#scent dysfunction

What is Gray rocking? Gray rocking is a real term and strategy reffered to in psychology. It’s essentially a tactic used to counter manipulative and toxic people and people that have NPD or ASPD who may be harming or inconveniencing you in any way shape or form. It focuses on making every interaction you have with the person incredibly dull and nonreactive, this way you appear to be boring and uninteresting to the person trying to get a rise out of you, and avoid giving away any reaction and information that she or he can manipulate you wish later on.

So what’s the difference? Well, Gray Rocking is a conscious effort and it mostly protects you from psychological harm. It’s something someone has to decide to do. They have conscience that the person they are presenting themselves as, is not who they really are the rest of the time. Greyrocking on the other hand is an involuntary action, and the person performing it has no knowledge or consciousness of it.

Greyrocking is a survival tactic. Most often seen in Omegas, but also occuring in Alphas and in rare cases Betas, the pre-presenting body of a to-be Alpha, Beta or Omega will simply shut down and delay any signs of presentation and development to the dynamics they biologically present as. What does that mean? That means that:

They present no change of scent, a ridiculously faint scent or even no scent at all, even after they’ve surpassed the age in which such a change should be apparent.

For Alphas they may not get taller, with stronger facial features, body hair and an increased ease in gaining muscle mass like other Alphas. They also don’t really develop sexually as they should, even to the point of not seeming like they have a knot at all.

For Omegas, their hips don’t really widen, they may have trouble maintaining a healthier weight, not being able to hold onto fat as efficiently. Their breasts have no development whatsoever (males don’t have proper breasts, but even they have a little bit of extra fat around that area), and they also seem to have trouble getting progressively taller as time passes.

Betas will have difficulty with discerning subtle scent changes. Only the extremes. They also have problems with growth and muscle/fat building and development of essential baby-making parts of their bodies just like Omegas and Alphas.

Appear to have little or no sexual interest for their peers. Even in the face of a heat or rut. Which is remarkably odd (at least in my verse).

Independent of their dynamics, they all end up looking infantile and sometimes sickly in appearance. Bodies that seem to not be able to keep up with their peers, not presenting as any of the three dynamics and remaining in stasis on a pre-presenting form.

Now why does that happen? This happens because it’s of the understanding of their unconscious mind that presenting as whatever dynamics they’re biologically fated to present as, will result in more harm - psychological and most often physical -  than if they were to not present whatsoever.

Children and teens that experience extremely toxic exchanges with their primary caregivers and general family, who experience or see others frequently being physically or sexually abused, and who may have been targeted often on the assumption that they will present as a determined dynamics are often the ones who will be greyrocking.

Greyrocking is the form young people have found to protect themselves where otherwise they would not have the physical or environmental advantages to do so without it. You’re not as big, not as strong, not as smart, not as rich, not as manipulative, not as convincing as your agressor. You have no money, no connections, no way of contacting authorities, nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. What do you do? You hide within yourself. You lessen your own presence. You make yourself invisible, uninteresting. Make your body into something that’s not as appealing as a target. At least until you’re in a safe enough environment where this is no longer needed.

As expected greyrocking is incredibly unhealthy on the long run. It stunts growth, it affects the development of scent glands, and once your body is sure that you’re safe it will try picking everything you missed up at once. And believe me, as someone who had their development artificially delayed due to medical reasons, it ain’t a fun process. The Omega/Alpha/Beta will experience extreme sourness, pain, itchiness and skin tearing (stretch marks) due to their bones and muscles picking up on all the slack way too fast. In the case of Omegas and Alphas, their first Heat/Rut is nowhere near the same as other people’s. It’s much more similar to overheats and over-ruts. They howl in pain and agony and to those who hear it, it can only be described as an animal being tortured.

Permanent damage may also occur. Either to their gonads (most common in Alphas and Omegas) or their scent glands, aka the development of Abofaction/Rosebud syndrome. They also will probably be shorter than avarage to their sex and dynamics. Although Omegas greyrocking normally don’t have the ability to ovulate, sometimes a very small percentage of them do, (psychologists think that this is due to the body assessing that they are not at risk for sexual abuse, so they don’t stop their ovaries from functioning normally). They still don’t have heats, but they can get pregnant just the same in this rare cases, problem is, the rest of their body is not equipped to carry that pregnancy if it happens, so you can only imagine the permanent damage to the Omega (and possibly the baby too) if that were to happen during greyrocking. If the pregnancy is carried out instead of expontaneous/indulced abortion taking place, depending on the severity of it, it may actually be fatal to either mother, baby or both. 

The most recommended thing to do when someone identifies a tween/teen greyrocking is to get authorities involved as soon as it’s safe do so, as well as the immediate provision of a structured support system that in composed of a carrying and loving family/friend unit and constant psychological and medical survaillance and care. If identified earlier the effects of greyrocking can be reversed and little to no permanent damage is caused to the individuals in treatment. And even if there is permanent drawbacks, individuals that go through with psychiatric and medical treatments to mitigate the aftermath from it can live relatively normal, fulfilling and happy lives.