Ablaze with narcissistic rage
What happens when you lance the boil of a dysfunctional family system?
I have been thinking about family secrets and dysfunction and how crazy it is that people make a silent pact not to talk about things, even when it is killing them.
And how, when one person decides not to play any more, they become the problem, not the entire dysfunctional system that is causing all the unhappiness.
And how that entire silent system is like a festering boil, and the person who decides to be free and to speak their mind is like the spear that lances that boil, and out of the boil spews all the horrible stuff that has been kept contained, like hatred and rage and sickness and contempt.
And how sometimes that horrible stuff can be contained within an entire family tree going back generations.
Yes, I am speaking in a (not-so) vague, roundabout way about my own experience. 🫠
“Dear cousin”
Last spring, almost a year after my memoir came out, I received an email out of the blue. I was in a hotel room in Thailand, where I had gone for a yoga and writing retreat. The sender was a woman I had never met—in fact, I did not even know she existed. She addressed me as “dear cousin” and then proceeded to vomit rancour and bile onto her keyboard. It went on and on. In 3,500 words (almost five times the length of this post) she attacked me indiscriminately and in every way possible, read things into my book that I had never written and no one else seemed to read there, called me a sordid variation of names, accused me of despicable accusations, claimed that there had been no alcoholism in her side of the family (what??), informed me that I was the narcissist (it’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me), whereas those other people I had “accused” 🤔 had all been upstanding citizens who hailed from such a fine family. I, meanwhile, was a disgrace (oh, the echoes of my mother in those words) and should be deeply ashamed of myself for all the immeasurable grief I had caused all the distant relatives who were now devastated because of the things in my book. Also, I was autistic. And spiteful. And mean-spirited. And had defiled my entire family.
I could go on. And on.
Was I upset? Devastated? Not very. This litany of malice was so outlandish that it was hard to take seriously. That said, I gave it due consideration—had I dismissed it outright I might indeed have been what she said: a narcissist, unable to look at my own flaws. I showed it to another cousin, who is as related to me as this woman, and who knows that side of the family better than I do. She was shocked and extremely angry on my behalf, and asked if she could show it to other family members. They confirmed what I suspected: this woman was unstable, and there were no legions of devastated old people in my family that I needed to have on my conscience.
Her mental instability notwithstanding, this unknown distant cousin of mine seemed both intelligent and articulate. And, dare I say it, her outburst bore all the hallmarks of narcissistic rage. That is precisely what erupts when a narcissist is confronted with the truth about who they really are; when the boil is lanced. It is a deadly rage; a killer rage. I spent my early life tiptoeing around it—at that time it was just a vague “something” I sensed in the air, that absolutely terrified me. It finally exploded in my face when, in early adulthood, I finally broke through my denial about the relationship with my narcissist mother, and called her out on her actions. That scene was horrific, scared the shit out of me, was absolutely devastating in its raw dehumanization and, well, evil.
No doubt the email I got was designed to do the same thing as my mother’s attack: make me doubt my truth, annihilate my sense of reality. Crush me, so the illusion could be maintained.
It didn’t work. In writing my memoir, I had to face down that monster. And in so doing, I was made invincible. No amount of narcissistic rage will ever silence me again. If writing my memoir accomplished nothing else, at least it accomplished that.
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I appreciate so much your book, Daughter, and your writing about narcissism. When you defined narcissistic rage a few weeks ago, a light went on in my head. I have been the target of and shaken to the core by narcissist rage. I could never figure out "what just happened?" because my family of origin didn't seem to include any narcissists. I only knew how shaken I was by the experience. As soon as I read and integrated the definition you posted, the scar faded and the "aha" moment freed me from the painful memories. Thank you for that gift.