Why a simple strategy can help you handle toxic people, reduce stress, and protect your well-being
In Borges’s stories, escape often comes not from fighting but from refusing to play. I think of that when patients describe living with manipulative or endlessly critical people.
One woman once told me she survived her ex’s constant provocations by becoming invisible.
Not literally. She still showed up to exchange their children, to attend school conferences, to sit across the table at birthdays. But she made herself blank. She said she was a rock in the stream.
That image stayed with me. A rock does not protest the water rushing past. It simply sits, unmoved, until the current finds its way around.
Today, psychologists refer to this as the gray rock method, and it has transitioned from obscure blogs to mainstream culture.
Social media may have amplified it, but the idea is much older. It is the art of not taking the bait.
What is the gray rock method?
The gray rock method means presenting yourself as dull and disengaged in the face of manipulation, gaslighting, or…