I have heard a lot of people give advice about how the best way to get rid of a psychopath is to show him/her a “grey rock” of emotions. While I understand that this means that I cannot let the psychopath see any emotion beyond that of an emotionless grey rock, putting this theory into practice has proved to be one of the hardest things to do. I still believe I will have my moments, but it took an extreme situation for me to tap into what I needed to understand in order to achieve my own version of “grey rock”.
The “Extreme Situation”:
Baby boy had another rough 72 hours which landed him two more hospital visits. We started out in the hospital a few days ago after he spiked another fever, had another seizure, and this time turned blue in the process.
There has been nothing in my life more terrifying than seeing my son not able to breath and appear as if he is dying. I had to simply hold him and wait for an ambulance as there was nothing medically I could do to help him. While I felt like panicking along with my poor little boy (and I initially did), that moment allowed me to dig deep and become the rock that my son needed. I found the strength to calmly give the paramedics information and speak to the doctors in actual sentences that appeared to make sense. I didn’t realize how strong I had become during this year of “Luc terror” until the doctor applauded me for being able to remain so calm during such a terrible experience. I thought to myself, ”˜this woman doesn’t know what Mama has been through’.
Practicing “Grey Rock”:
Luc was supposed to have a visit the day after this medical emergency began; however, given the state baby boy was in it was only reasonable to cancel the visit. There was no way I was putting a child who had a fever of 105 in a car with Luc (whom he still barely knows) to drive three hours round trip just so that Luc could play dad for the day. While Luc was busy throwing a fit with the supervisor via text message (requesting proof that baby boy was actually sick and insisting on a makeup visit), it occurred to me that I may have finally gotten to a point where I realize the insignificance of Luc.
This weekend I think I finally achieved “grey rock” with Luc. When the supervisor texted me for reports and told me, “don’t be surprised if he insists on a makeup visit”, I simply said, “my number one concern is baby boy and NOT Luc’s visitation schedule. You can tell him that I will provide him with the necessary documentation of baby boy’s medical situation to document my reasons for canceling the visit.” I wasn’t upset about his antics because there was no point. I had more important things to be concerned with other than how Luc was feeling and his threats.
Lawyers: A Necessary Evil (and an occasional reality check)
On the morning after baby boy’s hospital visit, I had the first civil conversation I have had with my attorneys in months. I called them about a conversation that I had with the supervisor the day before. The supervisor was insisting that I send the emergency plan I had created (in the event my son has another medical emergency while with Luc) to Luc’s attorneys. My attorney had been resisting any sort of communication with Luc’s attorney and insisting the supervisor be the one to pass the paperwork. While Luc insisted that he still obtained legal representation, my lawyers weren’t buying it.
After several days of this ridiculous back and forth, I finally got a straight answer out of my attorney. He said, “whatever comes out of Luc’s mouth…consider it just words. I don’t believe his ‘old’ attorney wants anything because if she does, she knows my number and can call me for it. Luc is full of crap.” He doesn’t believe Luc has an attorney anymore (attorneys tend to stop representing you when you won’t pay them). While my attorney still assured me that they had my back (which I had started to question), they told me to do my best to ignore Luc’s idle threats and just move forward with my life.
It has been a roller coaster of emotions with my legal team as sometimes I wonder whether or not they are more concerned about their reputation and bank account than doing what is right. That being said, the attorney I spoke with re the above conversation helped me to further put things in perspective. He helped me to realize that I was putting way to much stress and weight on the words coming out of Luc’s mouth. I had been allowing Luc to get the best of me when, really, he is insignificant. I am not sure what keeps making me think that Luc is capable of telling the truth, but my lawyers were right – Luc isn’t going to start being honest now.
Finding My Definition of “Grey Rock”:
Even during a very stressful weekend dealing with a sick child, Luc was trying to terrorize me via our court ordered third party (the supervised exchanged professional). My attorney served an important purpose in reminding me that I am baby boys legal custodian and that no matter how much Luc tries to throw a toddler- style fit about that, he can’t force the court to see him as the healthy and fit parent. He cannot change the fact that I will always be “mama” to my baby boy.
This weekend was terrible. I was awake for about three days straight watching baby boy sleep, constantly taking his temperature, and administering medication in order to try and prevent another Febrile seizure. During the hours spent awake watching baby boy, I had a lot of time to think about our little “family situation”. One of the conclusions that I came to is how much I am able to control my sons environment. I will be the parent he turns to when he is sick and needs protection. He will be able to rely on me through the good times and the bad ones. Nobody will ever be able to take away the bond me and my son have with each other.
It was through both the turmoil and the reality check from my attorneys that I came to my two part definition of what “Grey Rock” means to me:
- Emotionless Grey Rock: This refers to the act of giving the psychopath no emotions to feed off of. This is like torture to a psychopath. They hate it when they don’t feel relevant and they will be tortured when they realize they can no longer create chaos in their life of their victim. No matter how much of a fit I might be throwing inside, I need to channel this emotionless grey rock when it comes to Luc (and by proxy the drama fueler supervisor for the exchanges).
- The Mama Grey Rock of Strength: This refers to a mother’s ability to be the rock of reason, stability, and love for her child. I cannot help that my son’s father is disordered – that he is a psychopath. I can, however, be the strong supportive rock that my son needs. I will not allow Luc to take that from me with his attempts to drive me insane.
Just Another Disordered Encounter – “Insignificance of the Psychopath”:
Finally, baby boy will likely encounter many people during his life who are disordered. His father, unfortunately, will be one of them. This weekend I was able to see our custody situation for what it is. Baby boy’s father is a visitor. There will be times when baby boy is sick and when these visits will not occur. Luc will continue to throw fits and threaten to take me back to court. He will continue doing anything his evil (and feeble) mind can think of to terrorize me and attempt to exert control over both me and baby boy.
Despite having had several moments over the past year when I have wondered if I am going crazy (because of Luc’s reign of terror), I consider myself relatively psychologically healthy. During my life, Luc hasn’t been the first person on the spectrum of Psychopathy (though possibly the only full blown psychopath) that I have run into. Now that I understand more about the disorder, I can identify many people from previous bosses, ex- boyfriends, and even family members who have many characteristics on the psychopathy spectrum. I would love to be able to shelter baby boy from these people and all of their negative influences, but I realize that is not our reality. The best I can do is to not allow the terror to negatively impact my relationship with my son.
Living with Luc was like living in hell. I thank God every day that I was able to leave that man before he killed me. I am also thankful that my son will never have to see me put up with abuse at the hands of Luc. He may not understand why I left his father for some time, however, when he does understand my guess is that he will respect me more for making the decision to leave. I also have hope that he will see me as his “Mama Grey Rock of Strength” who protected him, loved him, and helped him become an emotionally healthy man.
Hello everyone. Hope everyone is doing well. It’s been a month since my ex wrote me and I have not heard from him since which is a good thing. But lately I’ve been finding myself thinking about our relationship and what the heck even happened. I feel like I’ve been on a merry go round spinning and spinning and now now I’ve been pushed off left with the feeling of wtf happened? Don’t get me wrong I am so happy to have this lunatic out of my life because he was toxic. I’ve realized although it hurts that he never did love me, nothing was genuine and that I was a target. A girl he thought he could manipulate and control. Once he saw he couldn’t, he broke up with me.. And then told me I was hurting him by not getting back together with him. He wrote me the nastiest most vicious email attacking my character which his words couldn’t be more fake. It was in that email that I realized he was truly crazy, not in touch with
Reality.
But I was wondering what others healing and recovery process was like? It’s so easy to rationalize that ok they’re crazy move on.. There’s no
Reason to be sad and grieve the loss like a breakup from a normal relationship. I get mad at myself for feeling sad or missing what I thought was real because I then feel like a bigger fool. My heart and brain are at odds. Is it normal to feel this way? I want nothing more than to just forget he ever existed. I can’t wait to get to that place. When I can’t solve something or a particular situation it drives me crazy but this time I have to make peace with the fact I will never get the I’m sorry he owes me because he most likely thinks Im the crazy one who did this. I know in my heart my satisfaction will come when Im with someone knew and happy while my ex is still spiraling out of control. I will never ever ever get back with him, but the thought of our relationship the fake happy times, our connection or what I thought was. How can it be forgotten and rationalized in our minds that it wasn’t real? Thanks
Hi lov10,
It sounds like you are going through a rough phase of cognitive dissonance. When reality does not fit our beliefs, this is literally very painful to the mind and brain. Neither our mind, nor our brain likes to be in that dissonance, so it starts to seek ways to feel in harmony again by rejecting reality so it would fit the beliefs again. But this equals to self-deception. While self deception may be rather harmless when it comes to buying a cellphone with bells and whistles you don’t even know how to use and don’t need… It is harmful when it comes to the spath in your life.
So you will have to live through this cognitive dissonance, and alter your beliefs (which takes time) to create harmony in the brain again. It takes time and actual confrontation effort to accomplish this: triggers, reading, exchanging experiences, … so read and post here a lot for the time being.
You say: “It’s so easy to rationalize that ok they’re crazy move on.. There’s no Reason to be sad and grieve the loss like a breakup from a normal relationship.”
It’s not easy at all, and nobody here will ever claim that. Also, there’s EVERY reason to be sad and grieve loss, MORE even im than a regular breakup.
This is not about recovering from a break-up though. You are correct in that. It is about recovering from the RELATIONSHIT, of every lie, hurt, damage he ever did to you, even when you weren’t aware of it at the time. You have every reason to be sad and to grieve over the loss of the fantasy, of the loss of the beliefs you had about humanity and the person you thought the spath was.
You also say: “I know in my heart my satisfaction will come when Im with someone knew and happy while my ex is still spiraling out of control.”
Your recovery does not depend on finding someone else to fill you with happiness. The victory and recovery lies in becoming a happy person, period. And you don’t need ANYONE ELSE to be happy, just YOURSELF.
Of course that doesn’t mean that a relationship cannot be a source of happiness in the future for yourself, but I caution against it now for several reasons. As long as your happiness depends solely on that, you are setting yourself up to become the victim of another toxic person. You still need to go through a long path of healing before you are able to find and be in an actual healthy relationship. It is not advizable to even look for a new partner for at least a year. Two years is common even.
Healing is not a contest of who heals the fastest and moves on, but the deepest. The latter is a long process, but with a result that other people cannot take away from you anymore: it creates belief, faith and love in yourself.
Recovery through the grieving process comes when you are ready to FORGIVE YOURSELF for your ‘naivity’ about the spath and beliefs ( ‘there’s good in everybody’) of humanity. In order to forgive yourself, you will have to face every decision about him in the past that makes you feel ashamed about yourself right now. It takes facing that shame and self-blame, and checking it against reality too: how smart spaths work, how they use your qualities against you, and how succesful they are, what your vulnerabilities are (what you depend on for others in order to believe yourself a worthy person). Again reading and posting can help tremendously to get to that forgivance point.
Lov10, congratulations on No Contact!!!!!!!!!!
Darwinsmom is 100% spot-on. There is no timetable for recovery and I went through the same thing: cog/diss.
EVEN after all of the betrayals were exposed, I found myself asking, “Was it really THAT bad?” Uh…..yeah…..it was. I had never been sicker in my lifetime than I was with the second exspath, and I never knew why this was true.
So, yes…..read, post, and contemplate. I also recommend the book, “Healing The Shame That Binds You,” by Bradshaw. It’s generally directed towards addictions, but spath entanglements are “addicitons,” of sorts. The information with regard to “shame” and “guilt” will be eye-opening, for certain sure.
You’ll get through this dark patch. You will.
Brightest blessings
Hi, lov10.
I am the ‘guy’ variant of what you are going through.
I think that darwinsmom and Truthspeak are right-on.
Finding this blog has been a big part of getting my thoughts and feelings out, sharing experiences and, a source of support.
I am not looking to get into a new serious relationship – because as darwinsmom says, it does take time. But, I have had many friendly chats and have met some new people and rekindled old friendships – including with women. It still does not make the long hours of reflection and pain much easier. But it is a hopeful sign. It doesn’t help that it is winter here, now. It does help to get out in the sunshine (About ZERO (F) here today!). It does help to get excercise, and as behind blue eyes has written, it helps to get some light therapy.
Through this process I have felt humiliated, betrayed, weak and worthless. So much of what I shared with the sociopath was used against me in the end.
I would not expect your ex-bf or my ex-gf or any of those disordered individuals to ‘spiral out of control’ following their wrecking campaigns against us. Because, I have learned that it is characteristic of such sociopaths to not miss a beat – to go right on to the next victim.
Yes, it is difficult everyday when you look back on the ‘relationship’ and open your eyes and recognize the lies, deceit, hypocrisy, abuse, gaslighting and manipulation.
As in my case, this abusive treatment was mixed with instances of kindness and generosity. But it didn’t add up. Thus the cognitive dissonance and the sense that we are off-balance, not knowing what to expect on any given day or at any given moment. Now, so often, I wonder ‘Was it real?’ I ask myself that question 20 times a day. I WANT to believe that it was real. My whole life and my whole concept of relationships and love and romance hinge upon this question and this realtionship experience. I wish that I had some proof that it was real – for her. In my heart I know that it was real – for me. But what did I base this upon?
The ‘discard process’ that I was hit with is apparently so typical for a sociopath to use shows what was ‘real’ – for her. Nothing. Except the deception and abuse and manipulations- all of the elements of a sociopaths ‘campaign.’ In otgher words, her ‘discard process’ essentially wiped out and erased and voided everything because it showed her True Colors.
But, rest assured that one thing that you will discover is that you have the ability to love and care for another person. It was the disordered partner that does not.
I just had a thought: The Moon is a cold, dark, grey, lifeless rock – it only ‘shines’ because of the Sun’s brilliance being reflected off of it. Perhaps in a similar way, our ex’s appeared so ‘light’ because they were mirroring our love and affection and souls.
Fixerupper…….holy cow. I mean, HOLY COW!!!!
Read your post, above, and then go back and read some of your posts from a month ago. DO it. And, see how far you have come.
TOWANDA!!!! My, but so much strength and healing is being witnessed to me, lately! SO many LF readers are actually TYPING STRONG and healthy recovery!!! I am honestly feeling that I’m going to be okay, too.
Seriously – thank you for your response to Lov10. It resonates with me, as well.
Brightest blessings
Hey fixerupper, I love that analogy …..perhaps that’s why “grey rock” works!!
lov10, you are right. We try to rationalise what wasn’t real. However, the feelings we had were real and that takes some getting over. Give yourself time…..stay NC. You will get over him.
Another TOWANDA from me, fixerupper! You sound so much stronger and empowered now!
Yeah, when we go gray rock, we are reflecting gray rock back at gray rock. What they want is the blazing light that glows inside us….the spirit, the humanity, and when we shine on them, they feel warm and beautiful….they think it’s coming from them, but it’s nothing but our own light boincing off a cold gray rock.
Kim,
awesome analogy! The gray lifeless moon looks beautiful when it reflects the sun’s passionate energy. We are the sun and those dead rocks want to orbit around us, but they envy our life giving rays.
So we should just not give them any. Block them with a planet that appreciates our warmth.
Let’s coin a new phrase: The total eclipse of a spath. 🙂