Narcissistic Rage

[Hazy111]

Thought some people might be interested in this from Sam Vaknins' latest tweet.

Narcissistic rage has two forms:

I. Explosive – The narcissist flares up, attacks everyone in his immediate vicinity, causes damage to objects or people, and is verbally and psychologically abusive.

II. Pernicious or Passive-Aggressive (P/A) – The narcissist sulks, gives the silent treatment, and is plotting how to punish the transgressor and put her in her proper place. These narcissists are vindictive and often become stalkers. They harass and haunt the objects of their frustration. They sabotage and damage the work and possessions of people whom they regard to be the sources of their mounting wrath.

In 1939, American psychologist John Dollard and four of his colleagues put forth their famous "frustration-aggression hypothesis." With minor modifications, it fits well the phenomenon of narcissistic rage:

(i)             The narcissists is frustrated in his pursuit of narcissistic supply (he is ignored, ridiculed, doubted, criticized);
(ii)           Frustration causes narcissistic injury;
(iii)         The narcissist projects the "bad object" onto the source of his frustration: he devalues her/it or attributes to her/it malice and other negative traits and behaviours;
(iv)         This causes the narcissist to rage against the perceived "evil entity" that had so injured and frustrated him.

[Prototypian]

I've seen both!   Not in my home or family but at work.   I saw one who could blow skyward and completely enraged scream at everyone over the perceived problem.   But I've see the same person scheme for five years to finally tear someone down at the expense of everyone involved including themselves just to get even.   I feel like the bond villains are always the second type who were once wronged by society and are now going to destroy the world in retaliation.

[escapingman]

My uNPDstbxw does both. The first one with pure rage is way easier to handle than the passive aggresive one. Often she starts with full blown rage and then move onto being PA. Sometimes she goes straight to PA and sometimes it's all over after rage.

[Cat of the Canals]

PDmom is mostly the Pernicious/Passive-Aggressive type, but she can become Explosive if there is any pushback whatsoever. Usually this occurred on the rare occasion that EnDad was at the end of his rope.

[losingmyself]

Isn't it interesting how long this has been studied!
In my home, it's definetly the P/A, but upon pushback, there will be explosive episodes. There's no debate, just agree with him, or experience the rage.

[Call Me Cordelia]

The one who holds a grudge for ever and ever and will plot for years to undo you is my father. I've seen him do it to a former boss. So... being NC for 4 years doesn't really make me feel like I'm "safe." I still believe some kind of showdown is inevitable. The longer I ignore him the more justified his retaliation. One of the mantras he drummed into my head was, "The cruelest thing you can do to someone is ignore them." So.

But, his schemes against that boss all came to nothing in the end. My dad is evil enough. But he's not as clever as he thinks he is.

He does the blowup intimidation thing when he thinks he'll get away with it.

[BeautifulCrazy]

Call Me Cordelia,
that's my OCPDh you described!

The one who holds a grudge for ever and ever and will plot for years to undo you... I've seen him do it to a former... being NC for _ years doesn't really make me feel like I'm "safe." I still believe some kind of showdown is inevitable.
...
He does the blowup intimidation thing when he thinks he'll get away with it.

[Call Me Cordelia]

I'm so so sorry.  I believe my father also has uOCPD. He has his version of what the "right" thing is and then never ever lets it go. There's no awareness that other views could also be valid, and that he's not the judge of the whole world. Everyone else had better comply. Especially HIS family.

[Pepin]

My father encompassed both.  I've generally always referred to him as a raging narcissist who threw massive tantrums destroying whatever he could physically get his hands on.  I don't understand how he thought that that kind of behavior would lend my siblings and I to ever take him seriously as a human being that we felt safe around.  The more we lowered our contact, the more passive he became and with age.  The garbage he would come up with was unreal and exhausting so we went NC with him.

My late CN MIL on the other hand was 100% passive and this is what coverts like her subscribed to.  Since she didn't deal with my alone behind closed doors, she attacked in plain sight knowing that if I questioned it, my DH would have an available excuse for her - which was disgusting to say the least. 

[Fae Greenwood]

Good Lord, the years of the Silent Treatment. Most of the time I didn't have any idea why uNPDh refused to speak to me. What really angered me was when there was an issue involving the kids, like whether they could go to someone's BD party or arranging taking one to her baseball game and the other to her soccer game and he'd refuse to speak to me! And then when I finally worked around his silent tantrums, he'd be angry that I took care of it. You want a say in it, sir? Then speak up! Idiot.

[PlantFlowersNotWeeds]

My stbxh would add in after all that arranging that I'm a controlling b-tch, I try to keep him out of things.....ugh

So exhausting