An Update: Writing More Posts With Another Writer

Peep (not her real name) of the blog, Five Hundred Pound Peeps, and I will be publishing more posts together (this is her statement about that). The last post we published together was this one. 

We thought it might be more helpful for our readers. I do as much research and reading as I can on a topic, and she tells the personal side of the story. 

The next one in the series will be about rebellion and scapegoats. The title to mine is: "Are Scapegoats of Narcissistic Families Really Rebellious? Or Is It Just a Complaint by a Narcissist to Get the Scapegoat to Be More Submissive?" 

Another topic we will cover has to do with the positives and negatives of going "no contact" (dealing with family estrangement). I have shared a lot of personal stories of others in the post, A Psychologist Speaks Out About People Estranged From Their Family, and Narcissistic Abuse Survivors Speak Out About Suicidal Thoughts, Scapegoating, and Losing Their Entire Family of Origin, but I think this new post will add even more insights, especially details on positive aspects of going "no contact" as that one had a bit more to do with the negative aspects, and some anger towards narcissists. For instance, one of the more positive aspects is the ACON community (another link here, or try a twelve step group here, or go to your local domestic violence center and find a group there). I also offer some personal perspectives, and things I've tried, and things I would have changed in that post, and hers will be mostly about personal issues she has had with going "no contact." 

As you can tell, a lot of our posts are about scapegoats, and geared towards scapegoats and what they go through. We hope it is helpful to other scapegoats. 

Here are other topics we will be writing about in the future: 

* Do Scapegoats Really Resent the Golden Child? Or is it Just Something that Narcissists Make Up or Assume So That They Achieve Their Goals in Hurting the Scapegoat?

* Ways in Which the Scapegoat is Often Arm-twisted by the Family to Accept Bullying and Mobbing

* Muscle Aches and Pains When Traumatized from Abuse (with a Discussion on How Narcissists and Sociopaths Contribute to It)
     (note: this one requires a lot of study into the science of trauma and the physiological reactions to it in one's body, and some of it is hard for me to understand because I do not have a medical or science background - but it is interesting enough for me to pursue and hopefully explain it in a way that will be enlightening. It is one of the symptoms that can have a major impact on other organs of the body, causing more stress on the body, and once you have it, you have it in spades. It's hard to ignore, and if you aren't aware of conditions like Generalized Anxiety Disorder, you can think you have a bad case of Fibromyalgia or that you have a disease of the nervous system. It's systemic - every muscle is effected. It's one of the major physical symptoms, which many child abuse survivors experience along with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It may take me awhile to publish compared to other posts, but it will hopefully be interesting to you as well as Peep's post where she will talk about when and how this set of symptoms came about, and her struggles with it on a personal level). 

Another post Peep has suggested to me is that we do one on "poverty and scapegoats". I think the way I'd like to tackle this is to get a lot of stories from scapegoats and to see if they went through a period of short term or long term poverty and if it is a common experience among them. My intuition would say yes, at least the ones who are either shunned (and I use the word "shunned" because narcissistic families are very cult-like - you aren't acknowledged in any way if they discard you - even the fact that you are alive is not acknowledged) or the scapegoat has left of their own accord.

I could also contribute to the discussion because I went through a period of poverty between ages 18 - 21 (and I had jobs during that period and at 19 was going to college full time too, and a story to tell about the bureaucracy hurdles of trying to get food stamps during that period). It was also a period of rampant sexism in America where young women made quite a bit less than men. Employers constantly told young female workers that they weren't going to get paid for extra work or overtime, and in my case, my boss withheld two weeks of pay because I was dating someone my boss thought I should marry. There was the constant "drone" that women had no place in the workplace and to get "hitched" and have babies instead. Young men made passes at you at work, and if you rejected their advances, they could lord it over you about the fact that they had more money, higher wages, and could get in higher positions over you, no matter how talented you were because no one liked "a pushy woman asking for a job." It impacted my life. 

I would like to do a post on scapegoats and sexism, and how many shunned or treated-like-a-minority scapegoats are vulnerable to sexual harassment, sexual abuse, sexual harm, sexual ostracism, being cheated on, and sexism. In terms of narcissistic families, I did hear somewhere that girls have a much higher rate of being scapegoated than boys do, as high as 13 - 1. If true, this may have to do with the fact that boys are favored in society too, or at least once were. We will see how a female politician fares against a male politician (but I would bet that if she does win, it is because women will go out in force to vote for her). 

At any rate, it is going to be harder for Trump to beat her with his usual insults and name-calling. Calling a woman "crazy", "lying", "nasty" and "stupid" is what domestic violence offenders call women. It is also what girls are often called too in child abuse situations. These are the most common words of violent perpetrators of women and girls at any rate. Perpetrators also indulge in false narratives and smear campaigns about women. It's going to cause any woman who has been called these names to vote for Kamala Harris (and I bet it would be significant numbers of them, at least that is what I predict from my mini corner of the planet).

If she does get elected, maybe it is a sign that "enough is enough" when it comes to male leaders and their agendas for women.

One of the reasons we are doing these posts together is to give you a wider breadth of a topic, what I have researched and discovered from hearing survivor stories, how it effected Peep on a personal level, and so that the most informed decision can be made, especially if you are a scapegoat of a family.

For instance, the most difficult and major choice you can make in your life if you are a scapegoat is whether to respond at all if you've been discarded or shunned by your family, what typically happens if you respond to a shunning, or if you've made the decision yourself to go "No Contact" after a life time of being treated like a second class citizen in the home and sometimes even in the world at large. That is one of the major topics we will be discussing.

Some other scapegoat posts I have written are listed HERE. 

A Major Publication, The New York Times, Talks About "The Gray Rock Method"

"Leaves with a Mossy Rock"
© Lise Winne
(available HERE)

The article is here:

How to ‘Gray Rock’ Conversations With Difficult People (Some say that becoming as dull as a rock is an effective way to disengage.) - by Christina Caron for The New York Times

The article starts with these words:

     Take a moment to imagine a small gray rock sitting in the palm of your hand. It’s silent, smooth and otherwise unremarkable.
     Are you bored yet? If so, that’s kind of the point. 

The article mentions Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a psychologist who studies, specializes and is an expert in Narcissistic Personality Disorder and how this antagonistic personality style effects the rest of us as we engage with them in all walks of life. 

I have also discussed her writings and videos many times in my blog. 

The gray rock method, according to Dr. Durvasula is to keep conversations neutral, "trim and slim" and not to reveal anything that would otherwise garner interest, a competitive response, a lecture, a response that puts the narcissist in control of the narrative, an antagonistic response, or be used against you. These are all issues when talking with narcissists. 

Dr. Ramani Durvasula learned about the technique from Donna Anderson, which is where I think I learned about it too. I'm not totally sure, but I read an awful lot of Donna's posts when I started my own blog. 

On TikTok and various other social media sites, there are people who teach you how to use it without being too disengaged and ice cold in your deliveries. I haven't tried it myself except in work situations, preferring to stay disengaged with narcissists, but for those who want to delve into this space, I have heard that it is helpful. There are various demonstrations on how to be as neutral as you can (not friendly, or unfriendly). The Times article mentions briefly where you can find one of these videos. 

The article goes on to mention Tina Swithin, who suggests something she made up called "the yellow rock method" when divorcing a difficult or narcissistic husband where you have to share custody. She also made a "wheel", designed after the power and control wheel called the Post Separation Abuse Wheel - really creative, and so true when it comes to what happens in these situations. 

Anyway, Tina Swithin's yellow rock method is similar to the gray rock method, except you are more friendly and accommodating. You say things like "Let's agree to disagree on that one", "You have a right to your feelings about me, but I don't see myself the way you see me", and driving the conversation back to the kids and their welfare at every opportunity so that it's not a pointless lecture or argument by the narcissist at what a failure you are (and any subject that is about crushing your self esteem). Here is a video she made about how to use it - again, very creative, and helpful to those mothers who care about their kids first, and want to avoid any more of being drawn into the narcissist's penchant for being antagonistic, insulting, revenge oriented, and hurtful. 

The article also mentions Lara Fielding, a behavioral psychologist, who doesn't think the gray rock method should be used for long periods of time, only in "crisis mode", and as a way to keep safe from attacks both physical and emotional. In other words, it shouldn't be used as the basis of a relationship, to keep in touch or to have a minimal relationship with a difficult person. 

She states that in the long run, it is about being inauthentic which can cause psychological harm to yourself.

My note: A narcissist really doesn't like or love anyone, and trying to accommodate them in this way over the long term will bring criticism from the narcissist ("You're vapid!"; "You don't want to talk about anything other than this B.S.!?", "I know about the gray rock method - I'm not stupid - and I'm not playing that game with you young lady, so you're going to cut it out now!!"). It will be just like the other things you do and say that garner criticism and contempt from them.

It doesn't do much except to keep the more egregious abuse at bay in the short term. 

She suggests the V.A.R. method instead, something else that the Times article talks about, which is more about creating healthy boundaries. 

It is never easy to know what to do when you are in conversations or a relationship with a narcissist. Everything is literally "trial and error" and what works best for your own situation. Even when you go through trials and errors of relating to them, the narcissist's reactions are often extreme, especially rage, and it is hard to tell what is best: let them rage, smooth things out (smooth the sharp edges of the rage), soothe them, walk away, let them walk away, show that it hurts (or doesn't hurt - either one can often make a narcissist rage more), or do you talk business-like to them, let them know that rage isn't helping either of you solve the problem, or ignore the rage because if you show you don't think it is helpful, or that you don't like it, they are more likely to keep doing it, which is to say that in a lot of situations you may or may not like the outcome, and nearly everything is unpredictable in how they are going to deal with certain issues. Some methods if done repeatedly can work better than other methods. In extreme cases (when they are over-reacting in the extreme), they discard people, give them the silent treatment, start false narratives and smear campaigns about you, or if they are violent, hit you. They are going to try to make sure that what they want always comes first and that is about it (and it is nearly impossible to talk them out of it - narcissists aren't built to care about the fate of others, at least in any kind of consistent way; they lack empathy). 

But some of this advice and this Times article about how different avenues other than gray rocking may be helpful. 

I have written my own article on the gray rock method for scapegoats of narcissistic family systems. What I learned was that it was minimally effective for scapegoats, but in terms of mental health, not the best method to be using. A scapegoat's concerns, feelings and even their voice on issues is mostly ignored anyway, unless a member wants to transfer blame, i.e. "their own sins", on to a scapegoat which can lead a scapegoat to defend themselves. Invariably, whether the scapegoat defends themselves or has given up on being heard, it eventually leads to family abuse against the scapegoat. It's certainly not a good method on "how to deal with family abuse" by a long shot. A very high majority of scapegoats leave their family of origin sooner or later, to live out the rest of their life without the burdens of being scapegoated and blamed by personality disordered members and their enablers.