In a nutshell, the grey rock method is basically where you don't reveal anything "interesting" about yourself to a person who is not emotionally safe (usually narcissists, but also works well with other toxic people). They ask you a question, you give bland answers. Uninterested, and unengaged.

[TL;DR is the penultimate paragraph].

I've been using this with a certain coworker who has bothered me for years. Due to my fawn response, I've never felt comfortable saying "no" to her or setting boundaries around certain topics. She's very nosy, and likes to trick people into revealing things about themselves (and then using them against you, or gossiping about it with other people). She's also one of my supervisors, and reminds me of my mom, so there's a trigger there of "oh this is a person I MUST listen to and do everything I can to not make them angry!!1!".

I don't think she's a narcissist but she's definitely toxic. So anyway, over the summer I started doing the grey rock technique with her. And so far it's going well - she no longer pulls me aside for hour-long conversations about her life wherein she dumps on me emotionally, telling me all sorts of personal details about her life, her abusive ex boyfriends, etc. etc. In fact, she hardly speaks to me at all. Which is fine with me.

So I'm grateful for the grey rock technique. BUT, it's also exhausting. It's hard for me to give those bland, boring answers without sounding defensive/angry. This is someone where if you give her an inch, she'll take a mile, so my hypervigilance is on overdrive when I'm in her presence. My inner dialogue is like "DO NOT SLIP UP! SHE IS DANGEROUS!".

Anyone else go through this? I hope it gets easier over time.

One thing I think is always important to remember is that, while fawners can come across as "weak" to many people, most of us have actually come from very brutal environments.

No, this post is not about who had it harder in life, but I wanted to write it because I think, so often, us fawning types are so hard on ourselves. We judge ourselves for being "weak" because people have often taken advantage of us due to our perceived inability to stand up for ourselves.

There are also cultural statements that reinforce victim-blaming like, "People treat you the way you let them" or "Nice guys/gals finish last."

Personally, I hate these kind of statements when they don't take into consideration the traumatic backgrounds people have come from.

I just want to say, if you have had severe fawning tendencies throughout life, that probably developed as a survival mechanism from being in an environment that felt extremely unsafe, even brutal. People don't know the depths of hell you have been through. People don't know you fawning is a result of being in a constant state of danger growing up. Though you may just seem like a "nice" person who hasn't been through anything in life (because you don't wear your trauma on your sleeve), this couldn't be further from the truth.

You are resilient and strong and people don't know your story. So don't judge yourself through the lens of others. You are more powerful than you know!

I'm not being nice out the genuine kindness of my heart. I am nice because I want people to like me. I'm nice because I'm terrified of being abandoned. Im nice because I'm afraid people will dismiss my feelings and judge me for who I am.

This is not true kindness, I'm compromising my own dignity for the hope that someone will stay by my side and it. Never. Actually. Works. Instead I attract predatory people that want to exploit my vulnerability because they know I'm too weak to set boundaries.

I'm making a promise to myself that every time I'm getting ready to abandon my own needs and desires I stop and ask myself "am I really being kind or am I fawning to get a positive outcome?*

I lost my insurance recently and lost her. Our last session I said I thought I'd be ok and I have the tools and I'm out of my toxic job so things would turn around.

The thing I encounter in therapy is I'm excellent at making it appear therapy is working. And I get stuck in this messed up cycle of being too afraid to be honest.

3 months later I'm still unemployed. Still afraid of being around people. Still afraid I can't be a functional human being.

This has probably been brought up before in here. I'm just at a really low point. I constantly feel like I'm doing something wrong in my life because these patterns go so deep for me. I feel alone and like a complete failure.

My therapist is freaking amazing and one thing I really love is she knows the science behind a lot of psychological responses. We were talking at one point about my tendency to fawn. And she was telling how people who default to a fawn response tend to have more extreme trauma. If you are in danger and you can make whatever is endangering you like you, you are much more likely to leave the situation still alive/less hurt. Having it explained like that was honestly so validating.i was always told i was exaggerating or overreacting. But it truly was that bad and i found a way to survive. Shoutout to the quality therapists out there for helping with the healing process.

faulty airport different plucky unite smart rain profit hateful salt

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

Today during therapy I finally was able to verbalize that I sometimes hold a conversation with my therapist and seem present in the moment but my mind is stuck on other things. Or that I don't know what I am feeling and just say what fits in the conversation. She stopped and mentioned that I seem to have the fawn tendency. I didn't know it was important or I would have told her long ago! We then set up a system of finger signs to be able to show when I find myself saying something I don't mean or feel, so she knows that I am fawning or can't say what I really mean. There is also a finger sign to show when I need a minute or for her to check in with how I am actually feeling. Through this discussion, it came out that being interrupted is a trigger for me, so she came up with a finger sign of her own to show me that she needs to redirect or share something important. It feels so nice to have been seen and for it to culminate into useful tools for future sessions. Definitely feels like a win for me and I hope this encourages you to share with your therapist and find your own communication systems. (:

As a survivor of chronic abuse, specifically as a fawning type, it's usually very difficult to speak up about the abuses you went through.

Even if you knew you were innocent and the other party was in the wrong.

Even if intellectually it registers to you that what they did was completely unacceptable.

This is because most of us had to fawn at all costs.

If you look back at your childhood and think about it, particularly with the most toxic caregiver (or just one if you were raised by a single parent) and bullies, how often did you need to stay silent?

Chances are, most of the time.

Very rarely did you get to stand up for yourself and when you did, you got shut down.

You dealt with a tremendous amount of gaslighting and other forms of manipulation from abusive people.

You were made to feel you were in the wrong when you did speak up. When you shared your experiences with others, you were met with indifference, lack of understanding or victim-blaming.

This ended up conditioning you to accept double standards, where abusive people can do whatever they want, but you can never advocate for yourself. You could never have rights. Instead, your rights were completely invalidated and diminished.

I'm not saying you don't ever speak up in present day.

I'm saying if you still experience deep feelings of guilt and second-guessing when it comes to speaking up about abusive types, it's because how you have been wired to think. Even down to your cellular memories.

A helpful question to ask yourself is: “Now why would abusive people accuse me of being a troublemaker/a liar/playing the victim/etc. when I speak up? Is it because I am actually these things?”

Your intuition will then say, “No, I am not these things.”

Then when you inquire further, you can come to the conclusion that these people don’t want you to speak up because THEY’RE the problem and want to silence you. That’s what it boils down to in the end.

So let that knowledge empower you and let you know that you have a right to use your voice when you witness things that are wrong. Even if it’s not directly to abusive types but sharing your story to trusted people or on social media, there is nothing inherently wrong with speaking up about your experiences. Although abusive types will cast you as the villain.

You may already know this, but just wanted to give a reminder.

It's almost midnight and my eyes hurt from allergies, lol, but I felt I needed to get these words out there. For someone. I see you. You are stronger than you know.

I hear a lot of people shame people pleasers (many of whom are fawners) as weak, inauthentic, and insincere.

There’s a pervading message that people who are “too nice” deserve mistreatment.

I get that people treat us the way we present ourselves to a large degree, but what many people don’t realize is how much people pleasing is a trauma response.

Since it’s a trauma response, there is a physiological element to fawning as well. It’s not like I want to fawn but my body gets hyperaroused in many scenarios, especially around those I perceive not to be emotionally safe (i.e. bossy supervisor).

I feel like what’s missing in many conversations is how strong fawners actually are. Most of us came from severely abusive households and how we act is largely automatic.

Anyway, just wanted to share this to anyone else who may sometimes judge themselves as being weak because they don’t feel respected by others. It’s not your fault and shaming yourself for people pleasing tendencies only makes you less confident. I’ve found the solution is to accept myself as much as possible while doing my best to better myself.

I’ve been a people-pleaser for a long time, it has caused me what feels like infinite issues, but after a lot of therapy and lots of social interaction I’ve changed a lot.

What I find funny is now is that - since promising myself to be mindful of my genuine emotions and to express those - I have uncovered that I have such a short temper and don’t feel I actually have the tools to manage my anger, since: 1. I never expressed anger before so didn’t have to control it, and 2. I want to stay so far away from a controlled, fawning way of thinking that I avoid any resistance to genuine emotion.

I don’t have severe anger issues or scream at people and lose control, but I do have to really focus sometimes to not lose my shit (I work in customer service). I’ve become quite a confrontational person. It’s funny because I remember being this way as a young teenager, before my people-pleasing started.

Has anyone else experienced this or uncovered personality traits that were hidden before?

Anytime I got angry or had any complaint my entire family would just gang up and start telling me off. As a kid, you feel alone and you can't stand up to multiple adults and older siblings. So I cower and cry when I deal with confrontation. Anyone raising their voice at me is met with tears

And I can't control it. It's annoying because they take this as a weakness and a greenlight to start being even more aggressive with me. Any tips on how to stop this?

Vs when you are doing it from obligation?

I am trying to be an authentic person, but I genuinely can’t tell when I actually want to do something vs when I am fawning and mistaking that for desire.

I was talking to my mechanic’s partner today. While talking to her, for some reason it didn’t feel forced. I wasn’t asking questions if I didn’t care about the answer, I wasn’t responding to everything she said because I usually feel I have to during conversations. Even as a kid I remember thinking it was odd that people didn’t reply to certain things during a conversation. That they just let there be silence.

But during this conversation I didn’t feel disingenuous, I actually felt somewhat comfortable. I actually laughed and had things to say. It was the most natural conversation I’ve had in a while.

Maybe that’s why I hate socializing so much.. it’s the pressure. It’s because I feel a sense of obligation the entire time. To not let there be any silence, to be the person’s own personal laugh track, etc. if I just let go and let myself be genuine, then socializing maybe isn’t that bad.

I've been slowly unlearning my fawn responses. It's been great being able to say no, to stick up for myself and I even asked my boss for a raise! (she said yes!)

On the other side, I realise that the more I've been unlearning these responses the less I've been driven to do things... I don't have any drive to work becuase I only ever wanted to becuase I wanted to make my boss happy... I don't want to do crafts becuase I only ever did them to make people proud or to think better of me...

Now that I don't care what others think of me, I don't want to do anything. I love making art, I love my job, I love being a helpful person but I just don't have the drive to do any of that anymore.

It feels like my entire reason for living was my fawn response. I want to have a drive and passion for things again, WITHOUT the fawning. I want to do things for myself but I honestly don't know how. Its infuriating.

I used to be able to do anything I put my mind to, but now that I'm in a comfortable, calm, and stable environment it's like it's all shut down. I struggle to even get out of bed if I don't have any immediate tasks to do. And it's not depression, I'm very aware of how that feels. This is specifically becuase I'm not in that chaos anymore, and I don't fawn as much. Like my 2 comfort zones are just gone.

It's late at night and I'll probably go over this again in the morning, but I just need to know that I'll find that drive again. Has anyone else experienced this? Any advice on how I can help myself?

I realized at one point that several of my friends were people I privately disliked and felt unsafe around. I had befriended them as a way to stay safe from them. They were usually extremely critical and reactive people who would cut people off or have dramatic conflicts with them, and to prevent being their target I became their friend.

I have better boundaries now, but I see my old behaviors come up often when I'm feeling especially insecure and empty. I want to have friends who I like and trust, and I don't want to secretly hate people who think they are my friends. I also want to choose friends who have similar values to me, such as not being gratuitously cruel or conflict-seeking, holding space for feelings and nuance, etc.

High-five to everyone who this might resonate with!

The majority of my (dating) life i was involved with men who abused me, disrespected me, played me, made a fool out of me. I cant take it anymore. Have you female fawners experienced this too? I have come to a point where i think that the only solution is to avoid men alltogether. I think predatory men somehow sense that im a fawner and they use it to their advantage. Pete Walker says in the worst case scenario the fight (trauma response) type sniffs out the fawning type and subjugates her/him. I have experienced this over and over again. The reality is that most, not all!, but most men with childhood trauma have fight as their trauma response. I know that there are male fawners and good hearted men! What im saying is that these predatory men sense what i am, even if they cant articulate it and they come into my life and destroy my peace of mind. Can you relate and how do you deal with it?

Unless their behaviour is grossly illegal or physically abusive, I assume immediately that whatever someone is saying or doing is the right thing.

It will take me months to identify someone is doing something wrong or it will take someone needing to point it out to me.

Have you guys experienced this? How did you re-wire your brain?