When Emotional Silence Becomes Violence

Key points

Children who grow up emotionally unseen may use aggression to feel acknowledged.

Research links poor emotion regulation in neglected children to later harm-doing.

Violent behavior can emerge not from rage, but from a long history of being ignored.

Emotional Silence Source: Fuente / Pexels

The first thing I noticed was how quiet he was.

Bryan didn’t fidget or lean. He sat in the chair like someone who no longer expected to be seen. His hands rested gently in his lap, his spine relaxed, his eyes cast toward a corner of the room where nothing moved. This wasn’t stillness for effect. It was the stillness of a body that learned not to flinch, even in childhood .

He was 31 years old. He had killed people for money.

We met in a prison in Medellín, Colombia, where the corrid