We all have to deal with anger, right? It shows up and can sometimes get a little messy, but with a bit of sense, it will quieten down after some time and a little talk. Sensible, I hear you say! Well, that's where it differs with a narcissist.
Their anger won't originate from being hurt, but from a place of control. If they feel threatened, you can bet they will rage out until they've got the very result they were after. Lines get crossed, and you end up the hurt one.
I had a client describe it as walking on eggshells while wearing headphones. You never hear the crack coming, but you always end up bleeding.
These things make it dangerously so.
1 Don't mistake anger as being 'all drama'
Narcissists want you to believe that every time they're angry, it's nothing but drama. They want you to get used to seeing them light a fuse and express their rage, and they frequently do it for you to think:
Oh, they're just having another bad day. They're upset. I've seen it before. They'll calm down soon. Sometimes you know, they do. The fire dies out and they go back to normal, even a little bit too quickly for your liking.
It can be hard to adjust to something like an emotion, especially when you seem to be riding the wave of the narcissist's very up and down days, and you are expected to just go along with it. Here's the thing.
Sometimes, what you're watching bears no resemblance to a tantrum, or a little hissy fit. It's rather like a calculated move, designed to really hurt you and go to the next level, and it will always work as far as the narcissist is concerned.
If you can start to learn the difference and see the signs, you might just save yourself a lot of sadness and potentially avoid walking into any danger.
The most important thing is that you're safe, so if you can get to a point where you know the signs, you will be able to quickly tell when it's anger, and when the narcissist has another trick entirely up their sleeve.
I had a client describe her ex going quiet mid rage, staring at her, then smiling. That's not anger anymore. That's something else, and your body knows it before your brain does.
2 Each way out is blocked
The curse of the trapped: you can't leave. This isn't always necessarily physical, but it's definitely always the case. If you are in the room with the narcissist and they kick off, then comes the moment you try to leave because it's all getting too much, and you can't.
You can't leave, and not because you don't want to. What I want to focus on is:
The narcissist is hiding your keys so you can't hop in the car and get some fresh air. Your bag has disappeared so you haven't got access to your money or cards. They've parked directly behind your car and refuse to move, preventing you from leaving at all.
Sometimes, yes, they do block you physically. You're going nowhere until we talk this out. You always choose to run. This time, you're staying. If you think you're going, you've got another thing coming. It's what they do.
It's how they run their show, and you're just a spectator stuck in the bleachers, quite literally.
And notice the language they use. "We're going to talk this out." No, they're going to talk. You're going to sit there and absorb it.
I know this will be something a lot of you can relate to, and I don't like that fact.
See also 5 Creepy Things Every Narcissist Hides Somewhere in Their HouseI don't like to know that people become trapped in drama and toxicity to the point where they're being manipulated to stay and fester in it when all they want to do is take a break. Remember though, this is a person who needs you trapped.
They love that you're struggling with it all, and they want you to feel that panic set in, because that's their way of knowing all the control that they could have, they do have. All the adrenalin that runs through your body is a message being sent to you.
That doesn't mean you're overreacting; it means there's something seriously wrong with the dynamic you're in, and you need to pay attention.
3 The narcissist wants to sabotage what you love the most
It's a quiet one, but it matters just as much as the others. The narcissist remembers everything that means everything to you. They then get angry, and throw it all back in your face just because they know it will cut extra deeply.
You know your family thinks you're annoying too, right? No wonder your kids are turning against you the way they are. You think you've got such great friends, but I'll make sure they know the real you, don't you worry.
I don't want you to think this is the narcissist just sounding off, this is serious. They are dangerously telling you that they're a threat, and that they're going to cut all those good things in your life down.
They don't want you having any solid ground to stand on, and if that means carrying out these comments to cause harm; they will do that. This goes way beyond having a simple argument.
It's a warning shot dressed up as a tantrum. They're telling you exactly where they'll aim next, and expecting you to sit there and take it.
This is really creepy, dangerous business.
4 Rage out of nowhere? Big check!
One minute it's all okay, and right after that, there's this palpable, visceral rage coming from the narcissist, like a bomb has gone off. They will never give you warning, after all, for them, where's the fun in that?!
You stand there trying to figure out what to do, and all they do is laugh at you because you're falling apart before their very eyes. The whole presentation of a successful abuser is that they're unpredictable in all the worst ways.
Every facial expression you give off is a sign to them that they're winning, and it's a danger that all victims eventually fall into. If it feels like you're being held emotionally hostage, it's because you are.
And the scariest part? You start walking on eggshells before they've even walked in the room. Your body knows the rage is coming before your brain catches up.
5 I need to just say…
Probably something I most regularly remind people, and that's this:
None of this was your fault. The narcissist gets angry because they don't know how to regulate their emotions like a normal person. It wasn't a response you caused by being wrong, or not doing something how they wanted you to do it.
This runs much deeper than any of that, and if you can be aware, you can start to take that weight off yourself, as it's a huge burden to carry. Let me say too, that you can literally be the most patient person in the world.
You can give them a thousand chances, forgive them every single day, and understand them as much as they need you to…
…It will never be enough. You can give and give, but you're not going to get the person you want out of it, even though you're hoping and wishing that person will show up for you. That's because it truly was never about you.
It was always about who the narcissist could next find to control and trick them into believing that control was love.
You were interchangeable to them, as harsh as that sounds. Anyone soft enough, kind enough, patient enough would have done. That's not a reflection of you. It's a reflection of how they operate.
Seeing them as such angry people should give you the real story in a nutshell… You now know what it looks like, and you've seen a side of them that actually crosses over into dangerous territory.
For that reason, you know it's never really going to work out as you want it to. And it shouldn't, if all you are doing is walking on eggshells the way you likely are.
6 The silence after is its own weapon
The rage stops, and then comes the quiet. And you'd think quiet would be a relief, wouldn't you? It isn't. Not this kind.
They stop speaking to you. They walk past you in the kitchen like you're a piece of furniture. Meals happen with nothing but the sound of forks. You say good morning, nothing. You ask a question, nothing. Days of it. Sometimes weeks.
And your whole nervous system is on its knees trying to figure out what you did, how to fix it, how to get them to just look at you again. Because the shouting was awful, but at least you knew where you stood.
This is punishment. Make no mistake about that. The silence is not them cooling off. It's them making sure you understand who holds the temperature in this house.
And you start apologising for things you didn't do, just to end it. That right there is the whole point. They wanted you smaller, and the quiet did what the shouting couldn't.
7 When the neighbors hear it and you feel the shame
There's a specific kind of dread that comes with knowing the walls are thin. You're not just managing what's happening inside your home, you're also managing what the people next door might be thinking.
And you become an expert at it. You lower your voice when you plead with them to stop. You mouth things. You take the argument to the furthest room from the shared wall.
You put music on, not because you want to, but because you're hoping it drowns out the shouting.
Then you have to walk past those same neighbors the next morning. You smile. You say good morning. You pretend the bins are fascinating so you don't have to hold eye contact for too long.
The shame is yours somehow, isn't it? You're the one carrying it, when really you've done nothing wrong. That's the trick of it. The narcissist rages, and you end up feeling like the problem, apologising to strangers in your head for something you didn't cause and couldn't stop.
