remember what is the central or one of the central mantras of the narcissistic relationship. You can't win. You can't. You can't ask for a script. You can't even figure out how to say it because even they don't know the right answer. So everyone talks about how am I supposed to stay in touch with the narcissist. Low contact, no contact. Yellow rock, gray rock. This video is all in one place. One-stop shop of an overview of probably some of the best ways you've got if there is any best way to stay in touch with a narcissistic person in your life. So you've all heard the terms, right? Low contact, no contact, firewalling, yellow rock, gray rock, just staying in touch and not changing a thing. Just I guess that's, yeah, I don't know, regular rock. I don't know what to call that. But all I do have to say is damn, there is so much terminology out there around how am I supposed to communicate and stay in touch with this narcissistic person in my life that I wanted in one.

place because I'm always getting these questions from multiple places. I'm like, let me just consolidate this and try and clarify and talk about some of the pros and cons and possibilities of each of these sorts of communication tools. Many people think that there is one best way. There really is not, and that there is a way to do this that will keep them from yelling at you. There's not, and actually, I'd love to hear from you in the comments which of these communication tools has worked for you. Now I think it's important to open with the idea that there is no one best way. It's easy to say no contact is best and just leave it at that, but that's not realistic. It's not always best or necessary or possible, so I think it's important that we walk through all of these different contact methods so you are in a better position to understand what it is you're in and how to choose what is best for you. So again, you have some sort of template. Not all of these are accessible to everyone.

and these may evolve over the course of a relationship. So let's take this on as a continuum, right? So at the most extreme of these communication tools is no contact. It's the I am dead to you while I live on this planet blocked, eradicated. I will slam the door in your face, not respond, done communication. It's a big move. Now preliminary research suggests it works, and it works well. Folks who go no contact will report feeling better over time, better having no contact, never having to engage with the narcissistic person. Over time, this lack of contact can result in real improvements in physical and mental health and can help a person move on. It makes sense. A toxic stressor is now removed from your life. Now, no contact is extreme and an option that's definitely not open to everyone. If you are co-parenting minor children, it's not really possible. If you have one family member you want to go no contact with, but they're still in touch with other family members you care about, for example, you're trying to go no contact

with one of your siblings, but you're tight with other siblings and extended family. That's not really possible if you are still in a job and this is a colleague or a narcissistic boss. Not really easy to pull off, but in the cases, for example, of breakups where you don't have any ongoing ties family members, where there's no where, for example, where no contact will not impact other family relationships or a job that you can quit and never have anything to do with the people who work there, no contact works. Some people report feeling guilty about going no contact, and that guilt is often emblematic of the trauma bond, feeling responsible for the abuser's hurt and the idea that you are the perpetrator after being harmed by this person. But after you get over that initial hump, it really does get better, and you will heal simply from not having to deal with the narcissistic manipulative nonsense. You just have to hold strong to get over that initial uncomfortable hump. Sometimes no contact may get breached even after many years of no contact.

contact May resume because there's an illness or a death, and that's okay. You can still keep minimal contact, get through the crisis, and then go back to no contact, or whatever form of contact is healthiest for you. Sometimes no contact May begin after children become adults, the job is finally quit, or the other family members that made it so complicated are gone or are no longer an issue. So sometimes people evolve into no contact after years of not being able to do it. Listen, it can be hard to go from 0 to 60 when it comes to no contact. So for example, you go from seeing someone every day, and then one day go to no contact. But you know contact maybe someplace you get to over time. But given the limitations of no contact, some folks are only left with something called Low contact. Low contact is exactly what it sounds like, really only the most essential contact. This can certainly happen and work in the workplace with narcissistic family members, especially ones you don't need to see that often, and even with a toxic

ex especially as the children come into later adolescence or into early adulthood. Low contact is tight, only essential communication, nothing but the facts, no emotion, and only when necessary. Low contact means that there's no casual communication, none of the hey you doing hey how you doing kind of communication. It may come down to only communication about, I don't know, a question about an event like a graduation, or an issue like a hospitalization, or a funeral, and not engaging beyond that. Now, gray rocking is something that can be sort of an add-on to low contact, like an option you add on. Gray rocking, as many of you know, is exactly what it sounds like: emotionless, flat, uninteresting, yes, no, okay. It's you not taking the bait. But gray rocking is a very tricky strategy. Being flat and not taking the bait can get a narcissist really agitated, but if you can get past the initial agitation, then they may just get bored and leave you alone. The goal of gray rocking is to lead them to become disinterested, but the initial ramp up in rage and antagonism because

you aren't taking the bait can be too unsettling for people who find themselves getting sucked back into the Cycles. Gray rocking can also be challenging when you're co-parenting, and your children witness it. The gray walking parent can be the one that looks odd to the children, and it becomes a lot easier for the narcissistic parent to paint you out as the problem to the kids and everyone else because you're so flat. Gray rocking can work a little bit at work because you may just sort of flatly deliver the facts, but if the person, for example, that you are trying to gray rock with has power, it could hurt you if it's a job where things like promotions are possible because it's definitely going to put you in a politically bad place and potentially hurt your career because you're not going to get the promotion. Gray rocking is meant to be a disengagement strategy that can work, for example, at the Thanksgiving table, but only to an extent over time the family and the flying monkeys may look at you.

as the problem for being so cold and so remote. I've honestly heard just as much bad come out of gray rocking as good, so that takes us to Yellow rocking. This is a term that was coined by someone I know well, Tina Swithin. Thank you, Tina. Yellow rocking is often brought into co-parenting and elevates gray rock to a little more than yes and no and colors it up a bit to include basic manners like thanks and please, and perhaps infuses it with a little bit more emotion and warmth as that is going to be more comforting and better modeling for children. But yellow rocking is also a strategy that can work with families and workplaces because it incorporates manners in a somewhat less robotic approach, but you are still disengaged so you can expect the ramp ups and the dysregulation and the anger because you do not take the bait, and your good manners and thank you will not be enough to keep them from yelling you for not taking the bait. It looks publicly better to Yellow Rock because you are using

words and behaviors and phrases like please and thank you. But once again, it is a disengagement, and it's going to result in the same problems as gray rocking. Again, this is probably most workable as a co-parenting approach. So what's this firewalling I've talked about this, and we have an entire video on firewalling. It's applying a tech term to a narcissism protection technique. It's a way of sort of protecting your so-called psychological passwords and vulnerabilities, basically to teach yourself to not share those vulnerabilities, but also setting up firewalled protection against their manipulation, dysregulation, and cruelty, either because you're using boundaries or doing low contact or gray rock or yellow Rock. It's monitoring what you share. You don't share feelings or you don't share your vulnerabilities or your good news or your bad news, all of which may be used against you, but also having a good defense against what comes in from them, which again you can block off through using boundaries, radical acceptance, realistic expectations, and

disengagement. It's a two-way process, whereas gray and yellow Rock are pretty much about how you present yourself and don't take the bait. And then there's the communication tool of just business as usual. No Gray Rock, no Yellow Rock, no low contact or no contact. You just do what you keep doing. Now, my guess is that is not working out for you because communicating as usual often means that you fall into the pit of Defending yourself and taking the bait and trying to explain yourself when they Gaslight you. And you keep having the same arguments. But for folks who are not ready to make a change, who may still not want to see this for what it is, then I suppose this becomes an option. Though like I said, it's not likely to go well. And it's just going to maintain the rather toxic status quo. If you can't go no contact, I would say that the best hybrid is firewalling with yellow rocking thrown in. It may it means that you engage in a manner that is trim and tight and polite. You don't engage.

you keep the narcissistic person at an arm's length. You engage in radical acceptance, and while after that, you may still feel grief or frustration, and they may rage at you for not taking the bait. It's a way to break out of the usual cycles of communication and keep the interactions as tight as possible. It's a way to avoid falling into the common pitfalls of defending and explaining and personalizing. Like I said, it's not a full protection. People with these personalities will still come at you, but you will feel better afterwards if you do not engage. You really do. It's like not eating the junk food when it's right in front of you and having the salad instead. In the moment, it doesn't feel good, but ooh, you feel better afterwards. None of this is easy, and these techniques are not designed to make it easy or fix things, but rather to give you the tools that kind of protect you, and more importantly, may ultimately lead you to see the situation more realistically. All these communication techniques show you there's really no

they're there. Once you see how unhinged the narcissistic person becomes when you just go low contact or yellow Rock disengaged, it's a reminder that you're taking the bait and appeasing them. Appeasing them was the only thing that was making the relationship work and actually made them look good while taking a toll on you. So again, people often kind of ping pong through these various techniques. But ultimately, it really is a reminder that you can't win in these relationships. There's not a lot of there there because as soon as you authentically attempt to engage, it's just not going to work. And if you can't authentically be yourself in a relationship, then really what is it? Today, I'm going to be taking on an interesting topic, which are the four words I don't want you to say when you're in a narcissistic relationship. In fact, any relationship. Before we get to that though, I'm always going to say, if you like this video, give us that thumbs up. And if you want to

subscribe to this channel. Just please hit that subscribe button. It's a great community of people on this YouTube channel. Hit that Bell for notifications. But let's talk about these words. What are these words? I don't want you to say. This video is sort of meant to be a bit of a life hack video designed to help your mental health globally. And it's particularly useful. I'm hoping for people in relationships with narcissistic folks. I want you to eliminate a phrase that all of us are guilty of saying but which is not good for us. Ready? I want you to stop saying you make me feel blank as in oh God, whenever you say that, you make me feel guilty or when you say that, you make me feel stupid or you make me feel angry. Stop giving away your power. Nobody has the power to make you feel. You feel maybe in response to them, but you feel. That phraseology make me feel has a real risk of turning you into having more of a victim mindset rather than being a

person who is in full self-possession of your feelings, and that's really important. I'll talk more about that in a moment. So let's play this out as a little bit of a scenario. You're having an argument with a narcissist in your life. As usual, they're either gaslighting you, manipulating you, or guilting you. Your usual response might have been like, Oh gosh, I hate when you say that. When you say that, you're making me feel guilty. No, you're not going to say that anymore. Interestingly, the far healthier response would be, I hear you. I guess this whole situation is hard. I feel guilty right now. Or it may be that you say, Yeah, I hear you. I feel a little angry right now. You might be thinking, What's the difference? The difference is this: remember, your feelings are yours. In the case when you say, I am feeling, you're not giving them the power of having constructed your feelings. And there's a few reasons this distinction is really important. First, when you say, I am feeling, I am feeling guilty, I'm

feeling angry. You're owning your feeling. Don't get me wrong, even if you say, I am feeling whatever the heck you're feeling, they're still going to gaslight you. They're going to invalidate you. They're going to minimize your feelings. But they were gonna do that anyhow. Now, at a minimum, at least you're owning it, and that's a much healthier place in all of your relationships. Secondly, when you say, I am feeling, it gets you out of the victim identity or the victim mindset. If you say things like, You make me feel angry. You make me feel sad. You make me feel guilty, whatever it is, you just took on the position of someone whom things happen to. And words matter. The way we talk to ourselves shapes how we feel. And if someone else can make us feel something, we're honestly almost like victimized by that. And it gives them too much power. And that drives into point three. Saying that you make me feel gives away your power. Now, when you say that, the narcissist recognizes that they are holding on to a

trigger and the power to induce a feeling out of you, and they're going to use it. If you acknowledge that something they said, like oh, what you just said made me feel guilty, now they have a means by which to make you feel guilty. And how lovely for that, because then that becomes a great little manipulation to get them to behave the way you want or feel the way they want you to feel. Do you really want them to have that kind of power? And trust me, what I'm going to be honest, I struggle with this all the time. I have to catch myself when I'm about to say and close my eyes for a quick second and say nope, I feel. Or even when I talk about other people, like I'm working with clients or talking on these videos, I have to catch myself and say something like situations like this can be associated with a wide range of feelings, including guilt or shame. And the fact is, I don't always get it right. In fact, I probably make this mistake once a day.

when it comes to human relationships and communication, starting with I when you are trying to make a point, especially about feelings, is always safe because it steers you towards empowerment and ownership of your beliefs and behaviors. Because if you fall back on he makes me feel guilty, my mother makes me feel guilty, all the power is in that other person, and in some ways, that means there cannot be an alternate feeling. It's as though they're setting out to cause your guilt. So if you say I feel guilty, then you can take a minute and realize that there could also be alternate things, such as actually, I feel angry, or I feel manipulated, or I feel ridiculous even having this conversation. You don't always have to say these things out loud, but rather what you've got to remember is that there's alternate hypotheses that you can entertain by making it about an I feel, and it opens up so much more power. Because when you feel guilty, that can be a dead end. You made me feel guilty. But when you entertain these alternative hypotheses like I feel angry, that might motivate a

change instead of feeling helpless and guilty, you might now consider setting boundaries, disengaging, holding different expectations. But saying You Make Me Feel makes you just a boat without a rudder that's being buffeted by the psychological waves. Now, this is a quick fix. Don't say make me feel, and it won't always be easy, but catch your language. It's the little fixes like this that can at least give you tiny calibrations that you can try to stay sane in all kinds of relationships, and particularly in narcissistic relationships. And I just want to let you know, this community makes me happy with your support for each other. Oh, whoops, I should take ownership, and instead of saying, This YouTube channel makes me happy, I guess I just gotta say, I feel happy. I gotta own it. You gotta own it. These tiny little tricks of language can break us out of the mental cycles that keep us stuck in narcissistic relationships. Now, nobody makes you feel anything. You feel, and that might be due to the person in

front of you, and maybe the way you woke up that morning. But I feel, I feel what I feel, you did what you did that might have affected my feeling. But ultimately, I get to be the boss of me, and more than anything, I get to be the steward, the owner, call it what you will, of my feelings. Don't let those be taken away. If you grew up in a narcissistic family, go on to other narcissistic relationships, you often grow up at that sense of, This made me feel this made me feel this made me feel. It makes sense. You're a kid, you often feel like you're a passive recipient. You're not. As an adult, you can own it, own it as what you feel, and don't make it about them making you feel in any other way. I hope that little quick life hack helps you. Try it out, take it for a spin, and see if it helps you feel better. All right, everybody, Dr. Romney here. So you, I know you have done this before, I know you have.

let's say it's in the midst of a frustration with a toxic or difficult or high conflict or a narcissistic person in your life. You do this after nothing you say is working. No matter what you try, nothing works. It always ends up with you getting it wrong, with you being manipulated, with you being gaslighted, or with you being raged at. What comes next out of sheer exasperation, you finally say, Please just tell me. Please, I beg you, just tell me. Tell me what to say, tell me how to say it, tell me how to be, and I will do it. You want the arguments and the anger and all of it to end. You just can't figure it out. So you figure out, you figure that you will just ask for the right answers to the test. Have you ever gotten to that point when you say, Just tell me what to say? Drop a comment if you've ever gotten to this point. Now let's say you do this, the difficult person in your life will then say, I'm not doing that. I wouldn't be.

satisfying for me to know that you're reading a script. And at that point you just want to put your head and your hands and cry. So you may be wondering what the hell do they want. So let's break this down. This phrase that many people find themselves saying. Actually, that to me, it tells me they're probably in a narcissistic relationship. But this phrase just tell me what to say, tell me how to say it, tell me what to do. Again, a Surefire sign that someone is in a narcissistic toxic or antagonistic relationship. It is in many ways a manifestation of the expectation of mind reading that so many people with narcissistic personalities have. If you really take mind reading back to a very Primal space, it's really a throwback to infancy, isn't it? The baby who doesn't know where they end and where their caregiver Begins. The baby needs the caregiver or wants the caregiver to anticipate their needs, their needs for Hunger or Comfort or cold or warmth. And when that doesn't

happen. The infant sort of panics, cries, and if all goes well, the infant is responded to quickly, and the infant is soothed. Over time, the infant turns into a toddler, who turns into a child, who slowly learns how to communicate their needs - initially with gestures, and then with words. And then, hopefully, those needs get met and then into an adolescent, an adult who can sometimes meet those needs themselves and otherwise learns to communicate them. That's the healthy path. But around infancy, enter around toddlerhood, that's where the child learns that other people can't read their mind. Listen, it's a fortuitous coincidence when everything lines up and someone does just sort of meet your needs. But we have language for a reason, and the child learns, I need to ask for what I need, and hopefully their environment meets that need. But alas, the narcissistic person is forever stuck in infancy - read my mind, do it the way I need, say it the way I need, be who I want when I want as I want.

as is the hypocrisy of the narcissistic relationship they will then don't expect me to be consistent. Don't expect me to be there for you. Sometimes I will be but usually I won't. That's how those relationships work. They resent that you cannot anticipate their needs. They're grandiose enough to think that people should anticipate their needs, and they are infantile enough to believe it can happen, and they are entitled enough to get mad when it doesn't happen. Obviously, this idea that somebody could read your mind and say things to you exactly the way you want is a deeply unreasonable and frankly unhealthy expectation in a relationship. This idea that, again, that you'd be able to read their mind or get it right and say it and do it and be it exactly as they want at any given moment. Now, another key Dynamic of the narcissistic relationship baiting also complicates this. Narcissistic people always want the fight, so you couldn't you couldn't get it right if you try. Most healthy people

don't want a fight. Most narcissistic people do. So, there's no right way at those times. All roads lead to the fight. The victimized element that characterizes most narcissism means that they are looking for the data to support their hypothesis that they are always going to be let down because no matter what you do, they feel let down. Now, remember that narcissistic people, all of them, they lack self-reflective capacity, and they lack insight into the motivations for their own behavior. Basically, they do not understand their own why, so they don't understand their need for mind reading. They don't understand their need pretty much for anything, but they go around and demand it. They walk around the world posturing as though they are well put together people. They think that they're functioning well in the world, but the contrast between the two, the utter lack of insight, but the acting as though they do have insight, means that the people who are closest to them are chronically frustrated. Yes, they want you to read.

their minds. Yes, their conscious mind recognizes it is not possible. No, they do not understand why. They need you to read their mind, and because they lack insight and empathy, they get angry. Because the inadequacy in them gets activated, they know that they can't regulate themselves. And the more stressed and disappointed and frustrated and abandoned they feel, the more they expect people to read their minds. And you know when it gets to this point, you know the rest of the story. So let's play this out over time. You get exhausted at not being able to communicate with your narcissistic partner because you don't want the fight. You literally wish they would hand you a script so you can say it just the way they want it, just so you can appease them. Keep in mind that this is how everyone deals with them. We are all guilty of enabling narcissistic people. Sometimes we are just too tired to try to be a communication coach or a fighter. We just need to get through the damn day. So we want the script so we can say it.

just the way they want it. Your conversations always end up with them being disappointed, with them always feeling let down, with them always feeling like you aren't doing it right, and then lashing out at you. You keep shifting strategies, and just as an FYI, that constant strategy strategy shifting is a trauma-bonded state. You keep chasing the right way to do things, but there is no right way, and in trying to stay alive in these relationships, you keep trying new things to try to keep it work. But the problem is that they want different things at different times, and it can be impossible to anticipate their constantly shifting needs. Over time, you may seem more strained and anxious in your communication, and no surprise, they get annoyed about that too. They get annoyed that you are so tense and that you are so wide-eyed. Obviously you are because you're constantly constantly walking on eggshells, and you don't know what's going to set them off. So does this happen to you in your narcissistic relationships? Please drop a

comment and let me know of a time when you just didn't know what else you could do to make it right. Sort of a trick question because there's nothing you could do. I understand exactly why you want them to tell you what they want you to say. You figure if someone just gives you the answer key, then you can get an A on the test. But remember, they don't like that either. And that to me is a really fascinating part of narcissism and related personality styles. They don't like that people have to walk on eggshells around them and be solicitous and be oh so careful around them. Believe it or not, narcissistic people like to think of themselves as chill. And anyway, when they are not, they don't like that they have to be handled. It brings up lots of shame in them. They just feel entitled to people doing things the way they want and being able to read their minds. So you asking for a cheat sheet on how to talk with them, that's not going to work for them.

it is so maddening because it's basically a maze with no way out for people who stay in these relationships or who opt not to leave these relationships or cannot leave these relationships. This wishing for a script for them to tell you what to say, it's a painful cycle and one I actually really hope to end just by this video because it's never going to work for you to ask for it. Remember what is the central or one of the central mantras of the narcissistic relationship: you can't win, you can't. You can't ask for a script, you can't even figure out how to say it because even they don't know the right answer. Obviously you can't be a mind reader, but goodness knows that you've tried. So the entire relationship is a series of guesses, and some days you get lucky and you get it right, and more days than not you don't get it right because you can't always in life predict whether the coin is going to end up landing heads or tails. In fact, your

odds of guessing a coin toss are better. Since what are the odds of guessing a coin toss 50/50? The odds of you getting it right with somebody who's narcissistic are probably lower than that. Life with a narcissistic person is like living in a cruel Casino where some days you may come out ahead, but on more days than not, only are you not going to win. You find out that the games are rigged. So you can think this. You can think this through inside this idea. I wish they'd just tell me what to say. Just tell me what to say. But be aware that the moment you feel the need to say this out loud to someone, just tell me what to say. Tell me how to say it. Tell me who to be. Remember that you are now managing a toxic, difficult, and very likely a narcissistic relationship. If you say it that you wish they would tell you what to say, they're only going to get more angry at you. And you will then have to slide instead into the

thickets of radical acceptance. This is what it is. This relationship's not going to change. It's not your fault. And as long as you're in this relationship, this is it. If you can find that way to radical acceptance. And I'm not saying it feels good, but if you can, you will be less surprised, perhaps less disappointed on The Daily. Though I can't make the argument that you will be less exhausted or less mentally fatigued. These relationships are upsetting, that's that. So I'm Dr. Romney and thanks for tuning in. If you like this video or if it resonated with you or it related to things you've been through, please give us a comment. Don't forget to give this video a thumbs up. It helps the channel, it helps get the word out, it helps us create a whole community of survivors of narcissistic abuse. And perhaps the idea that all of us are understanding it will result in a little less supply for the narcissists. Thanks again.

Your Guide for Communicating with Narcissists

Your #1 source of guidance about healing from narcissistic relationships.

DISCLAIMER: THIS INFORMATION IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE A SUBSTITUTE FOR CLINICAL CARE. PLEASE CONSULT A HEALTH CARE PROVIDER FOR GUIDANCE SPECIFIC TO YOUR CASE. 


Your Guide for Communicating with Narcissists

Your Guide for Communicating with Narcissists

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