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Just curious....

tankh21's picture

Do you think it's possible to shut off your emotions from someone?

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susanm's picture

Sure, if you want to.  Just wanting to may be the first sign that you are halfway there.  I am assuming that you are talking about your husband?  Love is a decision as much as it is a feeling.  I am sure you loved men before you loved him.  Do you still love them?  Everyone says "I have never loved this man the way I loved anyone before" but then miraculously they manage to keep breathing if the relationship ends.  And they find someone else a while later and THAT person is someone that they love like never before. Human beings are remarkably resilient.

notsobad's picture

Do you mean for someone?

I think you can do both. If you shut off your emotions from someone, you never show them how you feel. Not sadnees or anger or love or joy. When they look at you, they see nothing. Just a robot. You still feel all those things but you never let them see you in an emotional state.

When you shut off your emotions for someone, something in you changes and you simply don't care about them anymore. You don't hate them, you don't love them. You don't wish them any ill will, but you don't care if you never see them again. It might look the same to them but for you it's different.

still learning's picture

Go gray rock with people who trigger you.  I’ve placed gray stones around my house in strategic places to remind myself to be “boring” when interacting with certain people, like skids, exH, a stressful co worker.  Today I have to be in the same space with someone who got emotional and yelled at me the other day.  I’ll be carrying a gray rock in my pocket to remind myself to have no reaction. 

Read about going “gray rock” with narcissists, it works!

marblefawn's picture

Gray Rock is fascinating! So glad you pointed it out to me...won't work on my mother, but it's interesting.

notsobad's picture

It's effective with narcissists who don't have feeling like normal people.

They get their enjoyment or feelings of happiness from feeling superior to or in control of other people. Because they don't know what it's like to love someone or be attached to someone you can fool them into thinking that you love or are attached to a thing, not a person.

If the most important thing in the world to you is your dog, a narcissist will do everything in their power to take the dog from you during a break up. They don't want the dog, they want to control you, they want to make you feel bad, to hurt you.

If you pile all your love and attention onto a thing, a car or an expensive piece of jewlery instead of the dog, they'll take the thing from you and leave you with the dog. You have to show them whats important to you. So it's best to lie and let them see something useless as very important to you. Don't give up on it either. Keep telling them how angry/hurt/upset you are that they took your engagment ring back. Otherwise, they'll come back looking for more. If you slip up, they'll go after the dog.

The other side of grey rock is to let nothing bother you. Be as bland and unemotional as you can possibly be. Only show emotion towards the grey rock, the unimportant thing you've chosen. The narcissist will focus on that thing and not on you. You will eventually become too boring for them to pay attention to.

It is very hard to do this when you live with a narcissist. It is emotionally draining and they will keep digging and poking and bothering you because they need to feed off your emotions.