Rage

[Ami]

My M made sure that I stuffed and felt guilty about  my anger. Now, I think I could tear my H apart with my bare hands.
He takes no responsibility for Scott's death. That is not my problem.
My problem is MY anger. I feel guilty for it.
 I feel like *I* should be"loving" and "good" and have NO anger. I don't deserve it. That is what is 'screwing"me, believing that I don't DESERVE it. "Who do I think *I* am?".When I wanted to feel anything, I remembered,'Who do you think YOU are?"
 Then, I feel depression, which is familiar  and nonthreatening
I HAVE anger. I do. I guess I have to see it and accept it.
That is just it.
If anyone can relate, I would love to hear your experience.                Thanks,   Ami


PS I think that giving up your "anger" is what lays the groundwork for being abused ,in the first place----bleh.
I need my anger to  survive in the world. I can't keep pushing it down and be healthy.
Jesus had anger, so it can not be "bad".
It has to be part of the human arsenal of emotions that we need to function in life.
I need to get it back.

[Ami]

While I am at "it", I need to own my own shame ,too. I can't keep putting it 'out there" for other people to manage, sanitize it and then give it back to me,"all pretty". It is mine to manage, just as my anger is mine to own , use or not use, as the situation demands.
I am tired of living like this.
It simply does not work to have a peaceful and fufilling life.
I am seeing what I want from life now.
I want to love myself, so I can put myself away and 'live", function, and relate.
I have to love myself, so I am not asking for love from others in order to be OK.

[darren]

I think all the emotions have their place and serve an important purpose.  The help inform us, notify us, and help guide us through life.  Sometimes though, especially when the ones I'm experience seem to be all bad, I wonder what purpose they have at all.  I don't think anger is always a bad thing, as we often have a right to angry and something we should be angry about.  I've noticed time in my life when getting angry meant I was starting to stand up for myself, or developing some esteem and starting to care about how I'm treated. 

In the past though, I went through a phase where my anger just absolutely consumed me and it started interfering with my life.  I had to get through that in order to live a less stress filled life.  I suppose though, maybe it might not have been the anger that was the problem but the person causing it.  I guess there healthy ways and unhealthy ways of expressing all the emotions.  I do anger wrong most of the time, but there are times I did it that protected me from abuse and made me feel better about myself.  I notice that a lot of people deal with other who are highly narcissitic, and I think I might be a polar opposite where I don't have enough narcissism.  Everybody should have a healthy level of that.

{{{hugs}}} 

[Ami]

Dear Darren,
 You made a very, very good point. We,LV's(little voices) do not have enough Narcissism. I think I am afraid of healthy narcissism,b/c I am just so afraid of anything that has 'N" attached to it.
 I am afraid of all the healthy types of 'N" you need, anger ,selfishness, self promotion etc. Therfore, I have a LV. I am TIRED of the LV---bleh!!!!!!
 Thanks for answering, Darren. You have so much to offer.Darren. The more you write, the clearer you sound. Get out those gigabytes(lol)    Love   Ami


(((((Darren)))))))

[towrite]

Ami - I can sure relate. I learned in therapy that if I did not acknowledge my anger, then I was cutting off a big part of myself, like trying to live with one leg. I had so much anger that it comprised a big part of ME that I was denying. I could never have a fulfilling life with only part of me available. Once I did acknowledge my anger, I admit it came out constantly at other people, at situations where I felt helpless. I had thrown off my submissive mantle and felt more like an avenging angel - avenging myself. All that has calmed down now, but it took time.

I hear you, Ami. I really do.

towrite

[towrite]

Another thing, Ami - maybe this won't happen to you - but when I began acknowledging my anger, I got constant comments about how angry I was, I was "just an angry person", and some friends went away. But I know that people get angry when you change the rules, so when I wasn't submissive anymore, they didn't want to hang around or wanted me to go back to being submissive. Like my friend's husband who started having affairs and left her when she refused to smoke pot any more.

[Ami]

Thank you, Kate. That post really, really helped.    Love   Ami

[Ami]

I just have to "claim" myself ,now. It doesn't matter what Person "A" or Person "B" has, I have to claim "me."
I have to make myself functional and going forward with my purposes for living.                    Ami

[Ami]

I SEE how my F, M ,and H could not "help" how they acted and ''were', BUT I am still angry. Does that make sense? it seems that if you "understand", you should NOT be angry, but I am.                  Ami

[Ami]

I feel like a huge "joke" has been "played 'on me. My M got ME to think *I* was abnormal and crazy when it was SHE who was crazy.
 I thought my anger was bad, so I let everyone walk on me.
 No one told me that *I* had to stand up for myself. *I* thought I was "bad" to be "selfish" and "angry" so I let everyone do whatever they wanted to me.
 I could cry and destroy s/one at the same time.
 Today, my H did a "little " thing,but it was "big".
He let the dog out and she ran in the neighborhood and could get hit by a car. My H got mad at ME b/c *I* was angry. If *I* am angry, HE can treat me badlly b/c *I* should NEVER get angry, I guess.
 *I* don't have the right . No, when I get angry, my H takes HIS anger out to beat me back.
 Well, no more on that one. All I want to do is face the truth. That is all---bleh.       Ami

[Kimberli63]

Ami, I think I posted this before but I am posting it again because I think it is or could be helpful.

Ami, anger is a very important stage of  growth. You seem to have unblocked the pipeline to your recovery through the loss of Scott, and I am sorry this loss had to be the catalyst.

I recently, went through, a period of great anger, absolute rage, actually. I, found out  after trying to work out what was wrong with me all these years, that it wasn‘t me but my mother and my continued insistence on choosing narcs, of both sexes, to relate to because that is all I understood. When I was about 7 or 8, my mother took me to see a psychiatrist because there had to be something wrong with me. She found me impossible to deal with and  I was fighting with my younger sister, who got all the attention.

I met someone on MySpace, and we started talking late last year. He had a NPD wife, and the more we talked, the more I realised that all the counselling I had done over decades, had brought me to a point in 1990, when I had explored all my options but I just didn’t have the final piece of the jigsaw. I suddenly realised, that I had wasted more than 50 years of my life feeling inadequate and, at times, I felt like I had two personalities and I did -  hers and mine. I was outraged to realise that several people had lived, vicariously through me. I did all their feeling for them. I was the human face of so much destructive behaviour and  I did not know what to do with myself.

Once I calmed down, which took several weeks and lots of deep thinking, I decided that now that I know what is going on, I am going to take charge of my life. I have lost 50 years of my life. I am, no longer, going to let them control me. It is my time to be myself. I shifted focus from them to me.

I stopped wasting time with or even thinking about people, who can’t or don’t want to understand. Ami, you need to stop wasting time with your husband (and anyone else, like him) trying to get him to understand or, at least understand your position. He will never understand so cut your losses in terms of effort. Limit your time with people, like him. Instead fill your life with people who energise you. Steer clear of anybody who exudes  negative energy, whether it be at the shops, at the school, or anywhere at all. Start surrounding yourself with people, who love you or, at least give off positive vibes.


Kim in Oz

[Kimberli63]

Ami, this is something else I found. Unfortunately I can't say if it works because I steer clear of narcs but it might be a way to get back at your husband and get him to stop bullying you.

http://narc-attack.blogspot.com/2007/11/when-narcs-attack.html
About Me
Name: Kathy Krajco Location: United States
Kathy is a tennis pro and freelance editor/writer who writes instructional tennis articles for various print and electronic publications. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin with a major in biology and a minor in English, she also graduated second in her class at the United States Tennis Academy and taught high school science for 16 years.
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About the malignant narcissism of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Explains why narcissists behave the way they do - viewing others as prey to treat like dirt or tear down in order to prop up their delusions of superiority.

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Thursday, November 15, 2007

When Narcs Attack
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.

The truth is that narcissists attack for no reason. In fact, they are prompted to attack by anti-reasons.

Of course the narc on your couch says he did it in self defense! He whines that the victim said or did something to slight him or anger his tender, tender feelings. Were you born yesterday? Narcissist = pathological liar. So, why do you expect him to confess to you that he is a predator = one who attacks any vulnerable target of opportunity?

I would hate to admit how long it took me to discover this, but in my experience, what triggers a Narcissist Attack is nothing but a vulnerable target of opportunity.

Test narcissists. Parade bait before them when the coast looks clear so that the narc thinks later it will just be his word against the victim's. Then watch what happens.

You can push his Attack button by having the victim be very vulnerable, like say by showing great affection for the narcissist and giving a heartfelt plea for some in return. (Rather like a man I knew who asked a narcissist to marry him and got eviscerated for it.)

How does the narcissist react to what should evoke his love and affection? With a savage attack, that's how. Rather like any wild predator when you ring the dinner bell for it by giving it a swipe at a defenseless creature's soft underbelly.

Except that natural predators must be hungry at the time.

On second thought, I guess narcissists have to be hungry, too. But they always are. For, they have the kind of hunger that increases the more you feed it.

So much for the theory that narcissists are just too touchy. They ain't touchy at all.

Test that too. Indeed, try to provoke a narcissist. You can't. Go ahead, try.

The only way to get yourself a raging narcissist is to tempt it with defenseless bait when it thinks no one is watching.

Now that you have your narcissist raging, do one more thing. Have the victim rise up rage right back it its face.

Guess what happens? Presto chango! Rage off!

Instead of a raging narcissist, you now have a poor little meek and gentle angel who wouldn't hurt a fly and is heartbroken at the victim being so nasty.

Welcome to The Twilight Zone. I call this miraculous phenomenon "The Transfiguration."

I am not exaggerating. You witness the instantaneous substitution of one persona for its very antithesis in the blink of an eye. You don't know whether to pinch yourself or start throwing holy water at it. Because an Academy Award winner couldn't do that that fast.

It stuns you and gives you the creeps. Indeed, one facial expression doesn't melt into the other: the whole mask changes at once.

I call a narcissist's faces "masks" because when you see this happen you know that's what they are. You know that what's on the face is a lie. It's the Big Chill.

A stunning revelation. The narcissist's very face is a lie about what is really going on in the darkness behind that mask.

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 Kim in Oz

[Kimberli63]

Ami, Gabben posted this several times. I identify with it and you might like to read through it for another way of looking at the feelings you are experiencing. In fact, I seem to have fallen into this trap myself.

1. As a result of abuse, the child experiences painful fear and hatred of the abuser(s).     

2. But because the child feels essentially powerless to stop the abuse or to convince anyone to help, the child begins to perceive     the whole world as "unfair."     

3. The child blames the world for being unfair, and, at the same time, begins to blame himself or herself for not being "good     
enough" to put up a successful fight against the world.     

4. The child learns that blaming the world does not provide any immediate gratification, and that punishing the world is not an     
easy task, but that blaming the self-and punishing the self-can provide immediate and controlled satisfaction.     

5, Because this self-destructive behavior is unconsciously directed against the world, however, and not against the self, the child     
cannot realize, let alone accept consciously, that he or she is now causing most of his or her own pain.   

6, Therefore, the child grows into an adult  who harbors an aching bitterness against the world for its unpunished abuses, and,     
at the same time, at every disappointment he or she will find some convenient, secret means of self-sabotage-and will then feel     
justified in saying, "Look what they did to me! It's not fair!"     


And what strange satisfaction maintains all this self-destruction? Well, it's the satisfaction of unconsciously hoping to show the world how wrong it is. Like Hamlet holding a mirror up to his mother, hoping that she will see in herself the responsibility he played in the death of the king, the person trapped in victim anger will hold  up his own destruction as "evidence" that, he hopes, will condemn the world.
 
Thus you might hear someone saying, "So what if I get cancer from smoking? Maybe it will serve them right. Then they will see how much I had to suffer," And so this unfortunate life will end, just like Hamlet, cluttered with death and destruction.

I hope this doesn't offend.

Kim in Oz

[towrite]

Ami - of course it makes sense that you are angry anyway, despite their just "being" what they were. Anger over not getting what we needs, esp. as young ones, is natural, normal, and expected. I never expected my NM to help me out in my crisis, but the hope she would never went away -- and it hurts that I have a mother like that. And makes me very angry.

kate

[Ami]

Thank you Kim, Kate  and Darren,
 Kim--your posts were tremendous you really "get" the deeper roots of N and OUR part in it---bleh. You,also understand how the N "switches" to the "good one". who is "sicky sweet"
 Kate--you seem to have lived through what I am going through. I appreciate all your help
 Darren--you are confronting how anger has played a role in your life and facing what you can do about it.
 Thank you again for your caring and helpful posts.      Love    Ami