I think he ought to be gray rocked.

Hi. New.

Following my perusal on the archive and reading the speculation on this sub about what's actually wrong with him, and having seen the videos...I wonder how he would respond to consistent gray rocking.

A little about me: my mother is a narcissist. I know there's debate about which personality disorder squatch is specifically afflicted by. what I know is that my personal experiences and "spidey senses" go off with him. During situations with police when dramatic situations are brewing, there's a tone in his voice that tugs at my trauma. When your parent is a narcissist, you become hyperattuned to even the tiniest change in tone. I am not a mental health professional, but he feels *familiar*.

For example: the time he wanted to show the cops a video of 'buze evidence, and he can't get the speakers to work. He starts spinning himself into a state of agitation as he rants about his frustration with not getting into a group home. It's a subtlety to his tone that pulls at my trauma like magnetism and puts me in fight mode. Enraged, he rants about and insults the professionals and relatives who aren't giving him what he wants, pure vitriol--slips into lovebomb mode for a second. Tells the cops he knows they're trying to help. Immediately resumes the ranting. Tone lightens when he gets to describing his special interests and the nuances of his "disabilities". Then back to how frustrated he is. Back and forth. Back and forth.

He's really trying his damnedest to control how this interaction is going, the whole time a meltdown looms threateningly until the inevitability of it happening. He's so fucking angry about not being in the home, but that's not even why he called them. He knows that video doesn't have shit on it. He knows he isn't getting his father arrested. What he wants is to watch those officers squirm as they try to deescalate the situation and use the first opportunity he can to blow a fuse. He has no problem losing his shit and making a scene and taking a handcuffed ride to the hospital. He has no problem debasing himself and causing a massive, dramatic inconvenience. He just wants to make the people interacting with him as miserable as humanly possible. Winning, losing, bad outcome, good outcome, it doesn't matter. The only way that these people feel fucking anything is the dopamine that pops off when they're engaged in conflict and the rush they get from causing other people emotional distress.

The way you heal from narcissistic abuse is the understanding that you will never win. The game is rigged. If you try to play chess with a pidgeon, it's just going to knock the pieces over and shit all over the board. The day I realized my mother was the pidgeon was the day I broke my chains. What's this, a text message about how my husband was a drug addict so I should really be over his death by now? "OK." A snide comment about how my tattoos are trashy and she only likes them on men. "Sorry you feel that way." Flat, neutral statements drive her insane. That's gray rocking. She seethes when I refused to engage with her. I grew up in a house where I couldn't even enjoy a day off because I was waiting for when she'd get bored and pick apocalyptic fights with me. Now that I've gone no contact, she's melting the fuck down. I don't sadpost on my socials about my healing or about traumatic memories anymore since I found out she lurks. I'm living life not giving a single fuck about her existence and she cannot fucking compute it. I hear she goes on the phone gossiping to my enabler grandmother about fights she and I had when I was 16 because she has no new material. It's pathetic.

Personal diatribes aside, my point is, people need to not react when he does what he does. People who have frequent interactions with him press the berserk button of telling him he's not autistic. They are understandably frustrated with his bullshit so they try to tell him off. Even try to plead with him to drop the act, a fatal error when arguing with a narcissist. They cannot empathize with anyone or anything. You cannot win. ever.

He gives nary a fuck that people don't actually think he's autistic. Any type of pushback, even the polite kind, is an excuse to go nuclear with the YOU THINK I'M FAKE?! And escalate the interaction to where he feels justified to do the serious wilin' out behaviors. The dopamine is surging as the argument intensifies. People are uncomfortable and angry and frightened. He has the power to make his father beg, for the cops to come, for the ambulance to pull up. *Exhilarating.*

He could be locked away in fucking Juniper Hill with Henry Bowers as his cellmate when it's over. The situation could end in utter catastrophhe. but ahhhhhhh, that sweet, sweet *control* while the drama was going on. A narcissist has zero empathy, zero grasp of unconditional love. A narcissist is enslaved by the need to be in control.

I am immensely curious about how things would go if more people-especially his relatives-would consistently grayrock his tantrums. The thing is, though, his father absolutely has a toxic codependent relationship with him and likes the drama just as much. Watching them fight is exactly like watching my parents fight. I spent years imprusoned around this sickness. It's taken me decades to unlearn the dynamic I was born into, and some assertive actions that were outside of my comfort zone, but my life is so much better not having to deal with the bullshit anymore. Every day I spend with a loving partner, who is my teammate, splitting chores and saying thank you for small things he does for me. Saying you did great today. I'm proud of you. I'm grateful for you. No shrieking arguments or stomping or hitting. Every day is a nail in the coffin of my origins. I choose love.

I think Tom might be too old and set in his ways and unhealthily enmeshed in the chaos to have the fortitude to make those changes. It saddens me. Joe...maybe if he saw a therapist and was educated about the dynamic he's in and given the tools to get himself out. Like if Andy has his device playing at 2am outside his door...it's amusing that a trumpet blast sent him scurrying, but that again was the qualifier for him to escalate the fight. What he should have done was ignore him. It honestly sucks how familiar the domestic disputes feel to me. If only they knew they didn't have to be miserable.

He obsessively reads what people have to say on these spaces, even if it's negative, because to him, it's a power trip. Even me writing this post would make the happy chemicals fire off because he loves that he can make people so appalled.

Just some 3am thoughts.