and neglect until the abuser decides they want or need something, or until they apologize, accept blame, and promise to be 'obedient' to the abuser. It's a slow method of brainwashing, convincing someone they deserve a painful punishment for doing nomal things, that the abuser doesn't like, or just to convince them to take responsibility for the abuse that the abuser did out of their own volition.
And my parents did that a lot. I would often be subjected to assault, I never knew exactly why, only that my father was in a bad mood, and then all of the family members would not look at me, talk to me, give me food, they would be angry and glaring if I as much as went outside of my room. The message was clear; I was responsible for the abuse, I needed to feel guilty, ashamed, humbled, I needed to accept that the violence was deserved, that it was my fault. I needed to apologize, repent, and be aware that because I caused all this, I was disgusting and monstrous to my entire family to the extent they couldn't even look at me. It was a pretty insane farce to isolate and shun a child because the father is violent and assaults the child, and we all needed to pretend this is 100% child's fault, and father was in fact, forced to do it because the child is just, so bad (wow I feel so sorry for him, if only he could control his own actions, how sad that a child completely controls an adult in this fantasy).
(And the child is controlling the adult in the way that forces adult to assault the child, thats the exact thing children want from adults for sure. Not, I don't know, candy and freedom. For sure a child would use control to force assault.)
When this was going on, I did feel like every person in the world hates me, and like I was some sort of a monster who couldn't be looked at without disgust. I felt like every part of me was horrifying and ugly, and sometimes it messed with me so much, I felt like even the furniture in the house hated me. I would shut myself in my room and I felt like even the bed and the chair and the desk were hostile, angry, and wanted me to not exist anymore. There was no escape.
I didn't realize until now, but it's possible that every time my roommates are cold, ignoring me, rejecting my friendliness, I might be re-living that feeling of being shunned again. It's not like after living that life for so long, I can just be normal and okay with being ignored and treated with silence again. One of my roommates was leaving the other day, and since the stakes are no longer existent, I asked them if they hated me the entire time, because they sometimes wouldn't even greet me. They told me 'no, I was exhausted from having to socialize at work, by the time I got home I didn't have the energy to look at anyone'. Which was of some comfort, but not something I would assume. They basically had no complaints, but I felt like I was being despised most of the time. I hope I can eventually be normal about this. Suffering for no reason is not helpful. But I also don't know if any person as isolated as me would be bothered by being ignored and rejected, and not shown basic politeness, and my painful experience of it is maybe normal and not that odd. I just get to have extra pain because it's triggering.
