I Found this explanation on a website (I will put the link below as it is full of great descriptions and info) and wanted to throw it out there for you all. I hadn't thought of my mother's attacks in this way before, but it is true, she looks for an opening to start a rage and then somehow makes it appear to be my doing. Anyone else relate???
Professionals often say that narcissists overreact to the merest unintended slights and that they fly into a rage for the slightest reason. But this view seems anthropomorphic to me. I suspect it comes from forgetting that the narcissist on your couch is a pathological liar divorced from reality and living a personal narrative that is fiction. In my experience, narcissists usually invent the other party's "offense" to justify their attack. Often, the narcissist attacks for an anti-reason. By that I mean, he or she is "provoked" to attack the other party by behavior that would provoke a normal person to embrace the other party.
I would hate to admit how long it took me to discover that. Indeed, try to provoke a narcissist. I bet you can't. And, if you have a raging narcissist, rage right back in his face. Snap — just like that the rage is off and he is downright meek. In one split-second. I am convinced that the only "offense" a narcissist is reacting to is vulnerability. Just as a wolf reacts to the sight of a lamb.
It's always a surprise attack. The narcissist catches you off-guard with such an off-the-wall and shocking reaction to something that you are disarmed and cannot really believe what's happening. These shock tactics perplex you. Before you know what's going on, he has run you over. He's an expert at doing this, because he's being doing it to his playmates since he was four.
Whether lashing out in a small way at a neighbor, customer-service representative, or colleague or lashing out in a big way at a family member, narcissists give the impression that they had been laying in the weeds to strike unexpectedly. And when they strike, they let fly a remark or act so far beyond the bounds of decency that it stuns the victim, who wonders where the hell that came from. It's as though, behind their angel-face, they have an attack dog at the end of his leash — one that, without warning, they loose at the unsuspecting.
Proof that the leviathan lies just beneath the surface can be seen in the fact that, if the narcissist is fatigued, half-wakened from sleep, or has his inhibitions lowered by alcohol, one might as well try to get along with Eddy Scissorhands. There is nothing you can say or do at such times that he won't attack you for as some sort of offense or intolerable imposition. The more you try to appease him, the madder he gets. He is not bound by reason or the standards of common decency. So, he doesn't care how bizarre, irrational, and outrageous his behavior and assertions are. In short, acting crazy isn't beneath him as it is beneath you and I: To the contrary, acting crazy is his secret weapon.
http://www.operationdoubles.com/narc/index.htmLike I said, this site is just great. It describes everything in layman's terms.
Love, Beth
