Emotionally healthy people give warning signs that they are frustrated, and they attempt to communicate before their feelings develop into full-on anger. Those familiar with narcissistic rage, on the other hand, know that it is always at the surface ready to blow with sudden scorching fury and often some kind of physical violence.

space explosion--Narcissistic rage

Explosive narcissistic rage.

Adding to the devastation, narcissists rarely if ever take responsibility for their rage. Instead, they find reasons to justify their behavior and frequently project it onto the others they have raged at, typically a partner or scapegoated child, further increasing the abused person’s trauma. In narcissists’ own eyes, they are always the victim, never the victimizer, always entitled to vent their emotions no matter the consequences for others.

Narcissistic Injury

Narcissistic rage is rooted in “narcissistic injury,” or invalidating messages in childhood that disrupt a person’s emotional development of resilient self-esteem, a secure sense of identity, and an empathetic connection with others. People who form a narcissistic coping style are fundamentally ambivalent in their relationships, constantly looking for the acceptance and validation they missed in childhood while fearing the pain of those needs going unmet yet again.

The narcissist is a complex picture of grandiose entitlement and constant defensiveness against real or perceived threats to his/her inflated but fragile persona. The overt narcissist’s duality of superiority and vulnerability is expressed aggressively through dominating arrogance, hyperreactivity, and control. The covert narcissist has the same contradictions expressed through more passive-aggressive behavior such as guilt trips, sulking, silent treatment, and self-pitying displays.

The Developmentally Stunted Narcissist

rage face--narcissistic rage

The narcissist’s “defensive” rage

Like the very young children that they are emotionally, narcissists never learn to “play nice.” They never learn how to share, compromise, or empathize with others. They never learn accountability or self-sacrifice. They never learn unconditional giving or loving. Furthermore, the narcissist projects her/his primitive understanding of human emotion onto others, unable to recognize that those around her/him may be operating at a far more developed level of emotional awareness and compassion than s/he is capable of. Instead, the narcissist assumes that others share her/his primally selfish motives, however covertly or overtly displayed.

Hypervigilance

The narcissistic personality operates with a terrible hypervigilance that s/he also engenders in others. Her/his sense of emotional vulnerability is so intense that s/he is always guarding her-/himself against humiliation, which s/he continuously interprets around her/him as real experience. Day-to-day lows or minor rejections that all of us endure are magnified for the narcissist as shattering seismic disturbances. Life’s smallest slights can trip the narcissist’s alarm system, leading to rages and/or vengeful reactions.

People within the narcissist’s sphere quickly acquire their own form of hypervigilance to read the narcissist’s moods and try to avoid triggering her/his rage. Family members learn to placate the narcissist and, if possible, prevent confrontation and conflagration. Hypervigilance and avoidance, along with a host of other debilitating emotions, especially in developing children, nearly inevitably cause emotional and physiological problems that can last a lifetime.

It’s Not Your Fault

Perhaps the biggest challenge for the person living with a narcissist, even worse than enduring the narcissist’s primitive emotional violence, is learning not to blame yourself. Whether you are the child, adult child, spouse, or another family member or friend of a narcissistic personality, you are likely to doubt yourself and take responsibility for things the narcissist does that not only are not your fault but, in fact, hurt you.

The narcissist’s mantra is You made me do it.

Whatever harm the narcissist does, if you are her/his primary scapegoat s/he finds a way—however twisted—to hold you responsible. Wherever you are along your path with or without the narcissist in your life now, it is vital to understand that the narcissist’s disorder, unhappiness, and rage are not your responsibility. Repeat: It is not your responsibility, not your fault, and not your hurt to carry.

Read real-life accounts of narcissistic rages here.

Helpful? Buy me a coffee.Helpful? Buy me a coffee.

Julie L. Hall is the author of The Narcissist in Your Life: Recognizing the Patterns and Learning to Break Free from Lifelong Books/Hachette Books. She is working on a memoir about life and a few near-deaths in a narcissistic family.

Need help? Julie provides specialized narcissistic abuse recovery coaching for clients around the world. 

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Images courtesy of Felix Montino and www.ttufo.com.