The Gray Rock Method of Dealing With Psychopaths
When to Use the Gray Rock Method
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 the Gray Rock Method.
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 the Gray Rock Method . One might say that Gray Rocking 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 the Gray Rock Method 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 Method 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, the Gray Rock Method 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 the Gray Rock Method:
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 Method?
I chose the words Gray Rock Method because I needed an object for us to channel when we are in an emotionally charged situation. You don’t just practice the Gray Rock Method , 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 Method. The simple, humble gray rock has all the wisdom it needs to avoid being noticed, it’s boring.
If you still have questions about the Gray Rock Method, read The Gray Rock Method is a Mental Model.
Copyright © 2012-2018 Skylar
Opi, congratulation on finally escaping from the spath. Be aware though, that cog-diss can come back after a certain amount of time. I’m recently going through some of it myself as a remember my life with my ex-spath. It seems impossible that someone who is so sick, would not want to change, yet that’s the ultimate truth.
It really helps that I spent some time with his friend, (a slightly less dangerous spath) and studied him. Though that study I was able to reinforce the fact that spaths don’t change, though they do pretend to. It doesn’t even matter if you tell them that you know they are spaths. They don’t care. Nothing less than a brain transplant will do the trick.
thanks for the warning skylar. i’ve wondered if i might get some CD down the road. some news of him or running into someone he cheated with or whatever triggering it, or just a bad day. i found out recently he left the state, which was my fondest wish, and was surprised it actually brought up some pain. but when that happened i figured it was necessary removal of traces of the TB, so i just let myself feel it. i try to stay conscious of this stuff by staying on sites like yours because as i start feeling better, it’s easy to forget the emotional truths i learned.
i also make it a habit to “target practice” on new spaths. now that i’m armed with knowledge, i’m finding many of them easy to spot and i do get a feeling of empowerment when i get that light going off in my head. not all of them are full-blown spaths, and i’m not kidding myself that i can spot them all, but a lot of behaviors i didn’t realize were part of the pattern, i can easily see now. walk away, do not feed the path! you are right, there is no “getting through” to them. my ex taught me that. not only do they not care, they aren’t capable of caring.
hence my credo: NEVER AGAIN
thearrival, I’m sorry you experienced that abuse at the hands of your family. In my opinion, abuse from the FOO is even more painful and damaging than abuse from a significant other. Furthermore, the cog-diss from our continued association with the spathy family members can create irreparable harm. We have to reconcile our own behavior with the truth about why we keep going back for more abuse. The truth is, everyone wishes they had a loving family and it’s tempting to keep going back to figure out how to get it.
Oxdrover is right, gray rock is not meant to be a way of life. It’s not meant to make life with a spath bearable. It’s meant to make the spath go away without ever suspecting that you were on to their need for drama. Where people fail is when they use gray rock in a defiant way, refusing to react when a reaction is warranted.
If you suddenly start using a stony face, the spath is going to be able to tell what you’re doing. They will just ramp up the drama until you scream, “uncle”.
The actual application of gray rock can take many forms. Sometimes it means that you laugh when the spath has tripped you up. Other times it means that you act dumb, as if you didn’t notice that the all points bulletin on the news was for a description of a car that matches your spath’s car exactly. It can mean that you talk incessantly — about the weather or the different styles of flip flops that are available at walmart right now.
Gray rock doesn’t work if the spath doesn’t have any options for escaping the boredom that you create. Remember, boredom provokes anxiety in a spath and they will do whatever they can to escape it. So if they don’t have an outlet, they will attack the source of their anxiety. That’s why it’s so dangerous to try to stay with a spath while gray rocking them at the same time.
The most important part of the article is the explanation about how and why it works. Understanding the spath mindset is key.
Thearrival, I’m sorry that you had bad experiences and I agree that using “Gray Rock” serves targets best in a legally required contact – co-parenting, for instance. Even in situations where the psychopath is a coworker or employer, there are several options available, including “Gray Rock.”
Skylar pointed out that FOO abuse causes the greatest damage and I absolutely agree that family dysfunction creates a morass of emotional and behavioral issues that typically go, unchecked, through a person’s lifetime until such time as they hit rock bottom, on every level, or they continue pretending a acting out the role(s) that was assigned to them, early on.
For my purposes, going full NO Contact is has been the only way that I have successfully rescued myself from remaining in very toxic and unhealthy relationships, and also from entering into potentially new and abusive situations. To do this with any measure of success, I chose to engage in strong counseling therapy with a trauma specialist. I am still learning, still rewiring my thinking, and paying very close attention to MY behaviors in relationship to others’ behaviors. For instance, I began to be aware of my aggression tendencies when I was faced with a potentially threatening or fearful situation. The aggression was a cover for fear, and I’ve been paying VERY close attention to this for the past 2 years. My FOO taught me that, if I appeared tough and aggressive, people MIGHT not approach me to harm me. Of course, this was a false perception and only caused me mountains of issues as my lifetime progressed with me carrying all of the childhood and adult baggage that I had accumulated over the years.
“Gray Rock” works very well for me because I use it as a management technique for myself, rather than to manage spaths or toxic individuals. By that, I mean that I have learned to keep my mouth shut, play my cards close to my proverbial vest, and give NOTHING of myself away (like, personal history) unless (and, until) a person has EARNED my trust. Even then, I still am very private, now, whereas I used to believe that presenting myself as an open book was the “right thing to do.” I had never understood or accepted that “bad people” actually exist outside of prison walls, walk amongst us, and typically NEVER experience legal consequences for their actions.
We can never truly know what goes on inside the head of a spath – we can’t. We can only surmise and hypothesize. We ***know*** that they do not have a conscience, remorse, or empathy, but we cannot really know WHY. Genetic? Sure, that plays a factor. Learned? Most definitely. Both? You bet. But………I cannot change or “help” these people. Nobody can. They can’t even help themselves. They know that their actions are inappropriate, at the very least, but they do not have the capacity to care. So………I don’t worry so much about THEM as I do about my own behaviors, tells, and responses to their games and ploys. I’m learning as I go, and the more I learn, the more confidence I’m building. If that makes any sense…. 🙂
With regard to “Gray Rock” and going “No Contact,” without a doubt, NC is the best possible option – the further away from the manipulations and crazy-making behaviors I got, the better able I was to actually separate my emotions from the matters at hand, so to speak. This didn’t mean that I didn’t “feel” any emotions. I certainly did! But, the difference was that I did not apply MY emotions to a factual situation. I could process how I felt in a private and healthy manner instead of becoming unglued and melting down over someone else’s disorders.
Separating the feelings from the facts takes practice, and this is how “Gray Rock” works without being something that the spath can actually USE. I’m not making myself boring or ignoring them as a result of my anger and frustration, anymore. I’m just accessing my empathy and compassion and turning them down to just about NIL so that the interaction is simply a matter of course without any emotional involvement from me. Some folks have attempted “Gray Rock” as a means to PUNISH the spath or as a passive means to display their anger, and this is where they ran into trouble. I’ve done the same thing, myself. THEN, I realized that “Gray Rock” is not about punishing or “getting back” at a spath. It’s simply a management tool for required interactions.
NC is absolutely the best and healthiest way of coping with a spath. They do not care what harm they’ve caused, and the more they’re reminded about it, the more entertainment it is for them to watch people taking an emotional plunge down the rabbit hole. For them, the reaction to seeing a target reduced to tears or screaming fits is almost the same as experiencing a physical 0rgasm. Literally. They crave power, and seeing (hearing, or reading) results of their efforts to ruin is the closest thing that they will ever feel to being “okay.” To harm and know the results of that harm is an absolute rush.