What does it mean to go "gray rock"? (Glossary of Narcissistic Relationships)

hi everyone its dr. Romani and welcome back to this series that's sort of a kind of a handbook or a glossary of all the terms that are used out there when people talk about narcissism and narcissistic abuse this series is really meant to give you an opportunity to understand what these words mean so when you read them or hear about them you really know what they are as well as to reflect on these terms and see if any of these are useful techniques that might work in your life as well as things that may be happening to you so it's really my hope in this series to create a lot of clarity for anyone who may he may have confusion over any of these terms today we're going to take on the concept of gray rock this is a term many of you may know but let's talk about what we mean by gray rock so let's talk about gray rocks let's say you can't go no-contact okay and this is true in so many cases of narcissistic abuse for example let's say you have shared custody you have elderly parents you have a job that you can't afford to lose or don't children you may not just be ready to let go of and there's many other situations out there that mean that the sort of luxury of no contact can't be used we know no contact works it's part of the series but it doesn't always it's not always available to us gray rock is exactly what it sounds like now let's face it nothing could be more inert or dull than a gray rock we just don't notice gray rocks do we just keep moving on if one was on the road or a trail in front of us so as a result gray Rock optimally results in other people ignoring you just because you're so boring so when you're actually doing grey Rock what it involves is it involves engaging in a minimal response just having sort of flat emotion not really engaging not explaining yourself not defending yourself not arguing just not in essence you become boring and uninteresting and no longer a source of narcissistic supply so remember while narcissistic supply is typically admiration and validation it also means that you might be providing an argument with them like getting into a conflict with them and they love arguments and they love conflict and whatever you give them that might help them feel more like a victim is also believe it or not narcissistic supply so four years in your narcissistic relationship whether it was a partner or a family member or a friend or a boss you have done what normal people do in normal relationships you engage with them you ask questions of the other person you might cry a little bit and when someone questions you or seeks conflict with you you might even explain your point of view or defend your point of view these are all very normal things to do so when you do any of that with a narcissist you are gonna face a world of hurt you're gonna face gaslighting it's insulting intimidation cruelty and over time you're going to get confused that's the nature of a narcissistic relationship is confusion you try a bunch of different tactics nothing works some people end up sort of in a grey rock space in their narcissistic relationship by default because you just stopped trying but here's the rub when you stop trying from a place of helplessness or powerlessness yeah you do stop engaging or talking but that's not gray rock that's from a place of defeat you're worn down grey rock is powerful because it's intentional it's an intentional technique that comes from actually understanding how narcissism works it reflects a concerted effort by you to no longer play the narcissist game to no longer sit there and allow yourself to be invalidated to no longer provide them with narcissistic supply to no longer waste your time engaging with them simply to just end up being gaslighted and manipulate it again those gray rock work you better believe it because when you become uninterested and uninteresting when you become no longer a source of supply no longer a source of reward for them initially they get really mad really really mad now remember narcissists often view other people as conveniences or things that they need like a can opener or a corkscrew and if all of a sudden that can opener stopped working at first you would probably curse that in a few times like wow you know darn quick can opener blah blah blah and then you might even throw it in the trash the narcissist views you in a similar manner you aren't doing what they want anymore they're like ah they might curse at you and then throw you in the trash so initially when you start gray rocking the narcissists is going to get really angry and then they may even amp up their anger and their rage you are no longer feeding their need for arguments and drama and validation and admiration they may push harder they may bait you more they may say even more and more cruel things and even I don't know escalate their insults they want to get a rise out of you and this is going to continue for a while so you're really going to need to white-knuckle through this experience of going grey rock and not succumb and not get into the mud with them again you've got to be prepared for it so interestingly when you do start your grey rock one of the things a narcissist in an intimate relationship may actually suspect you say you are cheating on him or her and the reason for that is because they're actually going to notice that you're not engaging with them at this same level or not arguing with them in the same way or having the same kinds of emotional reactions you once had they also go right to their most insecure place and assume that you found someone else now of course they don't care enough to recognize that perhaps their behavior was problematic and so that you might have then gone ahead and decided to go find other healthy sources of support no no no no they don't take that kind of responsibility they may actually really believe you found someone else and also really start getting angry and defensive about your other relationships for example friendships you turn to or other sources of support and they will lash out at you for having a pleasant conversation with a friend for example on the phone and laughing and showing emotion while you're talking to that friend like that you're not doing that with them so ideally don't talk to your friends and other family members of people you care about in the presence of the narcissist but that isn't always possible so when your narcissistic partner starts attacking you about your other friendships go grey rock stay grey rock and slowly you have to train yourself to not care about the narcissist reactions so a common response when you start to gray rock a narcissist is that they start using a gaslighting technique where they start calling you up they start calling you for example they call you pompous or stuck-up and they may even trivialize you well I say oh don't you use that therapy speak with me assuming that perhaps you've distance yourself from them because of what you're learning in therapy even if you're not in therapy they're just going to assume someone has sort of taught you to switch off your game because they're losing their power now these narcisse's aren't completely stupid in fact they're often quite as clever as a fox and at some level they know that they're getting away with something when they treat you so badly and so dismissively but they would never admit to it they just kind of know they are getting away with something so their insults when you are going great rock will involve things like calling you up for acting like you're too good for everyone especially if you're using gray rock in a family setting and even the healthy members of the family may take offense at your use of gray rock and call you up for it why is that because it's a very powerful technique way you do gray rock you flash a really harsh lens on the dysfunctional family system and as a result especially if you're the scapegoat and you are having to take all the abuse now they may be getting it because you're gray Rock so this can also play into feelings of guilt that many people feel in narcissistic relationships you're gonna see the narcissist in your life wriggling uncomfortably and because you have spent so many years caving in to them and enabling them you may actually feel guilty that you're the narcissist is uncomfortable and that may push you to want to break your gray rock and fall into usual patterns of appeasing your narcissist but the beautiful day is going to come when they are in fact bored with you because you are no longer a source of drama or supply or conflict so deeply start to check out and they may slowly start to slip away so pay attention because again you're gonna need nerves of steel at this point any of your own triggers around abandonment or your fears or triggers around being alone may really be activated and when the narcissist starts to check out even though it's a win remember they're going that's good it's going to feel overwhelming so you may start engaging them again do not succumb you now see that when you are no longer a source of supply or validation or conflict that you stop being interesting to them it was never about you it was about their need for validation and just like that can opener I was talking about you were functional you did something and if you no longer serve that function they're gonna discard you that's an important wake-up call because this is time though the discard is happening because you recognize that you no longer just want to be a source of supply to them and once you decided I'm not just going to be a source of supply you cut that function the narcissist lost their interest so at this point in the gray rock process you may actually also experience some grief because going gray rock really does put a pointed lens on the narcissistic relationship you can really see they really supply and confirmation that all you were with supply can actually feel really uncomfortable and sad suspecting that something is true and then having it confirmed as true is a really complex mix of feelings you can feel reassuring but it can also feel devastating some people wonder okay even if I do gray rock and the narcissist then he values me and discards me they're gonna come back around that's always the question right if you gray rock them are they going to come sniffing back around in most cases yes remember even though even after you instituted this whole gray rocking they they ultimately got bored with the whole process with you you were no longer interesting supply to them at one point and probably for a really long time you were a source of supply and of drama and it isn't always easy narcissist to find new supply not everybody wants to tolerate their BS or their abuse or their victimhood especially if you're narcissists isn't that flashy or that Ridge or has the other stuff for attributes that draw people in kind of if you have sort of an average narcissist who just kind of grumpy and mean other people want to put up with this and some people especially maybe if you're watching this channel you see the narcissists coming and they get away fast so if you were once a tried and true source of narcissistic supply they may come back and start sniffing around as part of a process called overing which is another video in this series but if you maintain your gray rocking and you stay steady and you remind yourself that the narcissist is no likely to change in any significant way then you will still be protected when they come sniffing around again when they start leaving and then if you remain and retain your gray rocking this time around they'll get bored with you even more quickly the key to gray rock is to stay steady with it remember that narcissists are like chameleons and they can change for any situation and they will use a range of manipulative strategies to draw you back in they need your supplies they need your validation they may try for example they might try to love bombing again and they may use a whole host of other techniques to break you out of your gray rock face if you fall for it in the blink of an eye they are going to be back to having contempt for you and all the rejection and all the invalidation the key to gray Rockman is to stay steady with it and to not waver even when the narcissist keeps switching strategies the only thing I can guarantee you is they're gonna keep invalidating so lots of people can see how gray rock would work in a close intimate relationship but what about other close relationships it looks great actually great walk works great in family settings because it gives you the opportunity to still go to the family wedding or go to the holiday dinner but not have to engage in any kind of meaningful way with the narcissist you may have a beloved grandparent their beloved sister someone you want to be at the event with you gray rock everyone else as I said throughout this video it's not unusual for your entire family to be really angry if you go gray Rock and this is especially true if you are the scapegoat in a family setting by going grey Rock the narcissist in the family system now need to find new supplies and new targets and they're new targets as I noted may not appreciate losing you as a sacrificial lamb he took all of the punches that's dark but it's true and your family may view you now as arrogant uppity and full of yourself do not let them get you down hold your ground because that gaslighting that they're doing is the way they're trying to suck you back into your usual role in the family system now can gray rock work in professional settings it works great in professional settings at the end of the day your boss may not have a leg to stand on if you are getting your work done but your boss may not like that he or she is not getting their narcissistic supply toxic workplaces that are run by narcissists are often characterized by dynamics like triangulation chaos gossip and favoritism gray rock means at work you maintain calm and neutral responses and to stop believing that your communication with the narcissist is ever going to result in change however you do need to sort of the great Rock strategy in a way with lots of documentation of what you are actually getting done at work of the actual work product you create find ways in their software that lets you do this however it is in your jobs you've gotta track what you do and you need to ensure that you find their proper points of contact in your employment situation that may be a jar it's going to vary from workplace the workplace gray Rock stops you from making all of the usual mistakes with narcissus all the stuff I lecture against so just explaining yourself over engaging with them thinking that you're ever going to have a normal and balanced conversation like today is going to be different with them so why does grey rock work because very simply you stop engaging you stop providing the emotional energy that the narcissist needs it's like you stop providing the oxygen for a fire you're just cutting off the oxygen supply and like a fire or a candle it's gonna go out so for the narcissist their inability to control you their sense of feeling abandoned by you when you go grey rock and their loss of narcissistic supply initially will result in rage by them and then they will over time really grow disinterested in you as they attempt to protect themselves and their insecurities and they go out try to find a more hopeful source of narcissistic supply their lack of self reflective capacity means that they do not understand their impact on other people so they don't understand why you needed to go great rock they don't understand why anyone would ever pull away from them instead they will pathologize you they will Gaslight you they will attack you because you pulled away because you went grey rock anyone who did that to them now one of the hardest parts of grey Rocky is having to shut down your range of normal emotions in the presence of the narcissist you have to catch yourself especially this is something you've known for a long time right you're a family member and not share the good stuff that's happening in your life in other words you can't be a physically happy you can't be cheerful because the narcissist is going to perceive those positive emotions as a threat how dare you be happy without my approval and they will try to rain on your parade I'm sure many of you have experienced that some grey rockers don't care they have trained themselves and it takes a while to do this but train themselves to the point that they don't let the narcissist dark moods bring them down but for a novice great rocker you're new to the grey rocking party or for someone who is in a particularly toxic relationship it is absolutely crucial that you keep a really sort of neutral rein on those emotions and as soon as you can get away from the toxic person find a happy place to share that emotion and only do it then it may be calling a friend it may be texting a friend but you have to wait till you get away from them now grey walk is one of those techniques that works it really works it's sort of narcissism 101 in terms of management but it's not easy it brings up really complicated feelings like guilt and also the fact that you may have deeper feelings to get activated by the narcissist overwhelming rage and perhaps your own fears about being discarded by the narcissist your own abandonment issues that may come up but if you can reflect on grey rock as a way of protecting yourself it can have so much more power and the other beauty the other thing I really love about grey rock is that it doesn't involve being intentionally cruel we're saying unkind things or engaging in other deliberately cruel actions instead it's really about an interesting form of distancing a word that has new meaning for all of us now I always want anyone who's interacting with the narcissus to remember it don't give the best parts of yourself over to the narcissist gray rock is powerful because you hold those parts back and it works to be able to successfully practice gray rock you do need to take care of yourself you can really deplete a lot of psychological bandwidth always having to censor yourself and always holding your tongue and not engaging and not reacting tools like therapy meditation mindfulness exercise and just taking better care of yourself and getting enough sleep are all really important tools to give you the psychological muscle and the psychological strength and fortitude to be able to gray rock for the long term I really hope that this video has clarified I really hope that this video has clarified once and for all what grey rock is it is incredibly powerful on the surface just sort of an added little way to remember it if you need by rockler if you're a new grey rocker one thing I would suggest is literally in fact people who come to my events we give that we do Gees to them get yourself a little grey pebble and stick it in your pocket just have it there so you can sort of touch it and feel it like oh yeah I'm supposed to go gray rock or put it on a pendant or something but have that little reminder of what it is you're supposed to do those kinds of touch stones can help you engage in this really powerful technique I really hope it works for you I hope this video clarified Ray Rock thank you stay tuned stay tuned because this series is going to clarify all of these narcissistic terms thanks again

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 513,885

Keywords: yt:cc=on

Id: ly0EfWUYArU

Length: 23min 55sec (1435 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 20 2020