I'm Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

I just read a memoir I loved.

It's called A Silent Treatment by Jeannie Vanasco.

She writes about how her mother moves into the renovated basement apartment of her home

and then starts using the silent treatment not long after moving in.

The silences begin at any perceived slight. Her shortest period of silence lasts two weeks. Her longest

lasts six months. Giving someone the silent treatment or stonewalling

involves not speaking to someone or in some cases refusing to acknowledge their existence. The silent treatment can be a form of gaslighting,

where the Stonewaller makes the other person doubt their feelings and perceptions,

or even question if their needs for communication and connection are unreasonable.

In a family, the silent treatment can be a form of emotional abuse. For instance, a parent might ignore a child after a disagreement, using silence as a

means of punishment, to control the child or to get them to comply.

This can happen with spouses as well. Silence can be manipulative and punitive. It's passive, not aggressive, and it often occurs in private, in families or in

intimate relationships, so it can be hard to identify. Although it's not physically violent,

the silent treatment can be brutal, especially if it's prolonged.

If someone in your life has stonewalled you, you know what I mean.

Human beings crave connection, so it's especially painful when that connection is withheld.

Today's poem touched me and how it explores the intimacy of sound, and especially the human voice.

How, too, the silence between us can be so loud.

Given to Rust by Vivey Francis.

Every time I open my mouth, my teeth reveal more than I mean to. I can't stop tonguing them, my teeth reveal more than I mean to.

I can't stop tonguing them, my teeth.

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