What happens when you go "gray rock"?

hi everyone its dr. Romani welcome back to my youtube channel on all things narcissism go ahead and hit the bell if you want to subscribe to more of this content but today's video it's gonna get to the issue of what happens when you go gray rock so let's talk a little bit about what grey rock is just so I'm sure that all of us are using the term similarly odds are if you're watching this content you already know and you're an expert in gray rockin gray rock is in essence exactly what it sounds like you become completely inert forgettable unengaged like a gray rock the very one thing that if we walk by it on the street we wouldn't possibly notice when you go gray rock it's really sort of a metaphor for not engaging for really almost being something that hopefully the narcissist will look right through here's the struggle with gray rockin like I said gray rock is is is not engaging not talking to them not arguing with them and if anything throwing bits and pieces of supply just to get them off of your trail but it's as close to no contact as you can be while still having a little bit of contact so when you go grey rock with a narcissist you know I actually love the visual and we recently did a seminar in LA where we gave out Greer rocks to people to put on their desk or you can stick in their pocket because it's a great visual because when you're in the presence of a narcissist you really can almost sit like like a statue like calm serene and not going to engage with the with the BS basically but a lot of people must wonder okay I'm gonna try this grey rock thing what's going to happen that's where it gets interesting we know that by and large human relationships with narcissists are driven by their need for narcissistic supply and their need to regulate by using other people they go to other people to be told everything you know and that's what we keep forgetting is that we always view them as mistreating other people which is a big part of it but they need other people to regulate it's almost like they don't know that they're having a good time unless the people around them are saying hey isn't this a good time and so they again it's a sad sort of artifact of their childhoods that they never got good at identifying emotion but because narcissists desperately need other people and they resent other people because they need them initially when you gray rock them you stop being as robust a source of narcissistic supply you just know it's almost like you were once a full well and you're not such a good well anymore you're not doing it any we're not giving it to them you're not giving them a validation at the level they want but you're also not giving them the other things that they in a weird perverse way enjoy too which are things like arguments conflict or times when you show your own insecurities like for example you're like what if he's cheating on me and oh I'm so concerned and what if I lose him and that kind of stuff believe it or not even though you're distressed it's causing it's giving them strangely validation if for no other reason it's reminding them of their power that they have power over you for someone insecure to the idea that they might have power over someone else is really really profound so that said when you initially go gray rock with a narcissist especially if you've already had a standing relationship with them where you're very engaged with them you've been oh you've always been their source of validation and narcissistic supply where you will be insecure with them where you'll be like oh I hope they're they like me I hope I'm more than enough I hope I'm enough and all that other stuff okay because if they're used to getting that from you and all of a sudden that supply starts dwindling imagine turning on your sink at home and you're used to a steady flow of water now you're turning on the sick sink and it's a trickle your gonna take note of that and you're gonna break what the heck is going on so if you've had a standing relationship with this person where you were a source of supply and then you start going gray rock they're gonna notice and they're going to throw a lot of different comments at you one thing that often happens is that the nurses we'll get quite frustrated and say oh so what are you in therapy now what do you you you like to good to talk to me and they'll sort of turn it into a combative argumentative demeaning kind of a space as though they want you to explain what it is you're doing it's as though they've been found out and they want you to cop to it when you're great rocking like no no it's nothing no and you're very calm and you're not feeding their their delusions or any of it but initially they're going to become agitated what are you doing who are you you think you're too good to talk to me what are you in therapy now what is this psychobabble I've heard all of that the trick is when you're doing great is to endure this initial period of agitation because they don't like it they don't like that the water is now coming out of like a trickle out of the faucet when they were used to it coming out full blast when they needed it now what if you really didn't have a robust relationship with this person okay what if this is a person who you sort of met knew and because you have become so well studied on narcissism and you understand it so well now you're beginning to pick it up earlier and whereas everyone maybe like for example is at work and you notice that there's somebody a new supervisor a new boss a new colleague who's really really narcissistic and you choose to kind of go gray rock and not feed it and not validate it in that kind of a situation the narcissistic individual may actually disappear pretty quickly which is why grey rocking early in the game is such a great strategy because what you're showing pretty early on is that nothing but a trickle of water is ever going to come out of your faucet that you're not a reliable predictable source of narcissistic supply and that narcissist may move on to someone else before they can actually do damage to you so grey rock can not only work as a strategy down the road once you've already been abused by a narcissist but it can also work as a frontline strategy I have to say I've used great rocking in professional situations when I've encountered a narcissistic individual and I was able to glean that because maybe the meeting had been going on for a few hours I was watching how they conducted themselves there huffing there puffing their contempt how they talked over people whatever it may have been and I may have known this person's track record too so when they approached me I would be as uninteresting as a pasta I possibly could be one-word answers and more than anything else I didn't ask them one question about themselves I couldn't care less it was fascinating though to watch the other people in that space who didn't know who didn't recognize who weren't woke to narcissism about the patterns in this person and they were all trying to win this really toxic person over it's been great because I've really been protected in this one particular scenario from this person's wrath and now other people are have actually now made the mistake of getting into something with them and it's actually sadly fascinating to watch that this has gone down exactly according to clockwork as well as the power of gray rock when you use it with someone who you recognize as a narcissist early in the game well let's go back to that narcissist you know well who you've already been there supply and now you're going gray rock as a way to cope with the relationship like I said initially there's going to be a jeté ssin contempt anger frustration they may be combative rude and validating they may call you names they may really try to draw you out this is the toughest phase of grey rock because you got to be tough as nails to stand there and withstand it you have to think of yourself as serene serene serene and then one day and it's a good day they get bored with you they get bored you're not mean again how long are you going to stand there and hold your cup under a faucet where the water is just trickling out and you can't even fill the cup at some point they will do what they feel is a discard of you you know I'm bored I can't be bothered they'll store them off the trick for you and for anyone in a narcissistic relationship the discard phase is always uncomfortable and sometimes the discard phase is triggering it can remind a person of early life experiences where they would be discarded by parent you got to hold on remember you want this to happen the discard the walking away from you it's good because through gray rock you've now created a really solid boundary between you and this narcissistic individual listen when a narcissist discards you that can go any number of ways again they can just go skulking quietly into the night they may go off while screaming horrible things that you they may run off and start saying bad things to other people about you that's obviously one of the harder variants of this but gray rock is an incredibly unsettling experience for them many people believe that to overpower a narcissist you should call them out on their stuff you should call them names you should fight as hard and as dirty as them nothing could be farther from the truth techniques like grey rock where you stop giving them supply you stop enabling them and embolden them where you stop enabling them and emboldened them by getting into the arguments with them by getting in the mud with them and you take away their power fully and play upon honestly their insecurities by no longer being that enabling mirror back on their narcissism instead you're a grey rock that offers no reflection back and that and that you have to be impervious to their cruelty and their criticism always remember when they're launching those criticisms insults and contempt towards you this isn't about you this is about the insecurities and the damage inside of them make sure it stays in there and don't make it your own gray rock is actually a really useful strategy when you don't have the luxury of going no contact and you don't have the ability or the capacity or the practical structure to be able to eliminate the narcissists from your life this could be a marriage it could be a parent it could be a workplace situation and honestly I would suggest keep one in your pocket keep a grey rock nearby keep one on your desk you may just need that reminder keep it on your dresser on your sink somewhere to remind you that you can do this you can stay strong and stop being the narcissist supply and as a gentle reminder we do have some retreats coming up in February and in May here in Los Angeles February is a half-day May is a full-day and the beauty of these is we will be going doing much deeper dives on individual stories and experiences around things like gray rock and all the other issues that come out of narcissistic abuse this is really sort of narcissistic boot camp 101 like helping you come up with the tools to manage this and answer all of your questions specific to you so go ahead you can hit the link and you can be able to see much more information on this and as always this content is always coming out and hoping it illuminates you to some of these patterns so you can take back your life and your mental health please hit the bell subscribe you'll get notifications about content about upcoming youtube lives and then be able to actually put submit questions in real time which hopefully I'm able to get you get which hopefully I'm able to get to thank you again as always for this beautiful community and for your interest

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 747,126

Keywords: yt:cc=on

Id: AmksB-SIvtA

Length: 12min 9sec (729 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 03 2020