Editor’s note: At the request of readers, the Lovefraud member “Skylar” has contributed the following article.
When dealing with malignant narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths, borderlines, drama queens, stalkers and other emotional vampires, it’s commonly advised that no response is the best response to unwanted attention. This is often true and No Contact (the avoidance of all communication) should be used whenever possible.
There are some situations however, when No Contact is not feasible, as in when you share child custody with a psychopath. As another example, if you are being stalked by an ex, a restraining order can infuriate the unwanted suitor, and refusing to respond to him or her is seen as an insult. They might become convinced that they can MAKE you respond and in that way satiate their need for power over you.
Furthermore, many of us have tried to end a relationship with a psychopath several times, only to take them back, each time. They turned on the pity ploy and the charm, and because we didn’t understand that this is what a psychopath does, we fell for their promises to change. They know all of our emotional hooks. For them, it’s easy and fun to lure us back by appealing to our emotions. But a psychopath can’t change. In fact, when you leave a psychopath, he becomes determined to punish you even more severely for thinking you could be autonomous.
Even if we don’t take them back, the most dangerous time for a person is when they first break up with a psychopath. The psychopath feels rage at being discarded. Losing control or power over a person is not just a narcissistic injury for them; they feel profoundly empty when their partner leaves them even if they had intended to kill their partner. The reason is because they have lost control. Psychopaths need to feel in control at all times.
For all these situations, we have Gray Rock.
What it is:
So, how do we escape this parasitical leech without triggering his vindictive rage? Gray Rock is primarily a way of encouraging a psychopath, a stalker or other emotionally unbalanced person, to lose interest in you. It differs from No Contact in that you don’t overtly try to avoid contact with these emotional vampires. Instead, you allow contact but only give boring, monotonous responses so that the parasite must go elsewhere for his supply of drama. When contact with you is consistently unsatisfying for the psychopath, his mind is re-trained to expect boredom rather than drama. Psychopaths are addicted to drama and they can’t stand to be bored. With time, he will find a new person to provide drama and he will find himself drawn to you less and less often. Eventually, they just slither away to greener pastures. Gray Rock is a way of training the psychopath to view you as an unsatisfying pursuit you bore him and he can’t stand boredom.
What it’s for:
Making a psychopath go away of his own volition is one application of Gray Rock. One might say that Gray Rock is a way of breaking up with a psychopath by using the old, “It’s not you, it’s me.” excuse, except that you act it out instead of saying it and the psychopath comes to that conclusion on his own.
Another reason to use Gray Rock is to avoid becoming a target in the first place. If you find yourself in the company of one or more narcissistic personalities perhaps you work with them or they are members of your family it’s important to avoid triggering their ENVY. By using Gray Rock, you fade into the background. It’s possible they won’t even remember having met you. If you have already inadvertently attracted their attention and they have already begun to focus in on you, you can still use Gray Rock. Tell them you are boring. Describe a boring life. Talk about the most mundane household chores you accomplished that day in detail. Some people are naturally lacking in dramatic flair. Find those people and try to hang around them when the psychopath is nearby.
If you must continue a relationship with a psychopath, Gray Rock can serve you as well. Parents sharing joint custody with a psychopathic ex-spouse can use Gray Rock when the ex-spouse tries to trigger their emotions. I acknowledge that any threat to the well-being of our children is overwhelmingly anxiety provoking. Here is where Gray Rock can be applied selectively to draw attention away from what really matters to you. In general, show no emotion to the offending behaviors or words. The psychopath will try different tactics to see which ones get a reaction. With Selective Gray Rock, you choose to respond to the tactic which matters least to you. This will focus the psychopath’s attention on that issue. Remember, the psychopath has no values, so he doesn’t understand what is valuable to us unless we show him. Selective Gray Rock shows him a decoy. When protecting our children, we can take a lesson from nature: Bird parents who have fledglings are known to feign a broken wing when a predator is in the vicinity. They fake a vulnerability to detract the cat’s attention from their real vulnerability, their babies. In this example, Selective Gray Rock fades all emotions into the background except the ones you want the predator to see.
Why it works:
A psychopath is easily bored. He or she needs constant stimulation to ward off boredom. It isn’t the type of boredom that normal people experience; it’s more like the French word, ennui, which refers to an oppressive boredom or listlessness. Drama is a psychopath’s remedy for boredom. For drama, they need an audience and some players. Once the drama begins, they feel complete and alive again. They are empowered when pulling the strings that elicit our emotions. Any kind of emotions will do, as long as it is a response to their actions.
A psychopath is an addict. He is addicted to power. His power is acquired by gaining access to our emotions. He is keenly aware of this and needs to constantly test to make sure we are still under his control. He needs to know that we are still eager to do his bidding, make him happy and avoid his wrath. He needs to create drama so he can experience the power of manipulating our emotions. As with any addiction, it is exhilarating to the psychopath when he gets his supply of emotional responses. The more times he experiences a reward for his dramatic behavior, the more addicted he becomes. Conversely, when the reward stops coming, he becomes agitated. He experiences oppressive boredom and he will counter it by creating more drama. If we stay the course and show no emotions, the psychopath will eventually decide that his toy is broken. It doesn’t squirt emotions when he squeezes it anymore! Most likely, he will slither away to find a new toy.
The Gray Rock technique does come with a caveat: psychopaths are dangerous people, if you are in a relationship with one that has already decided to kill you, it will be difficult to change his mind. He may already be poisoning you or sabotaging your vehicle. Take all necessary precautions. In this case, Gray Rock can only hope to buy time until you can make your escape.
How it works:
Psychopaths are attracted to shiny, pretty things that move fast and to bright lights. These things, signal excitement and relieve the psychopath’s ever-present ennui. Your emotional responses are his food of choice, but they aren’t the only things he wants.
He envies everything pretty, shiny and sparkly that you have and he wants whatever you value. You must hide anything that he will notice and envy. If you happen to be very good looking, you need to change that during this time. Use makeup to add bags under your eyes. If you aren’t married to the psychopath, any money or assets he covets should disappear “in a bad investment decision” (consult with your attorney on this). Your shiny sports car has to go, get a beater. If you have a sparkling reputation, anticipate that he will or has already begun to slander you; therefore, don’t allow yourself to be put into any compromising position or pushed into erratic behavior. The reason he wants to take these things from you, is not necessarily because he wants them for himself, it’s because he wants to see the emotions on your face when you lose them. He wants the power trip associated with being the one who took them from you. By preemptively removing these things from his vision and not reacting with emotion at the losses, you continue to train him with the idea that you are the most boring person on earth, someone he would never want to be.
Origin of Gray Rock:
In 2009, I left my psychopathic partner after 25 years, but I didn’t understand what was wrong with him. I sat in a sushi bar, lost in confusion, when a tall, athletic man introduced himself. To my own surprise, I instinctively poured out my story to him. This complete stranger listened to my story and then he explained to me that I was dealing with a malignant narcissist. He advised me, “Be boring.” He told me that his girlfriend would come home each night, begin drinking and become abusive. They were both professionals who traveled in the same professional circles. He knew that she would stalk him if he broke up with her and he didn’t want to risk the slander and drama which could leak out and damage his professional reputation.
His solution was to be so boring that she would simply leave him. He declined to go out on evenings and weekends. He showed no emotional reaction about anything, no interest in anything and responded with no drama. When she asked if he wanted to go out for dinner, his reply was, “I don’t know.” After a few months of no drama, she simply moved out.
Why is it called Gray Rock?
I chose the words Gray Rock because I needed an object for us to channel when we are in an emotionally charged situation. You don’t just practice Gray Rock, you BECOME a Gray Rock. There are gray rocks and pebbles everywhere you go, but you never notice them. None of them attract your attention. You don’t remember any specific rock you saw today because they blend with the scenery. That is the type of boring that you want to channel when you are dealing with a psychopath. Your boring persona will camouflage you and the psychopath won’t even notice you were there. The stranger in the sushi bar showed great insight when he advised me to “be boring.” He struck at the heart of the psychopath’s motivation: to avoid boredom.
In nature, there are many plants and creatures that show us how to survive in a world of predators. Among others, birds feign injury to protect their babies and mice play dead until the cat loses interest. Both of these tactics can be useful and they can be channeled when applicable. Yet, it’s difficult to calculate each and every move that a psychopath will make and to determine the best course of action each time. Instead of trying to out-think him, channel the gray rock. This simple, humble object in nature has all the wisdom it needs to avoid being noticed, it’s boring.
Copyright © 2012 Skylar
I’ve always told Jr that he can have a relationship with whomever he wishes……but if it involves spath dad or my parents……make NO mention of ME and don’t include me in the relationship.
Jr wants nothing to do with spathdad. Nothing has changed there.
Jr is vulnerable and not emotionally mature enough to handle a ‘sting’ with the cops.
The convo on Mondaywith spath and what resulted in his emotions showed this. It spun him afterwards.
Jr is a legal adult….he can go about it however he wishes……but I’m tired of picking up shards of fragmented glass from his emotions due to his spath father and what comes along with it all.
I know everything happens for a reason…..and I know it will all turn out the way it should……but its’ got me thinking I need to steer it in a safer direction.
I have the weekend off…..and don’t go back to work until Wed. so i’ve got some time to think on it.
I’d like to have another convo with the detective and see if I can get anything more out of him…..
If they can get him on their own, with just fed info……I’d be willing to spoon feed. I’m just not comfortable with Jr playing with this at all!
Speaking of gray rock, you know who is Realllllly boring? My spath x! husband! When he wasn’t in is Charm persona, he was boring.
He had nothing to add to a conversation, had no interest in pursuing an intellectual curiousity, had no opinion, wasn’t interested in music, could not pick a beat from a song to save his soul, art meant nothing to him, food from a can was the same to him as a meal that took 5 hrs to cook.
Guess he grey rocked ME! Only dummy wife that I was, thought it was just one of those phases in a marriage and I needed to work through it. (grumble grumble. Lordy but I was dumb…. I tolerated a lot of carp b/c I was too dumb to know that I was being mindfarked.)
Hens, there are some lovely colors of gray. I like dove gray. And silver gray. Misty grey. A rich dark grey. And you can be the accent! Oh snap! Yeah, like you have a lack of personality. As if anyone here thinks that! The way Yer write is why a bunch of old women LOVE you buddy. Ya Can’t hide sassy class.
Katydid’s,
You just described my X, boring as a mud fence unless it was all about him, if thing’s got to boring he just created some drama to break his boredom. I alway’s put my need’s last so I could keep him intertained like a juggler. Yap, a peanut butter sandwich and a rootbeer was his food of choice.. I cant count the meal’s I fixed, the steak’s i grilled that were consumed with the same excitement as a pop tart. He never took the time to watch the sunset or be philosophical about anything and would just roll his eyes and change the subject to the basketball game’s, his highschool played, the town’s they went to, the score’s, the guy’s name’s, mind ya this was 30 years ago, but I would listen with interest just to keep him satisfied..
Katydid thank you for just being you….
I liked the boring side of my exspath. It was easy to deal with. He sat in front of the TV.
One day, I said to him, “I get tired when I have to interact with most people. They wear me out. You’re different though. I don’t get tired when you are around, it’s almost like—- you’re………not………there.”
whoops.
I was talking in my stream of thought. the way I always do. I start talking before I actually know what I’m going to say or where I’ll end up. The truth comes out when you talk that way. The truth, was, that there was nothing there at all. He was nothing when he wasn’t putting on an act.
@skylar, “He was nothing when he wasn’t putting on an act.”
DITTO.
Sky, it was one of the most realistic portrayals I’ve seen so far. While “There Will Be Blood” is a superb portrayal of what is behind a mask – a cold, calculated mysantrope and a narcistic envious rival – Doubt portrays the mask itself with only one person seeing through it. I found it an empowering movie for people who have ‘spath experience’. The red flags are all over the place, if you know what to look for, but never is there any evidence, while the spathinator stands by what her gut is telling her, notes the red flags and dances around each of his traps in an uncompromising non-dramatic manner, and remains true to her values. I loved her answer when both the teacher and the spath priest asked her on their own turn what she has to be so convinced: “Experience.”
I’m starting to find out how my own experience is starting to help me too. The school where I was a part-time teacher for 9 years now has gotten a new principal three years ago, after the previous one went on retirement. She’s a woman who used divide and conquer tactics, but also is very strict. She can be harsh and demanding, and extremely blunt. And if she distrusts you, you’re in deep shit trouble. The period she gained power coincides with my relationship with the spath. Administration and such was never my forte, and in the spath period I sometimes overslept, was ill sometimes. So, she rather wanted to get rid of me, and in a confrontation with pupils she would tend to distrust me over them. She once told me outright she thought I had problems and needed to see a therapist. My hours there dwindled to just the 2 I have there. I just could never afford to let them go. I really feared she would try to nail me last year when she came to witness a lesson of mine. That’s where things very slowly started to turn. She taught I.T. herself before she was a principal at another school, and she admitted that what I was teaching the pupils was something she had not known herself. She gave me a positive review. It’s the reason why I still have those 2 hours. Plus, under my coaching one of my pupils made a superb PR poster for his exam last year, which will go into print next week. This schoolyear I committed myself to be more organized, always presentable (including make-up), always on time, be on every meeting I’m supposed to be, I complain to nobody about anything, and I walk through the halls with a genuine smile and a happier self (something that was missing the previous 3 years). She knows I’m studying again, and learned that I had no real alternative school this year, except for an interim once in a while. An example of her bluntness would be last month when she asked me how my exams have been, and I had to tell her that I would have to redo some of the subjects (I know I can pass the second-trial exams though… just needed the first exam experience to learn what they expect precisely). She then jokingly said to the clerk: “I would never want to start studying again. It’s NUTS!”
Anyway, this week I was in the clerk’s office to get a paper I need to prove to social security I’m working part-time, to get a supportive unempoyment extra, and she was confronted with needing to find an interim teacher for a ful time math position for at least the next 6 weeks. When she saw me standing there, she aked me whether I had any other job at the moment, what I was supposed to do for the studies at this moment, and whether I could do the interim. So, I’m working again since Wednesday, at least until Easter. And Thursday she asked me whether I can go on the field trip to Triers for three days in a fortnight. She told me she wants me to give her my program for next year for my studies, and promises to find hours for me for next schoolyear. She also told me: I’m very pleased with you, you are always on time and doing what you are supposed to do.
This did not come totally unexpected, because a colleague of mine tipped me off couple of weeks ago, that the principal had told her she feels she was wrong about me and regrets not knowing at the start of the schoolyear that I was in such empoyment shit.
Now, I’m not trusting the principal totally though: as in, I’m not relying on her. She’s not spathic, but she does have her own agenda (creating a camp of supporters) and has shown herself to be opinionated, and unwilling to consider she might be wrong until often it’s too late (the one she hired to push me aside in hours, she’s now disappointed in, etc). She’s straightforward when she trusts and distrusts, but she has bet on the wrong horse a couple of times. Her weakness is that she can be fooled by masks.
The one I have come to distrust is the colleague who tipped me off, who is in the top drawer of the principal. She knows my spath history, and her own ex-husband was a spath who left her out of the blue after 20 years of marriage. She has never done anything against me, acted the supportive confidant in the past, but I know she is also destroying another colleague’s career without mercy, a coleague she supposedly sided with, supported and pitied 2 years ago. She arguments righteousness and correctness, but plays it really dirty, using the pupils, twisting things, forcing issues in public, without having a private colleague convo with the other colleague, etc… If she was truly someone who would want to do right, she’d try to settle some of the differences in a private manner before making them public, and would at least do background checks on some of the claims by pupils. I’m even starting to question her assertions of what the pupils claim. I’m starting to suspect she’s twisting their versions as well.
Just yesterday another colleague warned me: “I know you’ve been hired and having a good wind, but don’t trust or rely on some of these people.” She didn’t mean the principal, but the colleague who’s playing things dirty. I smiled at her and said, “I know. I have been in a relationship with someone who wore a mask for 2 years, and I believe and see it now when someone is being two-faced.” Anyway, the past few contacts I had with the colleague, I have felt slimed more and more each time.
Totally agree with the “he was boring when not up to his tricks”! When he wasn’t trying to charm someone or gauding someone (preferably me) into a confrontation he was BORING. He’d watch some really dumb comedy movie (level dumb and dumber), sleep, or listen to reggae. Then eventually he’d start picking on me for not ‘having an opinion’ or not sharing ‘my movies/music/thoguhts”. After a few months I had already stopped sharing my tastes: he never liked my movie choices and would fall asleep, would disparage me for preferring hard rock, change my car radio station, interrupt me or not appear interested when I was telling something about myself. In order not to have silly discussions about my preferences, nor his, I just let him do his thing, and watched/listened/read whatever I wished to when he wasn’t around.
One more thought on the gray rock.
Spath daughter has visitation with Grand. It is usually here at our house. Before she comes, I put important papers, credit cards and statements, etc. in a couple of boxes and put them in the trunk of my car. I also clean out the medicine cabinet and put all medications in another box in the trunk. I do this because she snoops through all my papers and has attempted to “steal” my identity several times. She searches for drugs everytime she is here. In other words, I put up all material things that I do not want her to get her hands on.
If I go to all that trouble for material things, why not do the same with my “emotional valuables”. Part of the gray rock is to HIDE everything that is emotionally valuable to you – ie. everything that you love or that matters. I have now started to give her crumbs of “fake” things in my life that I pretend to love or care about. I have also, slowly, changed the way I talk about Grand. Ofcourse she knows I love him and trying to hide that would be impossible, but I can act/pretend that caring for him in my golden years is a huge burden. I can say things like I wish I had someone to watch him while I took a break.
This has worked, she has STOPPED asking to have him at her home for long visits, and her visits have actually become less and less frequent since I started this. AMAZING
LOL, Milo… superb!
I’ve been thinking about this colleague of mine who’s been sliming me, thinking she’s making me into a supporter and backstabbing another colleague. She’ll be my grey rock test subject. Not sure whether she’s a spath, but she’s at least high in machiavelistic traits, and focusing and using form over content.
Milo,
“emotional valuables” is a good way to phrase what the spaths want. It gives me the creeps just thinking about the way they feed on us. ick.
Has she called to see how you and Grand are doing since the school shooting? When she does, be prepared for her to try to “mine” your emotions. I can’t imagine that she would be able to resist that emotional mother lode.