Outrage
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.
42 thoughts on “Outrage”
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@Lake15 and @abrokenwing I hope neither of you are currently dating this douchebag he sounds like a top notch abuser.
Thanks Joanne. No , he discarded me. Oh, now I know what it was..my cooking!😉
Abrokenwing
Well that answers the question about your situation I asked before I saw this post. Do you know how lucky you are? You didnt have to cook and now youre rid of him? Girl go buy a lottery ticket but youve already won. If you go no contact and dont go back that is.
@abrokenwing,
I think WE date the same person! LOL I cooked once myself for him and the next day he told me he was “sick” from my cooking and from there on he reminds me why I am not allowed to cook because my food makes him sick!!
@Lake15 Very unlikely! They probable came from the same school or that’s just something typical for all kinds.. I don’t know. Take care!
This is because he’s unable to feel and express gratitude, or any other positive emotion. He doesn’t know how, and is not intelligent enough to mirror normal behavior.
My mother…she would completely lose her shit and we never knew when it was going to happen. If she apologized we had to forgive immediately and act as if nothing happened. If we didn’t she’d go right back into fury again. We were her little soldiers.
Ok, but why did you love him more?
What did you read in his behaviour that made you deepen the attachment for him?
Eleven days after that day I realized I was in love with him.
I read about the Stockholm Syndrome, maybe that’s what it was, but I’ve loved him ever since. I felt something was very wrong, and he needed me very bad. Any other woman would flee that day and never look back. And I’m still here, have been there for him all those years through a lot more than that. Last summer I bailed him out of jail after his mother called cops and she filed serious charges against him, of course bogus ones.
He’s been thru felony charges and is on two year probation.
After six years I decided it’s time to move on. Now that I know what I know, there’s nothing more I can do for him.
A psychologist friend was warned to look for first signal of agitation. Leave the area promptly at this point.
Otherwise you’re enabling.
Nothing to be gained by hanging in there. You know what’s next.
The narc has missing subskill.
– recognizing personal agitation and then self soothing. By the time it’s noticeable you can’t cure or control it nor did you cause it.
Are you saying that an empathetic person cannot experience a level of anger which leads to destructiveness?
I know someone who used to be an extremely sweet person the first twenty years of her life. She was hardened over time by a series of experiences with narcissists and now she is surrounded by narcissists in her life. Blows up all the time. Has been known to break things. The way she shouts when provoked can only be described as fury. You’ve mentioned in the past that an empath cannot become a narcissist. So how should I explained what happened to my friend?
An empathetic person can be angry, anger is a natural response (as discussed in the book Fury). We have fury, rage which is beyond anger. Your friend is demonstrating anger.
Thank you!! I simply have to read your book now. 🙂
You will find it very helpful
At me he was furious just once, when I caught him lying and he got oh so furious, I was happy it was on the phone. We broke up a few days later as I could see no sense remaining with sb who lied and who defended his lie with such a fury. But he was often furious with other people, who often were not present and some of them were out of his life for good: his parents, his sister, his ex gf, his (ex)wife. He could go on and on, getting more and more furious.
When I tried to tell him that none of that mattered any more he got even more furious. Well… Needless to say, these escapades bothered me and soon started to bore me. He would often say that he would give numerous chances only to his kids and gave a second chance only to their mother. The rest of us… we stand only one chance with him… Roughly, two weeks have passed and only one faint attempt for hoovering… Maybe I did get lucky? The fact that he knows not what forgiveness is may turn out great for me. What do you think?
There is plenty of time yet for hoovers to occur.
Fury – over the phone. When I told him my therapist referred to him as a “despicable human being”! There was a savage beast on the other end, the voice was like none other. Major injury…no fuel. He hasn’t a clue what he is…..Now I used to notice him taking frequent “cleansing breaths” was that a way to control his fury? He hated being asked…are you ok? Those cleansing breaths were something abnormal….
I agree with your observation SYD.
‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.. starships battle on the shoulder of Orion.. ‘
fury like no other.. by the end of the day all windows smashed to pieces, and all mirrors too ( a precious object to them), doors taken off hinges.. all that took place on a hot summer Saturday in his mid range mother’s house, which she delightfully provoked by inviting an unwanted guest while I was staying with them…..
and I loved him more
Wow what violence!
I don’t understand. Did you love him more because he destroyed his narc-mother’s house or because he is a narc and you like him when he blows all his s***t out (at others) ?
This happened six years ago, two months into the relationship, when I had no clue about narcissism and who they were.
His mother was untouched by it, I guess used to it because the house looked like it was destroyed many times before. I think she enjoyed it, because she provokes him into these rages, for fuel. Thanks HG.. now I understand what happened that day.
It lasted the whole day, he kept destroying things since nine am, till late evening, after I ran away hiding in a coffee place, ringing all my friends to take me home. When I went there to get my stuff from the house, there was no doors, and the way upstairs was blocked with debris and things, his mother picking mirror pieces from the floor, one thousand of them she said.
His hands were swollen, bleeding.
I didn’t understand, I was in shock. It was like he couldn’t stop the fury, the whole damn day, even after that guy was gone already.
I thought later they were doing drugs, and may have but he denies it. So it was just the fury..
And what happens after your fury? Do you want it to run people out or just momentary control? Do you like it to be acknowledged or ignored?
Once the fury abates because we have fuel it is business as usual and we usually carry on if nothing has happened.
what about an empath with narc traits a la super nova mode? what if we act like nothing happened after our own fury? does it work the same way, or is it another denial on the part of an empath to return after our own fury and not recognize what we also did? I feel this is a skill I need to learn somehow just to stop filling in the void of your lack of accountability. What if instead of recognizing our own reactions, we also take the road of not being responsible? I feel it may be one way out of my own pattern of assuming responsibility and blame and guilt. Does that make sense? Like we need to learn to be a bit like you and the manner in which you respond to your own fury. Take the release and move on and not fall down the empath rabbit hole. Take the release and then business as usual ourselves and not go into that regretful one down place that kills us.
What is the special reason we get the fury and others don’t? Why are you able to limit and control your fury and let it fly with others? I get the fuel component but there is something else. I almost think those you might have wanted to love ignite the most fury. Is there a correlation between how much a victim triggers your fury and how long the punishments and silent treatments last? Have you ever let your fury fly with NarcMother?
Others may well do, but if not it is because they have not caused the ignition of fury and you as IPPS are more likely to do so. There is also the consideration of the facade to take into account.
The link is between the extent of the wounding and how much and how quickly fuel can be obtained for the purposes of healing that wound.
I have in the past.
How did NarcMother take it?
It was all fuel of course, she drank it in her usual imperious, glacial style.
Oh please describe this more? Glacial style? I had this flash of my mother’s demeanor. And glacial seems it hits it well. Mine would draw herself up, pull away, her eyes grow detached, she would sometimes “sniff” in the air and somehow, also manage to looke entirely bewildered and lost. Not as a result of my fury but just my fruatrated anger at how she could be so stupid to not understand certain things or why she always failed to ever see my side.
You will read all about it in MatriNarc.
He was cooking a meal for me ( as he often did) . He never wanted me to help him tho (obviously , he does everything better himself ). Few strings of pasta got stuck to the side of the pan and burned. I have noticed. My mistake. He exploded with a fury.. I can’t even find words to describe it…” Why everything is f….. up when you’re coming over?!!”( it meant to be perfect) . I was told to go upstairs and wait till he finishes.My hands were still shaking but I tried to save the evening and compliment his efforts. ” The food is delicious, best carbonara i ever had” I said with a smile. He looked at me with contempt and went ..” You don’t even know how to eat spaghetti properly. Luckily you never ordered this in a restaurant otherwise i would be so embarrassed “. Fury. Over a few strings of pasta.
Strings of pasta are lethal if not eaten the right way. They might wrap around people’s neck and kill them, or they can get stuck in the throat, especially while screaming stupid things, and suffocate the unlucky one.
So sorry.
Haha.. I of course do know how to eat spaghetti, it was just his way to humiliate me …and this is just an example of narcissistic outrage coming out of nowhere and over something so insignificant.. from our perspective. I found myself going over the sequences of events in order to find out cause of this sudden eruption. I didn’t understood his bizarre behaviour at the time. I do now.
nhahahahahahaha Giulia.
I am Italian and i cook spaghetti all the time..
@abrokenwing, your post sounds so familiar. My food isn’t good enough, so I am never allowed to cook. And if I don’t eat all of my food, or cut it a certain way he makes a statement “What my food isn’t good enough for you?” “Do you know how lucky you are to be here?”
@lake15 Absolutely. Well , he actually asked me to cook for him once , which I did. It was a bit of challenge knowing how fussy he is, but I thought I did well and was pleased with the results… to only be told later in the evening that he got a bad stomach and I sicken him.
Abrokenwing
I dont know your situation if youve mentioned it elsewhere. Are you dating this person? separated? If you care to share that is.
Daddy, two or three times a month.
Yes. My narc descends into fury when there is no one else around as a witness. Last Saturday night was one such example, as I had the temerity to ask if my narc was alone when he called out if the blue. He was alone. (The women he’s tried to have relationships with recently have all kicked him to the sidelines.)
Such fury belies a narcs usual presentation, so that when you as their mark (empath) try to highlight it to others, you are disbelieved. Mine just out on a below par performance in court by trying to do the usual and smear me. It didn’t work this time. Expecting more fury shortly.
Is that last sentence complimentary?
No.