A: Hey, it seems as though there might be a problem arising between us over here…
B: Oh, really? You’ve got a fucking problem with me, do you?! Well fuck you. I’ll show you a problem. Take THIS!
Here, an attempt at conflict resolution is met with conflict escalation.
Variation on the Toxic Reflex
(typically used when the above version has ultimately failed to deflect attempts to resolve or prevent conflicts):
A: Hey, it seems as though there might be a problem arising between us over here…
B: You’re insufferable. I’m done.
*B disappears, completely stonewalls and ignores A, and generally treats A with indifference and contempt.*
Here, one of two things is happening. B might be using ostracism and the silent treatment—together with the associated credible threat of the relationship’s destruction—to punish A and to instrumentally condition her behaviour. The rationale (whether explicitly or implicitly) is to manipulate A so that she will no longer attempt to resolve or prevent conflicts with B. In this case, B is merely stonewalling A. His behaviour is a form of coercive control.
Alternatively, B might have had enough of A’s attempts to resolve or prevent conflicts between her and B. I.e. on some level, B might have decided that A’s prosocial efforts will never stop, or that deflecting these efforts will end up being prohibitively costly. Accordingly, B will have severed all ties with A. He will have discarded her as though she is a disposable object.
Both of these possibilities involve the objectification and abuse of A; and both could well be hurtful and damaging for her. However, the cost to A will be compounded if B is presently discarding her but has stonewalled her in the past. Unfortunately, this is quite likely to be the case, since the high trait narcissism that lends itself to discarding also lends itself to stonewalling, the silent treatment, deflection, blame-shifting, and so on. If so, then there might be no way for A to know that B has just discarded her. B’s present behaviour might look exactly the same as all of his past incidents of stonewalling.
This is just one of the many ways in which emotional abuse can toxify and damage its targets through the mechanism of intermittent reinforcement. B’s past incidents of stonewalling will have intermittently reinforced A’s expectation that B will return, and that B is not really committed to the apparent finality of his claims (that he is done with A, that A is insufferable, and so on). Thoughts and behaviours that are intermittently reinforced will persist over time even in the absence of reinforcement (see: intrusive thoughts, obsessive rumination, etc.). They are even resistant to punishment. They are also, in the case of intermittently reinforced thoughts, resistant to apparently contrary evidence.
The fact that the relevant conflicts between A and B have remained unresolved (because of B’s toxic reflexes), as well as the fact that B has withheld closure and sincere communication from A, would already have prevented A from healing and moving on from her relationship with B in a normal, healthy way. However, A’s paralysis and fixation will only be exacerbated if her expectation that B will return has been intermittently reinforced by past incidents of stonewalling. In this case, B’s discarding of A (which A is unable to immediately recognise as such) is bound to keep her stuck in anxiety, uncertainty, and the pain of ostracism and betrayal, with no ready means of escape.
