What is "narcissistic rage"? (Glossary of Narcissistic Relationships)

hi everyone its dr. Romani welcome back to this series it's sort of a narcissistic glossary a handbook of terminology of everything you need to know to understand narcissism and narcissistic relationships the goal of this series was to provide clarity on all the various terms you've seen thrown around in the blogs and the videos and the chat rooms and all these places people talk about these relationships and by getting this clarity hopefully also even learning some techniques and ways to work with and around and away from these relationships today we're gonna take on the term narcissistic rage but before we get there as always if you're enjoying this content please hit the bell that will give you not only make you a subscriber to this channel but give you notifications as we post new content every time we post new content and we post a lot of it that will definitely bring you up to speed on everything you need to know about narcissism and our statistic relationship so let's take on a big one this is a big one narcissistic rage sometimes people who have been in relationships of any kind with narcissist have told me that they see their narcissists eyes go black as though a shadow comes across them and their entire physical presence just changes someone remember one thing to me they likened it to watching someone turn into a werewolf just it's a terrifying trans transformation it's a rage that comes on like a tsunami and this rage is completely disproportionate to the situation it is loud and it is terrifying it is narcissistic rage so now let's start by talking about the difference between anger and rage anger is a normal human emotion like sadness or joy and emotion anger is an emotion we experience and Express at times of watching or observing or experiencing injustice unfairness frustration inequity disruption or even surprise it is an unsettling emotion and it's an emotion we label as that negative mood state like sadness we have all all of us have felt angry and in and appropriate expressions of anger include a change in the tone and volume of our speech tears stepping away from a situation so if I was angry I would start talking like this you'd be clear our words become more clipped and abrupt we often say things that are regrettable and we can also get quite defensive we may also experience anger physiologically will have a racing heart we feel dizzy we'll find ourselves breathing more rapidly or in a more shallow way we could might even be trembling when we're angry anger as a rule does not feel good it is a sign that something is not quite right not quite good and all of us every one of us has said something we regret when we are angry in the most graceful of circumstances we recognize that we are angry we identify that emotion to other people and we catch ourselves before we say something that is too hurtful or too devastating but most of us rarely get it right we'd always monitor ourselves that carefully that's anger that's the nature of anger rage on the other Sahana on the other side is something entirely different it is often quite sudden disproportionate to the stimulus and it's accompanied by behaviors that are very unsettling for those who are witness to them and who are in the presence of them these rage behaviors can include screaming very very inappropriate obscene language typically and fully targeted at another person it may even escalate to breaking objects appending items like you know uh pending furniture damaging the environment for example punching a fist through a wall breaking windows or even escalating to person on person physical violence a person at a time of rage may may almost look like they're possessed as though no one can get through to them and if you do try to speak to a person who was in anise in a state of acute rage they will likely get more agitated and confronting them may actually put you at greater risk in perhaps in only the most rare of circumstances could rage at that level ever seem justified I mean listen as a mother I could say maybe for example if someone tries to harm you or really harm your child you would rage at them but outside of literal harm to you physically or someone close to you rage does not fly as an acceptable emotion or show of emotion so then we know what angers we know what rages what is narcissistic rage it is the rapid amped up rage that anyone who has ever been in a relationship of any kind with a narcissist has witnessed it is a terrifying grownup tantrum if you have ever witnessed a three-year-old throwing a tantrum over not I don't know being allowed to have a few more minutes at the park you get it it actually sort of charming and a three-year-old but it looks terrifying and ridiculous in a 40 year old man or a 45 year old woman narcissistic rage gets set off by a narcissistic injury or something we could turn an ego injury so the things that set off this big scary volcanic narcissistic rage can actually often be quite trivial how dare she didn't call me back what do you mean the receptionist called in sick the flight is delayed I am going to miss the concert what do you mean you didn't like the restaurant or I picked out I mean I thought it was please I'm putting that list together like what are the minor things I've heard people tell me their partners rage - and we're talking rage because the things that set them off that set narcissistic individuals off are so trivial we are often astonished at the level of Rage it's it's not the kind of anger situation I talked before about before it's not like someone threatened their life or tried to abduct their child basically they're disappointed because they didn't get the proverbial a few more minutes at the park basically though narcissists show their narcissistic rage when someone hurts their fragile feelings its narcissistic rage is often a relatively early red flag you see in a narcissistic relationship that people choose to ignore and you must promise me after this video you will never ignore it again the hyper sensitivity of the narcissist is the thing that shows up earliest in a narcissistic relationship you're surprised that someone so charming maybe even so arrogant so sure of themselves can be so sensitive when things don't go their way or someone doesn't say exactly what it is they want at first you may make excuses for them then a bad day they've had whatever worried they're just getting to know me but when that trigger happens for them it's actually really terrifying to witness it narcissistic rage is the genie you can never put back in the bottle it often fuels the fear that keeps these relationships together people become so scared of the narcissistic rage that they become afraid of communicating with the narcissist they never want to let the narcissist know about things that I don't know that would be potentially disappointing nobody really wants to be the messenger with the narcissist in case the news is bad or not what they want to hear and then people become afraid of the rage the narcissist will show if you've decided for example you've had it with all their shows of anger and you decide you want out their rage almost becomes like a prison of sorts and people can spend a lifetime appeasing a narcissist just to avoid their rage it is the same as allowing a three-year-old child to eat cookies for dinner and set their own bedtime because you're afraid of their Tantrums here's the difference with that three-year-old is just going to get noisy with a narcissist if you keep enabling their Tantrums it will destroy your life now many of you grew up with narcissistic parents and you saw firsthand that narcissistic rage as a child parents for example that would explode at the dinner table because you didn't pass the salt at the right way or because you didn't make your bed they completely rage at you or because you didn't say exactly what they wanted to hear or behave exactly the right way in front of their friends or they showed narcissistic rage maybe not directly at you but you saw it happen constantly to your other parent children who grow up in environments where there's this kind of rage will often report a whole range of symptoms going into adulthood including things like anxiety hyper vigilance which is sort of always being on edge and always monitoring the environment for threats fear of conflict avoidance and frankly fear of their own anger for people who grow up with narcissistic rage anger becomes a trigger throughout their adulthood and for a person with a narcissistic parent who goes on when they become adults to choose a narcissistic partner they might they might find themselves against again governed by someone's rage it can be a horrific playbook of an unsettled childhood that was marked by these shows of rage and you better believe that narcissistic rage is a major feature that we see in toxic workplaces toxic workplace is characterized by narcissistic and tyrannical leaders and bosses and managers and even colleagues these are the bosses who are verbally abusive the ones who throw loud Tantrums if they're not getting the workplace results or the workplace profits that they want who publicly demean their staff in front of each other or even in front of clients it is only in recent years that we are seeing a tiny bit of legal protection against these workplace tyrants but by and large these folks get away with their rage and they keep entire workplaces hostage out of fear they actually do become very clever to though about ensuring that they manifest their rage in ways that make it harder to shut them down they will rage at the rank-and-file employees but not in front of the big bosses and in smaller businesses where there may not be the protection for example of a human resource department and there may be few witnesses to a narcissistically rageful boss there actually can be very little protection for the really unfortunate workers who get stuck in these situations working with someone narcissistic many narcissistic bosses manage to be serial offenders and they get away with it through clever things like non-disclosure agreements settlements that require any form of non-disclosure basically you can't talk about what happened or it may even be the employees your colles that show the rage again these employees these narcissistic employees can be very clever at doing things like threatening lawsuits and using other manipulative techniques towards others in the workplace and to the workplace itself as such from a risk management perspective some employers might actually end up trying to appease the narcissistically rageful a manipulative employee to avoid the complex challenges and costs and potential embarrassments of a lawsuit and in that way the staff in companies that have cultures of narcissistic rage in the end become the sacrificial lambs because the system the system enables the narcissist so why do narcissus have this experience of narcissistic rage it's a tantrum rote style short answer they do this because they didn't get their way their fragile egos mean that they have absolutely no apparatus for managing any kind of disappointment or criticism or feedback or other negative emotions like sadness now disappointment is particularly challenging for them they are not able to handle hearing the word know or just simply not having things go their way they are not able to cope with getting a result other than the result they wanted-- they just can't get their head around that and this all goes back to that idea we talked about that narcissists are not able to regulate their emotions in a healthy way they cannot regulate any kind of negative emotion including sadness so instead of expressing emotions appropriately so for example appropriate shows of emotion might be crying talking it out taking responsibility thinking about it differently or recognizing that sometimes in life stuff doesn't go the way we want there's a moment of grief and then acceptance instead of doing that they fly into a colossal rage the psychological agony of the pain to their fragile ego to their core insecurity is more painful than they can manage or articulate and so they cannot regulate their reactions as a result they express it as a rage and in addition because they are unable to take responsibility for their behavior or to be self reflective about their contribution to a given situation so let's say in the workplace it would be something like for example they might say maybe we didn't do well with sales this quarter because I treated the sales staff badly or I didn't communicate clearly instead they blame the sales staff for being lazy and they expressed that blame through rage the sales staff didn't make their totals then that means the narcissist may not get their validation narcissistic rage is in one word unacceptable it's that simple and yet so many people enable it they enable narcissistic rage in their families they enable it in their close relationships they enable it in their workplaces they either are so afraid of confronting it or they take the out of oh that's just how he is his bark is worse than his bite and just like any bad behavior without any consequences it will never stop and very few people feel up to the task of giving them consequences so that also begs the question what does narcissistic rage due to us it takes a massive toll on our health it is horribly stressful and people who are consistently exposed to this kind of rage may experience a whole range of stress-related complications such as drops and dysfunction in their immune functioning making it more likely that they'll get sick headaches muscle aches exacerbation of existing health problems problems with sleep problems with concentration changes in appetite and a whole range of psychological issues including anxiety fear rumination avoidance hyper vigilance sadness depression helplessness hopelessness powerlessness and even isolation and avoidance of other people you become so fearful of their rage that you get paralyzed and you get stuck now at some level narcissus do recognize that their rage gives them power and they also don't care that other people are hurt by their rage after they have one of their meltdowns one of their narcissistic rage tantrums and their tension has been released they may actually see the fear on the face of other people because of their rage and instead of apologizing to the other people they will rationalize their episodes of rage and say ah don't take me so seriously when I am like that I just need to let out some steam which feels a little gas lady basically they have no empathy for the pain that they cause other people I mean to give you kind of a gross example it's as though they just vomited all over the place they feel better than other they got it out and now they expect other people clean up the mess now many people wonder if it is inevitable that narcissistic rage would escalate to violence now keep in mind that violence means lots of things violence isn't just someone hitting you violence also includes things like throwing objects punching walls breaking windows slamming doors pushing or god forbid kicking a pet driving in a manner that's a dangerous these are all things that qualify as violence and it's also worth noting how often narcissists will use their size to express their rage they'll draw to their full height and tower over you if you are sitting down using their gestures in an intimidating manner begging their fists on something to make noise and once these signs of rage start showing once the rage hits that high enough point person-to-person violence can happen even if it hasn't happened yet one of the most unsettling issues I observe is the number of people who excuse narcissists for their rage and their excuses but he never or she never hate me I promise you this it's just a matter of time narcissist narcissistic rage as I've said is unacceptable and it is also scary many people feel too scared to get themselves away from it if this is a new relationship don't buy into their excuses for why they say they're rageful because they're gonna have a whole lot of them they're gonna give you excuses like they had a tough childhood they had to watch lots of rage when they are growing up they will give excuses including early trauma and you know what it's not untrue these things may be true to it it is be sad for them be compassionate to them and get out you're not their therapist you're not the one who's going to turn this around for them you've got to protect you to me narcissistic rage is one of the most textbook and one of the most unsettling elements of the narcissistic relationship if you see it early in a narcissistic relationship heat it as the big fat red neon alarm it is if you grew up with it please consider seeking out therapy to work it through because it can be quite traumatic and recognize that none of us none of us are responsible for the narcissists rage that's their story to sort out let's stop making it our own we must stop personalizing their rage and taking responsibility for it whether it's the fact that you burned dinner or a few minutes late to a meeting because you had a flat tire you didn't make the sales quota or you bought the wrong gift for their mother none of those things ever would qualify for anything close to rage our tendency is to blame ourselves stop personalizing and put it put the responsibility for that behavior where it is and heat it as a wake-up call if the rage is that unsettling it will only tend to escalate and because they often come down off their rage episodes because they got their tension out and you're like well maybe they got it oh no they didn't get it they don't understand it what they do understand is I got my rage out and this person is still standing there so I can get away with this again it's up to you whether you want to be a receptacle for that person's rage because their rage is a heck of a lot less healthy for you than it is for them I hope this video has explained the concept the terrifying concept of narcissistic rage and as always if you're enjoying this content please subscribe to this channel hit that bell become part of this amazing community and if you have ideas of things terms I might have missed in this series drop them down in the comments if you don't get into it beauty of the series is you get surprised every day with the next term but if you don't get to it I promise you I'll give you a 22nd 23rd 24th day until we get through all these words thanks again

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 767,406

Keywords: yt:cc=on

Id: pEyKLMMj-FA

Length: 24min 46sec (1486 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 19 2020