Outraged
Fury is the instrument of the narcissist. It is a tool that we deploy in furtherance of our aims. The narcissist’s toolbox is a thing to behold. It contains many devices, objects and instruments that we deploy in order to secure our objectives. Other people may use these devices in a similar if diminished form but they will not be anywhere near as dangerous and effective as the ones that lurk in my toolkit. Some of these instruments are used to subjugate, others are deployed to control and yet again there are others that will be used for the purposes of manipulation. The placing of fury in this toolbox recognises its use to the narcissist as one of his prime instruments.
All of our kind bring the fury but what is it? It will be instructive to start by considering what it is not. Fury is not anger. Anger is below fury on the scale of violent responses. Anger is a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure or hostility. It is greater than vexation, it is something more than feeling cross and it is beyond exasperation. Notwithstanding this, it is less than fury. It does not contain the unbridled vitriol that is synonymous with fury. Nor does it contain the violent hostility that one finds with fury. What is most important to know about anger is that it is a normal emotion and thus by comparison, fury is an abnormal emotion, hence why fury sits in our toolkit. Anger is an intense emotional response that is normal in nature and arises as a consequence of real or perceived provocation. Anger in itself is neither good nor bad. It can be used for either purpose and it is down to the manner in which that particular person handles it. An individual may direct it into violence towards another person in order to protect him or herself from a threat. Alternatively, it may manifest in the destruction of property. You as a normal and empathic individual become angry. Indeed, as part of our mission to obtain fuel we strive to provoke anger in you, either through angry gestures or through angry words on your part. This provides us with fuel when you react in this emotional fashion. It is an acceptable and understandable response for an individual to become angry.
It is a normal response to a threat or harm. It also releases pressure that builds up inside a normal person. The expression of anger enables people to dissipate this pressure and thereafter feel spent but better for having been angry, as opposed to suppressing the sensation and allowing the pressure to build even further. Some normal people can only take a small amount of pressure before they blow a fuse whereas other people may be regarded as slow-burners who take a long time before they express anger. In either instance the response is an entirely normal one. People become angry for a host of different reasons.
You may agree that anger certainly serves a purpose and concur that helpful and beneficial consequences can arise from this normal emotion. I should imagine that you will also venture to suggest that there is a downside to anger, that results in destructive behaviour and violence. That is not anger. That is fury. That is when something beyond anger is experienced and this fury is more prevalent amongst my kind.
Interestingly, anger also results in a suspension of empathy by those who behave normally. The individual, through anger, becomes focussed on his or her own needs and requirements. This is not applicable to me. There is no empathy to suspend. That is why we do not deploy anger. We have no need of a device to suspend our empathy because we do not have any. This is a further reason why anger serves no actual purpose to us and why we must deploy fury instead. Anger is a normal reaction. We operate outside of the usual normative values. This normal anger serves certain purposes. None of those purposes are of any use to my kind and me. Anger can be regarded as a force for good. That is not something that we are interested in.
Fury is beyond anger. It is wrath, frenzy and savagery. Someone who is furious has gone the extra emotional mile. One might even consider it to be madness. The wild nature of fury causes it to surpass anger and fury is not to be found in the responses of the normal person. I will emphasise that point. You will not find fury as a response of a normal person. Anger? Yes. Fury? No. The deployment of fury is the hallmark of the abnormal. If fury were a normal reaction there would be chaos as explosions erupted everywhere. Most relationships would disintegrate, more people would be injured, and property broken and destroyed and the repercussions for society as a whole would be severe. The cost in terms of money, emotion and well-being would be enormous. Consider the number of times you have been angry. It has happened has it not? You will also be able to recall when your parents or at least one of them became angry, a friend, a stranger, a colleague or a partner. You have seen anger in everyone and that is because it is normal. They may have used that anger for some purpose, kept it in check or let it flow over them and dissipate with no consequence. For those of you have had an encounter with fury, you will also know it. It will have happened amongst fewer people than the categories that I have just mentioned. This is because the development of people has been such that fury cannot become the norm. If it does then society would begin to break down. You may have seen many instances of fury from one particular individual. That is because that person is not normal. They are the exception.
27 thoughts on “Outraged”
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Do all narcissists cheat on their spouses?
Yes although the method of infidelity varies (physical, emotional, intellectual, financial etc).
Yeah though I walk through this Valley HG, it is passion, anger & fury that are always by my side. Many thanks for yet another beautifully brutally honest article. Much obliged. I find myself to be a real honest to the gods mixure of all of these due to having so many examples of the lesser and midrange and greater constantly surrounding me.
I am capable at any time of exibiting all characteristics from either one of these genres. BPD like everything else has it’s very specific origins and characteristics with possibly a smaller amigdlia even being suggested as being one. Inherit that from one of your parents and you become more likely to suffer the same consequences as the parent created too by that deficit.
Combine that with weather they are a lessor or mid or greater, you also inherit that imprint. (ie)
You will learn to shout or be violent like the lessor & manipulate like them as well through early imitation and then some of your impulses & mannerisms will then also come with the added bonus of you becomming imprinted with their survival skills too.
Midrange the same thing, and the same with the Greater.
We all learn to be like those we first live with and for all of us it’s the same.
You can become codepandant to anyone of these types.You learn yet another set of skills from the greater. You learn how to harnass them all.
The weaker survival lessons that you inherit from the lessers and midrange if not harnassed properly,will be your downfall let me tell you from experience. As HG relates here so much more eloquently than I who will state simply it will make you stand out like a sore thumb if you are not a good actor or actress yourself 100% of the time which no one can ever be.
These all make for crazy making senarios in life to be sure for each of the genres suffer from a deficit. If I exhibit based on all 3 I inherit all three deficits.
Combining BPD with C-PTSD, Clinical Depression,Stockholm Syndrome, co-dependancy, Yadda Yadda and Blah Blah blah, lol 😉
It makes for an interesting life I’ll tell ya that much. There is a famous poem in which last line is “the only reason I stick around is to see what will happen next”. Ahhhhh life. She’s a grand old Master and Mistress to be sure.
I just cannot help but to think it sweet that you talk of such horrid fury, but all along you maintain such proper English writing skills, with the “whilst”, and quotation marks set properly. I love the contrast between white, hatred fury, and proper punctuation and manners <3 I do!
Oops, I just gave you the recipe for the best weapon to use in torturing me 🙁
This man in picture has fangs. I do not have fangs, but my nails grow very long at a very fast pace.
This is yet another subject I am curious to learn more about HG, thank you for posting about it. I’d like some examples of fury. Let’s say I point my finger in your face and tell you with a calm assertive tone and look in your eyes and say that you better pull it together or I’m done. What would a fury reaction be to that? And what would normal anger be to that so I have a comparison. I too may be conditioned to fury from childhood or past relations, so I may not know the difference, then again I may know, and just not realize it!
You are welcome CC. If you did that to me it would ignite my fury because you have criticised me. If there was just you and I, I would most likely lash out with heated fury which may mean I lean in and issue a nasty threat to you as I give you “the stare”. I might turn and whilst glaring at you smash something of yours. I may explode in a tirade of insults, profanities and accusations whereby I detail all of your failures to “pull it together” – it would not matter if they or real or made-up, you would receive a real blast. If we had company I would give you “the look” just for a second or two and mutter “later” to insinuate you would be getting your punishment at a later point and then I would make a point of ignoring you whilst you tried to assuage my evident but under control fury, thus increasing your anxiety as the point when that fury would be unleashed grows closer and closer.
I would rather this, than to be ignored and abandoned:-(
Thank you HG this is very helpful, and descriptive for me, I do appreciate your reply. I am curious as to how a mid-range and a lesser would react in the same situation?
You are welcome CC. A Mid Range would be more likely to use cold fury (though not exclusively) and the Lesser would be more likely to use heated fury. Their control thresholds are poorer than the Greater, with the Lesser’s almost being non-existent.
This tactic intimidated me in my 20’s. It was annoying in my 50’s.
I know what you mean, Elizabeth. I think we reach a point in our 50’s where our attitude changes. Where we used to worry about holding everything together and what the narcs thought, but now we just look at them and say, “No” and walk away. It’s like we come into our own power and no longer obsess about what other people think and do.
Fury terrifies me.. I walk away if somebody cant control their temper… Furios?? not with me !!!!
In fact, everything the unmedicated BPD does is extreme, intense, and radical. There is no grey area. No indifference. No passivity.
Do you have BPD Claudia?
I do, Bloody_Elemental.
Yes, indeed. I suppose NPD fury is even worse than unmedicated BPD fury, but an BPD will become furious enough to kill, and during the incident, there is nothing standing in the way of emotions, except white-hot fury. Of course, a medicated BPD is very much a different story. But, with a BPD, it is not so calculated, and therefore not as EVIL. It is impulsive, uncontrollable, and rather chaotic, but still, very much explosive, and there is definitely a super-human strength physically, as well as mentally, that becomes the BPD.
Perfectly explained, HG, as always.
Anger is the poor cousin of fury. I always tell people that they should count themselves lucky if they only make me angry. If I`m furious, it was time to start running before the words even left my mouth.
Fury is unrestrained, violent, disordered, destructive rage.
Preaching to the converted here HG. It never ceases to amaze me (It shouldnt, but it does all the same) when in the “middle” of some act of fury that the mood/reaction/topic/stance/direction of the argument etc can so easily change…all the while trying to control the reactions of the “victim”; especially whilst claiming to be attacked etc. It is not normal unless one’s normal is to be raised in such an environment…then the lines become a bit blurred by the conditioning. I have experienced this first hand lately when young adults complain of such behaviour and then slip into this mode, as though they know no other, everytime they feel threatened; and that may be simply as they were refused something or the possibly of this occuring appears.
Thanks for the reminder…as an empath it is hard to be comfortable with anger; dispute it’s value and possible healing power if embraced, and then let go of.
I feel anger sadness and confusion . I try to wrap my head around how someone could say they wanted to marry me and then cheat out of nowhere and start turning cold and going behind my back over and over again with lies and sex with others even when he promised he would change and now he is like “we can go to the courthouse today I will do anything you ask I will marry you today .” I was so stupid and I take marriage so seriously and I will never cheat on you again “. A part of me thinks maybe if I do go back and we actually are married and I attend therapy with him then maybe he will be better and change . Would someone really get up in front of his family and his fiancée”s friends and family take vows for everyone to see only Brie it to be fake again and to cheat and lie all over again. I wonder if he is really capable of taking his deceptions that far or if he is being genuine this time .
Yes they would Starr. I did it as well. Of course this approach plays on your sense of disbelief – “surely nobody would behave in that manner?” – thus you become ensnared again – yes they will and yes we do.
Basically you are saying you promised to change and you told that person you wanted to marry them and make things right when you had no intentions of stopping the abuse or seeing other women ? How were you gonna feel though if you married that person and they caught you again cheating or lying and then served you divorce papers and told their family about everything . Do you not care about how your wife’s friends or family will think of you if you are caught cheating and there is solid proof you cannot deny such as maybe she had a spy cam on you or pictures or proof from text messages . Before I found out for a fact my ex was cheating I was going to install a spy cam in his bedroom because my intuition told me something was wrong plus I had seen the scratches on his back . You can only keep this up for so long before something goes wrong for you and people start to catch on that you aren’t the person you pretend to be . Do you care about whether or not other people such as your girlfriends family know about your cheating or abuse ?
I had every intention but matters went awry owing the the failure of the relevant appliance.
I have sufficient faith in my abilities to persuade and smear that I would make myself look like the victim in all of it and therefore engender sympathy. If her friends and family thought ill of me, it is all fuel and ultimately they would then be replaced as I built a new network of appliances from the family and friends of the replacement for my ex-wife, which is what happened. My facade remained intact because it was built in the main from my family and my friends.
I do not care about my girlfriend’s family knowing. Some will refuse to believe it because of my charm, the facade and plausible deniability. Others may not want to get involved. Others may “have a go” at me, it is just fuel. If they refuse to deal with me again, so be it, but I have new appliances to replace them. Read Smeared and you will gain more knowledge about what we do in such instances.
My Narc did this to me. He tried to see me for three months and then he said he made mistakes and blah blah blah so I gave him a chance. I flew back east and was packing my bags within three days. I called my therapist while he was losing his crap and she said “get out” and I called my brother to come get me. He was going to drive a hundred miles to save me. I told him to wait, I gave it one more day and then left. It was the hardest thing to do and being at the airport, in public, having to hold myself together, was brutal. I survived it. >
If you ever get the time maybe you can do a piece of writing about the way a narcissist or sociopath views marriage and what really goes through their mind and what they feel or do not feel when they are speaking the vows in front of family and friends . I think it would get a lot of hits and a lot of people would find that piece very interesting .
Thank you Starr, good suggestions, I have made a note and added those to the list.