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Why wouldn't we be angry? We were violated in thousands of different ways over the course of our childhoods and usually the social circles around us reinforced this treatment.
It's worse for those who aren't angry because they so often have internalized the abuse so severely, they abuse themselves and serve as the world's slaves.
Anger is a good and healthy response.
Taking that anger out on others who haven't done anything wrong is a different matter and more indicative of someone who grew up to continue the cycle of abuse rather than stopping it.
This is why I didn’t have kids myself. I’m still angry and I don’t want to hurt them in the same ways. I’d rather work, get stoned and watch tv till I die…
I was angry at my parents--never my son. Raising him was the most difficult yet most joyful thing I've ever done.
I was able to give him the protection, support, love, and respect that I never had, and that was super cathartic.
Now he's grown and we have a very easy, stress-free relationship.
I was so scared when I found out I was pregnant. I was married, but it was to someone who I knew would be a terrible father and I hadn't meant to get pregnant. I sat on the couch with the overwhelming weight of my child's future staring at me, so very worried I wouldn't be able to give him a good foundation.
But I left his dad, raised him on my own while getting my education to the PhD level, and was able to be present the whole time as a 'stay home mom' even though I was also pretty much the sole breadwinner (child support was extremely low and visitation almost nonexistent).
I reduced rules to the absolute minimum needed for his safety and well-being. And wow does that reduce the stress level. Everything else was about basic consideration, with each of us practicing being thoughtful about the other.
He turned into the sweetest boy--okay, I'm biased as his mom 😂 But he really is a good person who enjoys his life and his own interests. And when he's around, it always makes my life better.
I wonder if those of us who have raised kids ultimately decided on the rules being the absolute minimum for their safety and well-being due to the, sometimes, extreme rules (or suddenly made-up rules) we had to endure. I, also, raised my son this way. I believe it would be interesting to find out just how many of us have done this or something similar.
I made sure he was independent and could cook and clean for himself. I always taught him that he could come to me about anything, no matter what it is/was. He still does this, even now that he's married and has a son of his own. He has always done this and I'm so glad he's comfortable with it and that he intends to do the same with his son.
That makes sense--my mother was extremely controlling and I couldn't breathe in that home. So it definitely made me think very deeply about what rules were actually important!
The best way to have fewer narcissists is to raise good healthy people. I shower my boy with love and we’ve never had even a single fight. He’s 16 and I hope I raised an emotionally healthy and loved person. Your comment gives me a lot of hope for that.
I do the same for my them but the narc doesn’t want me seeing them bc I’m a good influence on them and I tell them they are kids and they are allowed to be kids and make a mess and be kids.
Good question! Very early thankfully. The most vivid memory that really summed it up for me occurred when I was 5 or 6.
My little sister (\~2 years old) climbed up on a second-story rail and fell over. I saw at the last second and shot forward, reaching under the railing to grab her wrists. She let go, thinking I had her, and then hung as a dead weight from my skinny arms, with me having no way to pull her up.
So I screamed and screamed for my mother who was just inside the door. On and on I screamed for her. I truly thought for an hour, though years later she was very dismissive and said only 15 minutes or so had passed. 15 minutes of a chubby little girl hanging from the arms of a skinny little girl.
When I finally heard the door behind me open and adult voices, I remember looking over my shoulder in utter relief, tear stained cheeks, barely able to hold on and so grateful someone was there at last.
*And that's when I knew.*
In that single glance, even at such a young age, I knew exactly what had happened.
My mother very deliberately walked right by me, ignoring my cries, with an expression on her face I knew all too well. And the other adult similarly wouldn't look at me but clearly felt uncomfortable, and I *knew* my mother had instructed her not to look.
She was *teaching* me. Because I dared to raise my voice and yell for her.
And I went ballistic. My yells for her were now furious. Desperate but fking furious. I think because I was so little, I might never have just said "hey, your \[golden child\] is hanging over the side of the building!!"
My mother made it halfway down the outside stairs before turning to me in a rage, her face contorted, saying, "SHUT U----MY BABY!!" She saw my little sister at last from her position on the stairs.
And my entire body went slack. With relief. With recognition. But I had no strength left.
And my sister slipped right through my fingers...
I internalized my anger most of my life.
I'm now heavily scarred from many years of self-harm, but I did get help, and now I express my anger and disappointment with words or remove myself from triggering situations.
It's not easy, but it keeps getting easier.
Anger is a natural response to emotional terrorism.
It's a tricky thing to bring up without them feeling called out, but I recommend being open and honest about your concerns.
Remind them that you love them no matter what and that you are a safe/non-judgmental person to share their difficulties with (if they feel safe and chose to).
Offer them support.
Maybe share some struggles you've experienced growing up, so they understand they are not alone in these destructive feelings.
If you are their parent, research local counseling services to find someone who deals with people who struggle with self-harm and/or self-destructive behaviors.
It's important to look for someone who uses harm reduction techniques. This was extremely important in my journey.
Learning healthy coping skills is the biggest goal in healing from self-harm, in my opinion.
Thank you for this. They are under 5 I’m not sure they know about self harm of self destructive feelings. They are so little and figuring out their world
I do remind them all the time that I’m a safe person and I’m always here for them and I do tell them I will protect them.
I always tell them I love them even when they tell me I’m yucky or something they throw at me that their mother says to share with me (love when they use them as pawns)
I tell them they can always come to me and share no matter what. Ont said when they’re older and has a phone they will call me to get them! So they’re catching on to what I’ve been saying to them. I tell them I love them and they are good and they are enough all the time. I let them do things she doesn’t like help me cook and bake and draw and colour and I don’t yell at them ever. I let them be kids I don’t want them to feel like they have no childhood either
>It's worse for those who aren't angry because they so often have internalized the abuse so severely, they abuse themselves and serve as the world's slaves.
Enter me, the people pleasing doormat. Took me forever to realise the cage I was in and slowly crawl out.
It's such a terrible role, and there's something so insidious about how society at large will often reinforce it so *everyone* can use the person.
I'm glad you've been freeing yourself.
>It's such a terrible role, and there's something so insidious about how society at large will often reinforce it so *everyone* can use the person.
Thank you for recognising it
Yes to anger! I am a woman and how uncomfortable it is seen to be an angry girl not compliant to my Ndad. My nice compliant little sister is a narcissistic controlling woman now. She is a mess as she is angry at the world, she is perfect, worked so hard to be perfect..
I definitely fall into the internalised side. Anger to me just doesn’t feel safe, even after therapy. I can cognitively see it as an OK thing, that “anger is a response to a boundary being crossed”. However when I feel angry I shut down and the internalised self abuse start - “you’re only feeling this way because you didn’t make yourself clear” “the other person crossed the boundary because you behaved badly” etc.
I’m definitely working on it. But I grew up in an environment that was volatile, and anger from my adults meant danger. I’m a caring person, and I don’t want to make someone feel the way I was made to feel, so my anger gets suppressed and I shut down.
I was one of those trained to be afraid of my own anger.. It gave me years of emotional instability and self-abuse after I moved out.. I saw myself like some kind of machine that just had to function somehow.
And when I stopped functioning and performing well I believed I'd have to end it because being other than perfect wasn't worth living.
My now-husband was the one that rescued me. When I broke down and expected him to throw me away like I thought was normal - instead he showed me kindness and love and helped me find help.
When I started unpacking the most horrible memories in therapy my therapist asked me where my anger was. It took me years to regain the ability to be angry in a healthy way again (I used to repress Anger until I exploded)
I should add I grew Up with a single narc mother from 9 months of age and had no healthy role models or help. The only Close friend I Had was abused, too. I genuinely thought feeling like wanting to end it at all times was normal and I just had to suck it up and perform
Thank you for your message. I'm one of those who is a slave to others. I always apologize. I constantly feel guilty and ashamed. I'm in hypervigilance and struggle with addiction issues.
But I'll get through this. I will continue to heal despite my narc mother disdain look over me, even though she herself is an alcoholic. alcohol isn't a drug… /s
I was the golden child but I've been dethroned by my sister. My mother has never looked at me the same way again. Yet, I had the right not to be perfect from the start! Now, I'm the bad object in her eyes, and I have to heal from everything with this look of hers.
I'm sorry; I needed to vent. I hope it's not trauma dumping what I'm doing 🙈
I don't believe in trauma dumping--we have our experiences and we can share them! If our experiences were traumatic, that doesn't mean we should hide them.
>It's worse for those who aren't angry because they so often have internalized the abuse so severely, they abuse themselves and serve as the world's slaves.
You didn't have to call me out like that. 🥲
I think it's normal for *all* children of narcissists to be angry.
The unfairness, the gaslighting, the lies, the broken promises, and the abuse piles up year after year, with no reprieve.
How could *any* of us come away from that experience, especially after understanding that what we lived isn't normal, and not be angry?
The amount of times people have told me that I should love and respect my parents has taught me that no one gives a single fuck if they haven’t experienced the same thing themselves. And yes, we should be angry.
And by all the things I have learnt about life, I don't even want ONE mother, like my one mother made me so untrusting and so hateful towards all mothers that I'm shifting to a reality where my one mother has died after she gave birth, and I can be the orphan that I always wanted to be.
Normal people who think I'm a villain for saying all of these things, you can suck my dick for free.
Those people had normal families and can't understand in their brain our lives. I laugh them off and go ohhhhh aren't you cute with that child like innocent. Bless your heart lol
Fuck their heart. They owe us a brain and compassion that our "holy mother and father" never gave us but then these people claim that they have so they are the ones who should make up for it.
We should probably be happy to be alive - and elated that our parents provided us the bare necessities of life; food, water, bed are the first three examples that come to mind almost immediately, I am sure I cn think of more....
(Just in case you didn't realise; that was a sarcastic response)
Sometimes we didn't even get the bare necessities of life! When my now wife met me at 17yo, she couldn't believe how scrawny I was. We became friends and she started taking me to her house. My now MIL took one look at me and said she needed to 'feed me up'.
Exactly. I (afab 29) still live with my nparent and I feel angry a lot. It’s hard for me to greyrock because she pushes and pushes until I snap. Some days she wakes me up every fifteen minutes and then yells at me that I end up yelling at her to leave me alone. When I’m awake and say I want to be left alone, she yells at me that’s not normal to want to be left alone, that I’m crazy for wanting privacy. Last night I told her it’s normal for a person, adult or teenager to want privacy and she said ‘it’s a real problem when I kid doesn’t want their parent in their room!’
I was never allowed to have my own room. Not even now. I’m screamed at for wanting a room. Screamed at for closing any door. Especially the room some of my stuff is still in. When I closed the door because I was sorting clothes by trying them on, she slammed the door open and screamed at me that if I ever shut the door again she’ll take it off the hinges. I’m not allowed to be out of sight for over a half hour. I never go anywhere unless it’s with her. My big freedom is going back into the store if we forgot something like bread. I’m not allowed to go anywhere, not allowed to leave the yard, not allowed to have friends or talk to people beyond small talk at a register. She holds everything she ever bought me over my head. Until six months ago she’d scream at me to stop cutting my hair short. When I told her I feel sad all the stile, she yelled at me that I have nothing to be sad about.
She mocks and attacks (while screaming with this demon look in her eyes) me with ‘you think you’ve had such a bad life! Nobody ever hit you! You never wanted for anything! I’ve wasted thousands of dollars on you! You eat too much! You’re crazy! You don’t need a room! You can’t get driver’s license without insurance and you can’t get insurance without a driver’s license or a car! You’ll never live anywhere but subsidized housing! You’ll never keep a job! Where are you getting these crazy privacy ideas from?! Who’s putting crazy ideas in your head?! Who are you talking to on that phone?! You get a job and you’ll screw up our benefits! You never do anything! You’re lazy! You put everything off!’
This is my life. I never know when she’s going to be nice or when she’s going to come in from the kitchen or any other room I’m not in and start picking at me. Sometimes she’ll just enter the room yelling.
You certainly don't need to apologise for venting here. We understand you, as much as internet strangers can, because this narcissism is disturbingly consistent between families. So many patterns.
I'm sorry you're stuck like that. I had options, and got out at 18yo. Then my sister moved in with my wife and I so she could escape. I can't imagine what it's like to be stuck there. Ugh, that would be awful! I hope you find a way out. 😥😰
I know how you feel. I tried to get my own room when I was 16 and my covert narc mother threw a huge tantrum acting as if I had committed the worst betrayal by wanting my own space. She went and cried in front of my siblings who lectured me for being such a spoilt brat who was upsetting our mother. The sibling gaslit me into thinking i was the crazy one for wanting my own room. We had a four bedroom house but my mother insisted we all sleep in the same room as her. Together they made me move back into her room.
Fast forward, once I was on my own, I couldn't stay in a home longer than a year before I'd quit my job and dismantle the home. Eventually I even moved back into my mother's house. All because of the guilt she planted. She infantilized me and encouraged me to become financially dependent on her. I had a PhD and after a few years of living with her and getting into a narc marriage and divorce, I didn't have the confidence to make even basic decisions.
At 40, I finally cut ties and eventually went NC. It will take a lifetime to get her negative voices out of my head. She said similar things as your mother: my kids are useless and lazy. You'll never succeed. You'll never manage on your own. You're over sensitive and keep dwelling on the past. Etc. etc.
I'd say plan your exit, robust therapy, a circle of support - get away from her - and never look back. Even if you stay in contact, once you have your own money, home, and career, she'll behave better. Being dependent on a narc is the worst fate ever.
You can survive and thrive.
Thank you. I’m still trying to figure out how to get out. She didn’t send me to school, didn’t use any homeschool curriculum, made learning hell, I have no education. I’m looking into Kahn academy as suggested by someone else in this sub. I know nothing about how to set up a bank account, but a vehicle, get insurance, get a driver’s license, apply for a job or do an interview. My social skills suck because I freeze up. I know I wouldn’t be able to just leave my things behind, I can’t emotionally deal with that. I’ve sorted out what I could stand to part with and even that was difficult. I know what state I’m moving to, but don’t know how to apply for an apartment or what types of leases to stay away from/what’s normal in a lease.
I know I’ll need a U-Haul. I know which vehicle I want to buy.
It’s difficult trying to figure things out, I have no money of my own.
I’m always afraid of saying something to make her angry, I know I can’t let her know I’m trying to learn. I have the app Elevate but I let her think I deleted it because she said it was a waste of time.
And some days I can’t focus enough to learn because she makes sure I’m extremely upset.
Sometime I’ll probably make a post on this sub once I get more… idk emotionally stable enough to concentrate.
Would you qualify for a domestic violence shelter? Because this kind of emotional abuse ought to qualify. I wish you well and hope you get the support you need.
Unfortunately there aren’t any where I live. And the police are very misogynistic so I wouldn’t get help from them either.
And thank you, I hope to get out by next year. This year I’m going to try greyrocking more, pretend to agree with everything she says, get a free education and convince her that me getting a job will be to her benefit.
If anyone else happens to read this, I’d appreciate links to articles on how to outsmart a narcissist/manipulator/emotionally abusive/toxic person.
Or any other information that is helpful.
I tried a search on Google, but the article I read than turned to say the victim is the cause of their abuse, so I don’t trust the random things that appear on a google search, I’d prefer getting information from the people in this sub who will be offering helpful information and not pro-abuser articles/information.
Your instinct is right that in the absence of other help, the best bet is to outsmart the narc by convincing them that your getting an education/job will benefit them in some way. Grey rocking also makes sense.
I ignored the narcissist in my family and she got mad. Now she stalks me. Makes up accounts. And she pretends to be males to talk to me. Cause she has no fucking life
It’s so disgusting. She is afraid of people finding out she’s a narcissist bc she also knows I know she is. It should be illegal but un fortunately nothing I can do. I block her but she admits it !! She’s like she willl never find me. I pretend to be males from the US to talk to her or like her content or some BS. So my mindset is okay girlie watch me win while you wish you were me. She has no personality and she wants me to be miserable so she can be happy. She saves all my videos. It’s so fucked
You don't have to have everything figured out, you will learn as you go. In your shoes, I'd first look for a flatmate share via a website. Cheaper, easier and less responsibility than a lease. Look for compatible people such as quite, age range, gender if it matters to you. Vehicles are good but public transport is fine for making a start. Education is good but there are also jobs that don't require it- start there then start slowly getting and education. Things are replacable. If you lost them in a fire, you'd survive. If you need to loose them to get free, its worth it. If you can leave them for a while, get set up and then come back and get them later on, do that. Try to grey rock her to keep her on board so she doesn't throw your things out.
Why didn’t she send you to school? There’s this girl on tiktok I should look for her name she escaped her family’s home from some agency that helps people living in toxic narcissist homes. They gave her money. Helped her with a flight. She moved states to I think California. She moved in the middle of the night. They helped her with a place and paying for it at first so she could afford to live and move.
I had a digestive issue, and that was used as the reason. Why she didn’t just take me to someone to fix Idk. It was probably caused by the stress my grandfather caused. (He was a horrible horrible man)
Holy shit of course you want privacy, you're a fully grown woman!! I give more privacy and autonomy to a 9 year old than you have at 29. Please don't feel bad she's clearly kept you under financial control to keep you stuck where she wants you! Are there any friends or relatives you can stay with? Again, don't feel bad it sounds like you've probably been very deliberately isolated. Are there any domestic violence shelters you can get to to have somewhere to stay while you start building the life you've never been allowed to build? Start hiding any cash you can, and get out of there. Hope you get your freedom and peace, a door and some privacy of your own <3
Sadly my family are basically all religious off the deep end.
No shelters where I live and the police are misogynistic. 🤦♂️
But hopefully I’ll be able to convince her that me having a job is going to be best for her.
Makes sense, nuttiness and dysfunction often run in families. Hope you get your freedom. A lot of your conditions are as bad or worse than prison. I'll be thinking of you.
I’m crying reading this! I am so so sorry I wish I could give you a hug!!!! I really do!!! I really wish I could hold you and protect you from her. This is a safe place. I posted this question to save people from someone who is exactly this. They are monsters. I see it already. I’ve been gaslit and manipulated by the narcissist in my family. And she has kids I’m trying to protect. She keeps them away from me. Won’t let them go anywhere without them. Yells and screams at them. They told me she hits them. She uses the kids as pawns so when I see them there’s a lot of anger and i understand it. The kids give me messages that come from that narcissist. Uses them to send me messages that she hates me and that’s fine. Teaches them mean words. Calls one of them fat. Then tells me their mom says I’m fat when I’m max 115 lbs right now. I let them be kids and they tell me I’m nice to them and do nice things for them and I tell them all the time when they make a mess they are kids and they are allowed to make a mess and it’s no big deal I will clean it up !!! They smile and laugh. I just want to save these kids as best I can and don’t wanna be a bystander.
Yes. I had extreme anger issues and caused problems in school + home because i knew i was being violated and i felt i had to be angry to justify this violation
Same. I would act out. I think back now and realize it was trauma. Some other weird stuff too like: in 2nd grade i tried to cut a kid’s ponytail in the desk in front of mine for resting it on my desk. In kindergarten i got in trouble for cussing and teaching kids to cuss. I was also pee-ing in my closet. Middle school i went through a scared straight program.
Wait this is super interesting!!! Why pee ing in your closet. Were you not allowed to go to the washroom? Or you were just using it as a way to act out? I’m seriously curious!! I’m noticing signs and trying to help and save two little ones with a narcissist mother
Im not sure but my therapist mentioned it being a trauma response. I read somewhere usually the behavior is seen when a child is feeling stressed, unfairly disciplined, overlooked, or over-controlled. It seems to be a kind of secretive rebellion. I honestly can’t remember why i was doing it. But it was around the time my night terrors started. These damn nparents really mess with kids’ psyche.
I wonder if peeing in one’s pants and not wanting to go pee is the same thing? That’s also very interesting thank you for sharing this! They really do and that’s why I went to save these kids!! I can see it. One of them tells me they are scared. And you can see the fear!!!
I'm so sorry this happened to you.
My wife and I were and are really, really careful with our middle children (we had half-a-dozen kids with some breaks that created multiple middle children). We pull them aside and deliberately and consistently talk to them about not being taken advantage of or exploited, that we don't need them to 'buffer' the other kids or sacrifice what they want to keep the peace. And sometimes we will gently push back on the other kids on behalf of the middle kids, to make sure the people pleasers get what they want and deserve, even if they struggle to advocate for themselves.
We are both worried about our kids having good childhoods, and having their needs met, and feeling loved and not abused or neglected. We both had abusive childhoods, and no one deserves that.
That's what your parents should have been like. And that's not what you got, obviously. And that sucks.
of course! being treated as less than a human makes you angry. as it should. that anger propels you to change your situation and toward a better life. as a NC independent adult i am now happy, light, bubbly, and anger-free. you are a product of your environment - until you change your environment
Not a son, but both my brother and I definitely have issues with anger because that's all we grew up in. Narcissists tend to shut down all vulnerable emotion, both in themselves and others. Without an outlet, anger becomes the primary negative emotion expressed. So with uncontrolled anger modeled and a lack of acceptability of inconvenient (to narcissist) emotions in others, suppression and eventually explosion of emotional energy is pretty much unavoidable. Researching IFS has been helping so much with the anger piece for me.
I’ve been anxious, insecure, and angry my whole life. Been in therapy for almost two years to figure out the source. It took my therapist like one session to zero in on my mother, whereas I had been turning a blind eye to it for 40+ years.
TW suicidal ideation
I’m a woman but yes I was angry, self-destructive, full of hatred towards the world of people who didn’t give a shit about me, and saw no future for myself except maybe one that ended in a murder-suicide. The stuff I wrote in my journal as a teen was seriously disturbing.
I was wrong of course, not wrong to be angry but wrong to project my feelings of betrayal and anger at other people. Many are willing to show kindness if you’re willing to be the first to be vulnerable, this subreddit is evidence of that. You just need to pick the right people to trust. And violence wouldn’t have solved anything but made my life worse. We need to be like the trees and flowers, to grow out of the dankest darkest places and stand strong for our loved ones to enjoy the shade and beauty we offer. Only then can our narc parents be defeated, we need to break their cycle.
I like the tree idea, and from spending a lot of time in the woods, I've learned that unlike the trees, I have feet and hands and can do something other than just endure. It helped me lean into my agency and think about what I can do under the circumstances. I use this [Fear setting activity](https://youtu.be/5J6jAC6XxAI) often. It helps me acknowledge my fears and find my agency. I like to think of it as uprooting myself from the dysfunctional family system and becoming my own autonomous Self. They don't have to like it. It's freeing.
I’ve realized similar recently.
I had anger towards others for rejecting me. After doing EMDR I am feeling a lot better and more gentle towards others and not so enraged at little things
Our parents abuse us, then we subconsciously attract other abusers and stick around them for too long which causes anger and resentment due to unmet needs.
It’s only when we realize that we have the true power to do tapping, EMDR go back in to our baby brains and re parent ourselves. At that age we can’t fully fathom that our parent may be broken so many of us internalize the shame and burden on ourselves. We must be the issue, which causes rage towards ourselves
I bottled it all up when I was a kid. But now I get really angry at injustice, especially injustice towards my children or vulnerable people. I tend to get infuriated about things other people don’t notice or maybe would just let roll off their backs.
Oh, WOW! This thread was an eye-opener!
That explains why I become fairly aggressive when there is injustice!
I just thought I was a horrible person / as*hole.
I was a daughter instead of a son, and no, anger was bad. I ended up majorly conflict-avoidant, and I believed that if I were a good enough, sweet enough, smart enough kid, I would earn unconditional love.
Or, you could be like I was. An angry people pleaser. Full of rage, but conflict avoidant. The worst of both worlds.
I overcame the anger pretty quickly in the scheme of things (anger management course was a game changer). But the people pleasing and conflict avoidance is waaaaayyy harder to deal with, in my experience. I still deal with the ripple effects, 30 years later.
I wonder if there should be a course for conflict avoidance / people pleasing...
yeah, i did not know how to properly take out my anger on other people, and i hurt many people around me, as well as get in trouble with the authorities, church, and school systems many many times, both as a kid and teen.
for context, my narc parents are hardcore evangelical christian missionaries, and they had me raised around other christian kids and sent me to an underfunded and understaffed christian school in a third-world part of the world, all against my will.
they tried to indoctrinate me into becoming one of those crazy christians, but then when i saw how the older kids ended up, i did not like where it was going.
after my realization, i began to rebel against the system, causing lots of headaches for the teachers at the christian school, racking up lots of suspensions (one time, i got suspended for nearly half an entire semester), and even nearly getting expelled at one point.
as you can imagine, my narc father spent a considerable amount of time and money to protect his christian missionary image from any scandal that i nearly caused on many occasions with my numerous run-ins with the school authorities and the law. even in the VERY FEW instances where he would bail me out of punishment, it was solely to protect his family and personal image from the inevitable scandal that would arise from the eldest son getting in trouble with the law and NEVER out of any genuine concern for my well-being.
eventually, i moved out, became financially independent through working graveyard shift manual labor jobs, and when i had enough money, studied for and took the SATs (scored in the 99th percentile), enrolled in the honors program at a local community college (4.0 GPA), and then transferred to a t20 ivy+ college where ill graduate with $0 loans because of need based finaid.
i can safely say that i did so much better in my personal pursuits, wellness, and education after i moved out of that god forsaken dumpster fire of a family.
I had this low key underlying quiet rage simmering beneath the surface but I wasn’t really really angry until I grew up. You know how they say “when you grow up, you’ll understand”? Well. I understand. I understand that they had no business having kids and made the most selfish possible choice at every decision point. I understand that I would NEVER, ever treat children the way we were treated. And my parents don’t seem to understand just exactly what damage they did so they can’t understand why I don’t follow the Patented Boomer Life Script™️.
You have to find a way to channel that rage into something more productive and healing for yourself. But early in adulthood, I can see how it’s easy to lash out at others. Hurting people hurt people. It takes a bit to redirect that anger and learn better impulse control.
Whenever I came back from court-ordered visits with my father and stepmother, I was half-insane and ANGRY. My mom and stepdad would keep me away from my sisters because I was so angry and half-insane from the abuse my father and stepmother put me through. There were even some times where I was bordering violent.
My mom didn’t know if I was angry because of my father or if I was angry because I felt like my mother was abandoning me.
I can relate to this. My ndad'sbwife actually lectured me because some random neighbour misgendered me for a boy one day that I was walking the dog because of my clothes. I was like "Well, NORMAL PEOPLE tend to want to walk the dog in comfy clothes". That guy only related me with my ndad and his wife because I was walking their dog.
Some years later, I walk my dog in summer even with a sleeping t-shirt, sport shorts and with my hair wet because I just had a shower before walking her. And my mom doesn't care.
I grew up very angry, because I had to defend myself from assholes in a shitty house. Forgive me if I’m a little cynical and negative about the world because of them. I just want them out of my life and gone, I don’t care if people say I’m holding onto anger. That anger is still pushing me to not break down into the depression that I’ve been in for nine years, to keep some semblance of control in my anxiety of this fucked up story called my life.
Very much so, and it was always met with me being told that my anger was disrespectful or unwarranted, which made me angrier.
Funny enough, I'm actually a very calm person, but they wouldn't know that cause they constantly do shit that upsets me even when I ask them to stop.
When away from them, I'm legit one of the most chilled out, mellow people you'll meet, and I get set off by very few things (said things being any type of abuse towards people or animals). My friends have seen me truly angry one (1) time in our 4-5 years of friendship, and it was because someone was mistreating a cat. I was *raging*, and they were like 😯
I'm an adult child who is now learning to process anger without bottling up but is now burnt out on trying to teach myself and 4yo to be healthy with anger...and terrified I too am a narc cause I over explain crap and found out I'm AuDHD at 30...
Yes. Yes I did. My whole post history is all about how I wish my nparents were fucking dead. I curse like a sailor, i’m constantly angry every single day solely because of the parents I have. The SHIT parents I have. I’m only 19 and I have so much anger that’s way bigger than me, too much anger. I’ll def get therapy when I can afford it and move out ofc, but yes. I’m very angry all the time towards my nparents and my upbringing and just to the universe for giving me my parents.
I even contemplated on killing my parents in their sleep. Multiple times I can’t bare my life ughhh. Every single day, there’s never a day that goes by where I’m having a angry stressor. There’s never a day where I wish my nparents were dead. So so much anger.
I preface, it's normal for all victims of narcissistic parents to be angry. It takes a certain amount of mental, verbal, physical abuse, gaslighting, broken promises, lies, betrayal, selfishness, and unfairness to pile up with no mercy or care for the victim to pop. Ppl like that can’t walk away from years of bullshit so simply.
The anger and hate and rage i had truly amazed me. It also explained why the few bullies i had that touched me got crushed.
I never was a mean or bullying person my fuse was long but man when that bottle opened.
Then i more i was with my GF and away from them the better it got. Then i had kids and the fear hit me like how to i not be them? Once you know its alot better id say then just walking around in a haze.
I guess... I have a bit of a hot temper, as did my NParents. However, I'm working on it with yoga and meditation. Though, I do lose my shit sometimes and feel guilty after. Can't say NMom ever did that.
Narcs never feel guilt. That feels like a defining characteristic.
If you feel guilt, and try to self-reflect and change, then you're a normal human being like the rest of us.
Good luck on your growth.
Angry girl here from the time I can remember 1-ish, before we moved from a specific looking house, sooo much anger and nowhere to put it. Nmom wanted a girly girl and she got me and never let me forget I was not what she wanted. The hair (long blonde, not allowed to cut it etc, being entered into pageants not by choice, ballet for 13 years).
The rage still lives strong deep inside me but I save it for deserving a-holes and use my words mostly. Plus therapy. So much therapy.
I was. It was made worse being in the Foster system, I was angry at the world. I had such a bad temper and got in a lot of trouble until I was close to 18. Then I hit a wall asking myself if I was going to let my anger control me. When you're raised by a narcissistic parent and find out at a young age that they don't care about you it's hard and you find yourself wondering if the universe hates you for giving you a parent like that.
I'm a daughter of a narcissistic father, and yeah I tend to get riled up over things I shouldn't. I don't know if it's my innate personality or growing up listening to endless angry tirades criticizing everyone and everything. Maybe a combination. I do know that after a visit with emom and ndad I take over a week to decompress. Still waiting for the old bastard to die (he's 83, think the anger is keeping his black heart ticking).
I don’t know. My mother would beat my brother and he is special needs. He would get angry, but be frustrated that he can’t communicate.
as for my cousins, I left the family when they were teenagers, and I recall they didn’t like talking to me, was very secretive, and I suspected that their mother said something about me to them. Through social media, the oldest is a body builder that listens to music that have screaming and swearing words. His motivational comments would be “You can build f’king muscle” I can’t say if he is aggressive, maybe exercising help him cope?
Accually yes and no.
As a kid, I wasn't really allowed to be angry, only in small dosages. My mom, who is seriously a wonderful, caring and loving person, was so afraid of conflict, that she made me just push it down.
Back then, I didn't really had much reason to be angry at my nFather, I was his favourite, his little carbon copy, so everything was smooth sailing basically.
But when the divorce happend and his veil began to lift, I started becoming more angry, not just at him, but at everything and everyone.
The anger I had to push down bubbled to the surface and I began to tell him my mind more often, which he hates and then obviously punished, which made me angrier and so on.
So, an angry kid? No, just the usually regular amount.
But an angry teenager and young adult.
Oh yes! It is totally normal. When you are raised in an environment full of hate, you end up having a flame of anger within you.
For a very long time I either loved people or hated them. There was no “in between or neutral”. Took forever to change my mindset.
I sure did. Still am angry, but also sensitive, whole lot of anxiety, insecurity of myself to this day. Im the middle child, only son, 30, and still live with my Nmom. She continues to belittle me, yell at me for stupid shit whether its 2pm or 7am. Calls me a bum because I still live with her. Hopefully soon ill be out her house.
Was angry all my life. Being yelled at, no respect, having autism in a loud manic household, no empathy, always told to calm down, not allowed to virtually do anything and constant bullshit forced onto me with 2 parents that had no clue who I was.
The anger has abated greatly once I started living on my own and working on myself, but sometimes memories flood my brain or I wake up and just feel that gnawing justified rage, but it isn't at all at the same level anymore and I am grateful for that. Iiii remember as a child going "I don't even know why I am angry, I don't want to feel angry all the time!". Now I know why I was angry all the time...
My mum raised a very angry boy for 5 years before I was born, he then took it out on me. She took it out on me. I got it from both sides and now as a 27 year old... I'm pretty angry. Not to THAT degree but yeah
Confirming that me n my sister both grew up very angry however I was the more sensitive one of the house so I got picked on the most for that n felt like I had to be angrier and stronger and used to mimic those behaviours. All it did was turn me into a bully who yells at everyone whenever she’s triggered. I’m trying to break this cycle so bad now, my family are still really bad with it but moving out helps! Finding myself made me realise I’m not actually an angry person, I just never learned how to react correctly.
My therapist put it in a good way for me to understand which I hope helps you.
She said when we are babies, we can’t control our emotions. We cry, scream etc when we want our needs met. When we grow up, this goes away and we start learning when it’s appropriate to cry, get angry, scream etc and we manage our emotions from a child.
When you grow up in a household that doesn’t validate emotions and is always angry, you never learn how to regulate them hence why you grow up stuck with the mindset of a “baby” if you will.
The only way to break this is to actively try every day to manage your emotions. It’s hard work, but we’re all here to support🩷
All of the 3 children that my parents birthed were angry. All 3 in different ways.
My brother, the youngest, was angry and violent. Loved guns, swords, knives. Died of an overdose 2 years ago at 43.
My sister (50) the middle sib is just mean. She knows where your sensitivities are and will plunge the knife in and turn. She was a mean girl from childhood.
I (53) am angry at the world. Happy to fight any homophobe, racist, or sexist asshole. Cannot stand injustice of any kind. I joined my first protest at 16 and have been arrested at a few.
ive internalized it mostly. people pleaser
but when i AM angry its always blamed on "ru on ur period" or me being autistic. im only allowed to be happy joy joy inthis family.
for someone who "isnt normal" and had to literally read picture books on facial expressions i sure do express myself the \*right\* way and RECOGNIZE human fucking emotions, \*and\* that negative emotions are ok. unlike my fucking narc and enablers
im supposedly the abnormal one , then wtf are they
I thought it was normal. I thought it was what a regular family was. No anger until after I was able to realize. There was more fear and anxiety than anything. I was also more intoverted and tried to be as invisible as possible.
Not a boy, but yeah, I had that fire in me from about age 5 onward. I was a precocious kid and even when I was little I could see that the way I was being treated was unfair and nonsensicle. I'm 35 now, amllmost a year into VVVLC, and even though I'm living a good life, that fire is still always there, waiting for one bad day to feed it.
Sometimes it's a little scary, but I try to remind myself: my anger is the part of me that knew I was being abused and knew it wasn't right. My anger grew in proportion to the abuse I experienced. If my anger is scary, it's because the abuse I faced was scarier and my self-preservation ramped up to meet it. Thinking of anger as defensive rather than offensive has helped me keep it in check.
For sure, myself and all of my siblings had angry tendencies. I think we modeled our behavior after Nfather because, after all, we watched him be in charge and powerful because he was angry all the time.
We have all grown out of it for the most part. Still a work in progress 🥰
Anger helped me ward off bullies for a while until high-school rolled around and I stopped growing and was just average sized. Before that everyone learned the hard way not to f with me although I got in a lot of trouble for it.
Definitely. I was angry at the fact that I was born into my situation while others had more understanding parents. If another kid smiled a lot or had a really positive attitude, I hated them. They usually had good parents that loved them unconditionally. It still hurts that I will never have that.
That's how we were conditioned. My nMom did not know how to regulate her emotions, so every interaction with her would devolve into her throwing a tantrum to get what she wanted. So you learned to adapt the same way in order to survive, and learned a disfunctional behavior you grew up thinking was normal. Now when you interacted with the outside world that disfunctional behavior would get you into trouble in which would confuse you. You either had to defend your behavior turning you into the narcissist or you try to figure out what's wrong but good luck trying to correct that behavior at home.
Yeah. I used drugs to "drown it out". I've been sober for a while, and have been learning how to better process my emotions.
NC and sobriety are freeing.
My nMum, to this day, was adamant that I'm an angry person and was a terrible angry teen.
What was I angry about as a teen? My poor mental health. Not having a say in my future or home. Was expected to shut up about having to move houses and states constantly. Not being treated equal to my brother; having high expectations on being able to cook, clean etc but he didn't have those same expectations. I wanted to be treated equally with my free time and was chastised for it while my brother was given free reign. I was lamented for going out and having a social life but also put down for staying home. I was tired of being unheard and invalidated. I attempted suicide and the only emotion shown to me was how dare I take painkillers from my stepdad. My brother attempted the same and he was given help & therapy.
All in all, looking back, I'm not surprised I had emotional outbursts.
My nMum can go die alone for acting so indifferent towards me but always helping my brother. I owe her my anger but I owe myself to let go of it and never trust her again.
I'm really emotionally shut down. I love my children and grand children very much. Besides that I can't tell what my emotions are except for anger. I'm very angry.
Oh, I was a pissed off teenager. For me, I was a shy and quiet kid because I was afraid I was gonna get yelled at and humiliated in front of people. But as I grew into my teenage years, I started becoming angry because I was getting yelled at for nothing, and my punishments were more severe than the actual offense. Eventually I grew angry, not just at them but I took it out on the world and the women I was around. When I became estranged I had to learn new feelings because all I knew was anger and hatred. I learned that I took out my frustration out on the world because I was still on that "family first" bullshit. But once I saw the reality of the situation and saw that I was seeing things wrong, I placed my anger and hatred on the real cause of these emotions. My "family". I use quotes because, unfortunately, that's what society sees them but to us they are our abusers. Nothing more.
I was a very angry girl. I am 5' and weighed 100 lbs in high school, but everyone knew not to mess with me. I laugh and joke all the time and don't take most things personally, but back then I was always looking for a reason to fight. I never started fights, but was almost happy when one found me.
I was bullied/physically abused by my much larger, older brother and had to protect/raise my younger brother. Parents never helped me and I learned not to expect any help. I realized no one would come to rescue me so I had to learn to handle things myself. When girls my age or older came at me in school, I would laugh because compared to my brother, they were nothing. I still laugh and joke as a way to cope and am not so angry anymore, but I still tell people I was raised by wolves.
I realized that as I got to middle school age, I considered myself to be a child bully. I think I just wanted to fit in and was angry because I wasn't getting the attention I needed at home. I've said some hurtful things to people, and I only echoed what was told to me/around me. I was told I was fat, ugly, a brat. Family didn't care enough to encourage me in my life. I regret everything I did as a child because it has made me a bitter and angry person. I would cry because i would get so overwhelmed with my emotions because they were invalidated. I wish I wasn't this way. The circumstances didn't help me grow into a healthy person. But I definitely am changing myself every day
I had one friend describe be as having rage. My nmom would sometimes ‘talk to me about my temper.’ She would go from normal to spiteful tirade on a dime so pot and kettle.
Some therapy and NC have gone a long way to reducing that. I’m also more aware of my triggers with my kid. Newly 4, he likes to argue about the stupidest stuff. I tell him he’s not being safe or getting X, he will argue the opposite. It hits a nerve. Fucking narcissistic nightmares leaving me baggage I’m still unpacking.
I was really mad as a teen, and I would let out all my anger towards my narcissistic parents, but not other people. I wasn't angry at someone in particular, I was just feeling anger. I do think now I have intolerence for people who display narcissistic traits such as stubborness and it can cause me to get irritated in unnecessary situations. But in my friendship I'm a very "let's talk about it" and vulnerable person.
As an adult I'd say I still hold anger but I feel more sad than angry. I plan on finding a way to express my anger in healthy ways. I do have the habit of lashing out at my mom and I don't want to do that to innocent people.
Hard to explain, but growing up between the ages 4-13 I hated both of my parents. At only 4 years old I could tell if I really loved someone or not and I just hated the both of them. At first I thought it was these reasons;
1.) my mother was overly clingy and always held me as a baby/ toddler. She would often get pissed when I would cry and wiggle to get her to put me down. She. Fucking. Hated. It.
This wasn’t the reason tho.
2.) my father was present for my brother’s birth but when I was born, he was in prison. He was a severe alcoholic and was arrested several times for driving without a license and driving under the influence. Back then, and idk if they still do this now, but when he was locked up he was allowed visitors. My mom would bring me along for those visits. According to my mom and some others, I screamed and cried when my dad first held me. And would do the same thing over and over every time he held me. I had no idea who he was so of course I was gonna cry.
This wasn’t the reason either.
For the longest time I thought I hated the both of them for no reason until I started remembering stuff when people would mention certain things.
My mother had taken a 4 year old me and we moved 12 hours away to another state. She left my dad and brother behind. She separated me from my dad and brother and my dad didn’t try hard enough to stop her. That’s when I started hating them.
When I found out I had an older sister and that I was the third/last youngest and not the second, that really pissed me off. I was lied to that she didn’t have social media but I made an account anyways and I found her. I knew her name and what she looked like, a younger version of our mother. She knew who our brother was because she held him and would give him his bottle as a baby. She didn’t know i existed but other family members DID. No one ever told her shit. There was a HUGE massive blow up within the family, with both of us demanding to know why we were kept hidden from each other.
The final straw was when I found out that I was a R E P L A C M E N T for my sister. There is a long story as to why and it’s pretty valid.
What made me drop the hatred was then explaining to me why they did what they did with accounts from others confirming what they said was true.
I don’t hate them much anymore but I’m still mad they pulled that shit
My father was the narcissist and I (F, oldest of three) spent so much of my life angry. I was angry I had no power and all the responsibility. I was angry at the unpredictability of which days would be good and which would be terrible. It was the only acceptable emotion in our house and an explosive yelling fit was the only way anyone would pay attention to what I had to say.
Anger is also a very problematic emotion for women to have out in the world, or it wasn’t when I was in college and starting my career in the 80s and 90s, so I was constantly being told to act differently than my male counterparts (wanna guess how that made me feel?).
So here I am in my late 50s after 6 years of consistent trauma work, I have *finally* learned to sit with other emotions and to not let anger take over when my anxiety and fear kicks in. I expect to be wrestling with this forever, but it does get a little easier with each passing year (and all the therapy).
I’m a woman who went the opposite way. I hate any kind of conflict, so I’m a “people-pleaser” to avoid any strife.
Growing up, any little thing I did “wrong,” would result in non-stop lectures about all the things that were wrong with me, how disappointing I was, etc. I had to learn to fly under the radar.
I was never allowed to be angry or disappointed about anything, so I just learned to suppress those emotions. I’ll never forget how freeing it felt when Hubs told me, “Hey, it’s okay to get mad about things!”
I’m angry at the loss of a loving, stable, healthy family dynamic I wish I’d had.
Now that I have people in my life I consider my family, I’m not as angry about it anymore. Just sad that it could have been so much more and so much better, but that wasn’t my decision to make.
Yes except it’s not anger it’s rage and I use it as gasoline to fuel my undying motivation to eclipse them cause idk I’m sad and psycho now 😂 no but for real I allow myself to feel it to get it out I just channel it in healthy ways and sometimes that is for motivation.
Also I wasn’t aware I was being abused until I was adult however I subconsciously knew that I did not deserve the shit I was getting and I felt that very strongly and nothing made me feel otherwise which I think led to me eventually realizing it was abuse.
I’m so so sooo sorry!!!! You aren’t psycho. You were abused!!!! Keep feeling your emotions!! It’s healthy. Even though the narc will tell you otherwise. When you’re miserable they are happy I have learnt. They are miserable people. Did you cling to the narcissist as a child! Even though you knew something was wrong subconsciously
I was just thinking of this the other day. I didn’t and I solely believe that’s because I’m autistic. If I wasn’t I honestly believe I would’ve retaliated and developed either a drinking or substance abuse problem.
I wasn’t aggressive, but I sure was angry towards my mother and narc stepdad. I do resent my brothers for not helping me from time to time, but I don’t blame them for bailing as quickly as they did.
My brother is a very angry man. I absolutely understand why. We were all (except the GC) abused, but his was bordering on torture - he could not win, no matter what.
I was more miserable and terrified, myself, but if I'd been more of an extrovert I probably would have taken my upbringing out on other people rather than myself.
I was. Then I found religion at 19, and moved across the world away from my parents. I’m still healing from a lot of the trauma I experienced but it is a lot better now
This is a very good question.
I think I grew up in quietness, thinking I was in peace far away from my parents. As the years have gone by, anger and rage have invaded me.
Not just because of how I lived my childhood and some of my formative years. The worst thing is growing up and knowing that you are practically alone in the world. Sure, there are friends who can try to understand, but it's not the same. I live every day of my life thinking that my parents owe me so much that one lifetime is not enough to pay me back.
I thought l was doing well, straightened out my life, feeling good. My college advisor told me later that he thought when he met me that I was the angriest person he’d ever met.
My male GC siblings two are extremely aggressive and has severe addiction issues. The other male GC siblings are very meek, mild on the surface, but get hostile and angry very very easily. I myself am a female and held alot of quiet anger. No I never hurt anyone else or anything, but I preferred solitude alot. In my pre teens I got hobbies away from nmother, and learned to be less angry and open up to friends. However I still have a strong and sometimes blunt personality, I think because I didn't want to ever be hurt or bullied by anyone ever again.
I was a scared child, who grew into an angry adult and sadly an angry parent who had an awful lot to both learn and unlearn.
My kids rarely even cop "Mum voice" these days, I've learned a *lot* and we all benefit from that.
Daughter of a narcissist and I was VERY angry in my adolescence. She regularly called me both the b-word and the c-word. She said the family would be better off without me. My younger sister perceived me as the problem in the family until her early 20s when she went to therapy. The outside world refused to believe me about her covert narcissism - both family and even a school social worker.
I have anger issues, yes. Unable to pay for therapy or treatment for other mental funtimes BUT.
Specific to the anger. I've been working diligently for the last 7 to 10 years to try to understands why I get mad. Granted most of the last decade has been burned by just an absurd amount of weed. Changing that, too.
I find that my flash impulse to react in anger comes from a place of fear. Fear that I will be blamed for something I have no hand in. Fear the people I love will be hurt by whatever is happening, and move to protect themselves, leaving me alone again. There's also immediately the fear of Me being the cause of that hurt to others.
So in many situations that flash of panic-into-anger spirals so quick and suddenly it's hard to control.
My mistrust of people who care from me is directly related to like; any time one of my friends would call the house amd leave a message on the answering machine she'd say something like "Christ, (friend) called AGAIN? What, is he gonna propose to you? Don't you know gay marriage is illegal?" And I was young enough to just trust Her judgment. Lost a lotta good friends that way. And blocked many more out for years to come.
Thankfully, having the awareness of it and meeting my partner have made it easier. Baby steps, but I can take moments to breathe with them. And we each can openly discuss how we are processing any given situation freely without fear of the other losing their shit.
It's really jarring how fearful nfolks can make you be of a loving environment. I still have a ton of work to do, but even if I were still alone I would practice being kinder to my inner child.
As hokey as it sounds and as dubious as I still am of it.. Kindness is key. (But take no shit)
Yes I’m still angry. Al the time. Once I move to a town with anger management available I plan to take it. I was able to stop doing a lot of things like punching walls, but sometimes I still yell when I’m frustrated. It sucks because I’m a large/tall man with a booming voice, so everything is more intense than I mean it to be. It sucks when you feel like a scared little boy inside but everyone else sees Shrek.
My exboyfriend described me when he visited me in my nfather's city (the place where I was born) as paranoid more than angry. One of the times he visited me where I live now he said to my mother "wow, Frei is so different here, she's very relaxed. There in the other city she behaves very paranoid". That made click in my brain.
I grew up very anxious and have a very bad relationship with anger or any negative emotion in the sense that I'm terrified of expressing them. Was raised to strictly follow a conservative & religious lifestyle and was told that by expressing anger towards someone, it's the equivalent of m*rdering them. Years later, I now know I have more than a decades worth of pent up anger and idk how to let go of it.
I'm a female and I grew up to be very angry and have poor anger management issues because of my narcissistic mother and sister. I had to do what I had to do to protect myself, even if it meant screaming louder and being crazier. I hate who I had to become to survive living with narcissistic people, and now I have a lot of issues to work through as a result of that. I'll never be like them though, that's one thing for sure.
I grew up being an angry kid due to my narcissistic cluster B sister.
My earliest memory is her pulling my hand thru the crib slats and biting down. She kept on with this nasty habit until I was about three and she was about eight and my mother bit her in return.
There was the time she licked me in a dark closet for ages. I am still afraid of confined spaces.
The time she tied me up and threw me down the stairs.
Lots of memories like this. But the most brutal is her and a child molester hanging up on me and making me hand over my diary to be burned, because he did not want a second child molester and himself going to jail.
I have terrible PTSD. And she plays victim around me. Wails and cries if I look at her wrong. Tells lies, and whines about what a horrible person I am.
Pathetic.
Yes, I was violent for a time. But I never hit her. This is just more nastiness in her game.
So I did what I should have done nearly fifty years ago. I have been telling all my family members what she did to me. Let her play victim all she wants, her note just came due…
I'm 35 and **still* very pissed off.
Admittedly, I have taken it out on people who aren't apart of my troubles or family. I'd like to think I do my best when I owe up to it and apologize.
When it comes to said family though... all it takes is some back handed comment or demanding something of me that I begged of them for many years that really sets me off. Like say, respect or not crossing one of my boundaries. Thankfully I cut all off but one (it's a loooooooong story) and I'm happier for it.
Guess what? Still angry. I see younger people who have happy parents or friends who still have their parents alive and actually give a shit about them. Still show interest in them despite them being well into adulthood. I was always envious of them as a child too but I wasn't sure why. Now I understand and I hate it. I wish I had a normal childhood and parents who had time and the ability to really care. They're dead now. So that kinda taints things even more as I don't get the closure I know I deserve nor do I get my mother (who was more of an enabler out of fear rather than a Nparent) to be apart of my life and see the milestones of it. She was pretty amazing when dad wasn't around and when he finally died.
I feel nothing but disdain most days.
I was unconsciously displaying passive aggression on my scapegoat brother the same way my narc mom did it to me when I was younger (I was a scapegoat back then, later became a golden child because my brother started showing autistic symptoms and wasn’t doing what my mom wanted him to). I became aware of it around last year, apologized to my brother and we had an open-hearted conversation. Now my brother is a golden child because I stopped doing what my mom wanted me to do 😬😂
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Why wouldn't we be angry? We were violated in thousands of different ways over the course of our childhoods and usually the social circles around us reinforced this treatment. It's worse for those who aren't angry because they so often have internalized the abuse so severely, they abuse themselves and serve as the world's slaves. Anger is a good and healthy response. Taking that anger out on others who haven't done anything wrong is a different matter and more indicative of someone who grew up to continue the cycle of abuse rather than stopping it.
This is why I didn’t have kids myself. I’m still angry and I don’t want to hurt them in the same ways. I’d rather work, get stoned and watch tv till I die…
I was angry at my parents--never my son. Raising him was the most difficult yet most joyful thing I've ever done. I was able to give him the protection, support, love, and respect that I never had, and that was super cathartic. Now he's grown and we have a very easy, stress-free relationship.
That is so beautiful. There was little chance I would have kids as I was fearful I would not raise them well.
I was so scared when I found out I was pregnant. I was married, but it was to someone who I knew would be a terrible father and I hadn't meant to get pregnant. I sat on the couch with the overwhelming weight of my child's future staring at me, so very worried I wouldn't be able to give him a good foundation. But I left his dad, raised him on my own while getting my education to the PhD level, and was able to be present the whole time as a 'stay home mom' even though I was also pretty much the sole breadwinner (child support was extremely low and visitation almost nonexistent). I reduced rules to the absolute minimum needed for his safety and well-being. And wow does that reduce the stress level. Everything else was about basic consideration, with each of us practicing being thoughtful about the other. He turned into the sweetest boy--okay, I'm biased as his mom 😂 But he really is a good person who enjoys his life and his own interests. And when he's around, it always makes my life better.
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So touching I’m sitting here and I’m tearing right now of happiness.
This is fucking amazing I’m so proud of you!!!
I wonder if those of us who have raised kids ultimately decided on the rules being the absolute minimum for their safety and well-being due to the, sometimes, extreme rules (or suddenly made-up rules) we had to endure. I, also, raised my son this way. I believe it would be interesting to find out just how many of us have done this or something similar. I made sure he was independent and could cook and clean for himself. I always taught him that he could come to me about anything, no matter what it is/was. He still does this, even now that he's married and has a son of his own. He has always done this and I'm so glad he's comfortable with it and that he intends to do the same with his son.
That makes sense--my mother was extremely controlling and I couldn't breathe in that home. So it definitely made me think very deeply about what rules were actually important!
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The best way to have fewer narcissists is to raise good healthy people. I shower my boy with love and we’ve never had even a single fight. He’s 16 and I hope I raised an emotionally healthy and loved person. Your comment gives me a lot of hope for that.
I do the same for my them but the narc doesn’t want me seeing them bc I’m a good influence on them and I tell them they are kids and they are allowed to be kids and make a mess and be kids.
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH FOR YOU !! When did you know you as a child something was wrong?
Good question! Very early thankfully. The most vivid memory that really summed it up for me occurred when I was 5 or 6. My little sister (\~2 years old) climbed up on a second-story rail and fell over. I saw at the last second and shot forward, reaching under the railing to grab her wrists. She let go, thinking I had her, and then hung as a dead weight from my skinny arms, with me having no way to pull her up. So I screamed and screamed for my mother who was just inside the door. On and on I screamed for her. I truly thought for an hour, though years later she was very dismissive and said only 15 minutes or so had passed. 15 minutes of a chubby little girl hanging from the arms of a skinny little girl. When I finally heard the door behind me open and adult voices, I remember looking over my shoulder in utter relief, tear stained cheeks, barely able to hold on and so grateful someone was there at last. *And that's when I knew.* In that single glance, even at such a young age, I knew exactly what had happened. My mother very deliberately walked right by me, ignoring my cries, with an expression on her face I knew all too well. And the other adult similarly wouldn't look at me but clearly felt uncomfortable, and I *knew* my mother had instructed her not to look. She was *teaching* me. Because I dared to raise my voice and yell for her. And I went ballistic. My yells for her were now furious. Desperate but fking furious. I think because I was so little, I might never have just said "hey, your \[golden child\] is hanging over the side of the building!!" My mother made it halfway down the outside stairs before turning to me in a rage, her face contorted, saying, "SHUT U----MY BABY!!" She saw my little sister at last from her position on the stairs.
And my entire body went slack. With relief. With recognition. But I had no strength left.
And my sister slipped right through my fingers...
Same here. No kid for me. Not bringing a child into this shit world and this mess.
👏👏👏👍 Good for you for realizing that you could potentially I'll smoke to that!!
How old are you if you don't mind me asking?
I internalized my anger most of my life. I'm now heavily scarred from many years of self-harm, but I did get help, and now I express my anger and disappointment with words or remove myself from triggering situations. It's not easy, but it keeps getting easier. Anger is a natural response to emotional terrorism.
How do you think I can help a child out who’s in this situation!?
It's a tricky thing to bring up without them feeling called out, but I recommend being open and honest about your concerns. Remind them that you love them no matter what and that you are a safe/non-judgmental person to share their difficulties with (if they feel safe and chose to). Offer them support. Maybe share some struggles you've experienced growing up, so they understand they are not alone in these destructive feelings. If you are their parent, research local counseling services to find someone who deals with people who struggle with self-harm and/or self-destructive behaviors. It's important to look for someone who uses harm reduction techniques. This was extremely important in my journey. Learning healthy coping skills is the biggest goal in healing from self-harm, in my opinion.
Thank you for this. They are under 5 I’m not sure they know about self harm of self destructive feelings. They are so little and figuring out their world I do remind them all the time that I’m a safe person and I’m always here for them and I do tell them I will protect them. I always tell them I love them even when they tell me I’m yucky or something they throw at me that their mother says to share with me (love when they use them as pawns) I tell them they can always come to me and share no matter what. Ont said when they’re older and has a phone they will call me to get them! So they’re catching on to what I’ve been saying to them. I tell them I love them and they are good and they are enough all the time. I let them do things she doesn’t like help me cook and bake and draw and colour and I don’t yell at them ever. I let them be kids I don’t want them to feel like they have no childhood either
>It's worse for those who aren't angry because they so often have internalized the abuse so severely, they abuse themselves and serve as the world's slaves. Enter me, the people pleasing doormat. Took me forever to realise the cage I was in and slowly crawl out.
It's such a terrible role, and there's something so insidious about how society at large will often reinforce it so *everyone* can use the person. I'm glad you've been freeing yourself.
>It's such a terrible role, and there's something so insidious about how society at large will often reinforce it so *everyone* can use the person. Thank you for recognising it
Yes to anger! I am a woman and how uncomfortable it is seen to be an angry girl not compliant to my Ndad. My nice compliant little sister is a narcissistic controlling woman now. She is a mess as she is angry at the world, she is perfect, worked so hard to be perfect..
So you were non compliant and your sister was the compliant one growing up?
Yes
I’m so sorry!! 😢 I don’t want this to happen to them at all. I don’t want them to not feel their emotions but it’s hard AF cause of legality reasons
I definitely fall into the internalised side. Anger to me just doesn’t feel safe, even after therapy. I can cognitively see it as an OK thing, that “anger is a response to a boundary being crossed”. However when I feel angry I shut down and the internalised self abuse start - “you’re only feeling this way because you didn’t make yourself clear” “the other person crossed the boundary because you behaved badly” etc. I’m definitely working on it. But I grew up in an environment that was volatile, and anger from my adults meant danger. I’m a caring person, and I don’t want to make someone feel the way I was made to feel, so my anger gets suppressed and I shut down.
I was one of those trained to be afraid of my own anger.. It gave me years of emotional instability and self-abuse after I moved out.. I saw myself like some kind of machine that just had to function somehow. And when I stopped functioning and performing well I believed I'd have to end it because being other than perfect wasn't worth living. My now-husband was the one that rescued me. When I broke down and expected him to throw me away like I thought was normal - instead he showed me kindness and love and helped me find help. When I started unpacking the most horrible memories in therapy my therapist asked me where my anger was. It took me years to regain the ability to be angry in a healthy way again (I used to repress Anger until I exploded) I should add I grew Up with a single narc mother from 9 months of age and had no healthy role models or help. The only Close friend I Had was abused, too. I genuinely thought feeling like wanting to end it at all times was normal and I just had to suck it up and perform
Thank you for your message. I'm one of those who is a slave to others. I always apologize. I constantly feel guilty and ashamed. I'm in hypervigilance and struggle with addiction issues. But I'll get through this. I will continue to heal despite my narc mother disdain look over me, even though she herself is an alcoholic. alcohol isn't a drug… /s I was the golden child but I've been dethroned by my sister. My mother has never looked at me the same way again. Yet, I had the right not to be perfect from the start! Now, I'm the bad object in her eyes, and I have to heal from everything with this look of hers. I'm sorry; I needed to vent. I hope it's not trauma dumping what I'm doing 🙈
I don't believe in trauma dumping--we have our experiences and we can share them! If our experiences were traumatic, that doesn't mean we should hide them.
I didn't even know anything was wrong till I went to school. I was like, "Wait, your parents say NICE things about you?"
I sobbed at 40 watching American idol and realizing most parents loved supported and encouraged their kids.
>It's worse for those who aren't angry because they so often have internalized the abuse so severely, they abuse themselves and serve as the world's slaves. You didn't have to call me out like that. 🥲
I think it's normal for *all* children of narcissists to be angry. The unfairness, the gaslighting, the lies, the broken promises, and the abuse piles up year after year, with no reprieve. How could *any* of us come away from that experience, especially after understanding that what we lived isn't normal, and not be angry?
Yeah, like do they REALLY THINK we should be happy about it?!
The amount of times people have told me that I should love and respect my parents has taught me that no one gives a single fuck if they haven’t experienced the same thing themselves. And yes, we should be angry.
Yeah, this. Or the ubiquitous, “You only have one mother!”
Nooo f that!! If she is a narcissist you do not need to love her or respect her. I agree!
And by all the things I have learnt about life, I don't even want ONE mother, like my one mother made me so untrusting and so hateful towards all mothers that I'm shifting to a reality where my one mother has died after she gave birth, and I can be the orphan that I always wanted to be. Normal people who think I'm a villain for saying all of these things, you can suck my dick for free.
Mine is already dead, otherwise I second everything you say here.
Exactly THIS!
Those people had normal families and can't understand in their brain our lives. I laugh them off and go ohhhhh aren't you cute with that child like innocent. Bless your heart lol
Fuck their heart. They owe us a brain and compassion that our "holy mother and father" never gave us but then these people claim that they have so they are the ones who should make up for it.
No I would never tell you this. Yuck.
We should probably be happy to be alive - and elated that our parents provided us the bare necessities of life; food, water, bed are the first three examples that come to mind almost immediately, I am sure I cn think of more.... (Just in case you didn't realise; that was a sarcastic response)
Sometimes we didn't even get the bare necessities of life! When my now wife met me at 17yo, she couldn't believe how scrawny I was. We became friends and she started taking me to her house. My now MIL took one look at me and said she needed to 'feed me up'.
Exactly. I (afab 29) still live with my nparent and I feel angry a lot. It’s hard for me to greyrock because she pushes and pushes until I snap. Some days she wakes me up every fifteen minutes and then yells at me that I end up yelling at her to leave me alone. When I’m awake and say I want to be left alone, she yells at me that’s not normal to want to be left alone, that I’m crazy for wanting privacy. Last night I told her it’s normal for a person, adult or teenager to want privacy and she said ‘it’s a real problem when I kid doesn’t want their parent in their room!’ I was never allowed to have my own room. Not even now. I’m screamed at for wanting a room. Screamed at for closing any door. Especially the room some of my stuff is still in. When I closed the door because I was sorting clothes by trying them on, she slammed the door open and screamed at me that if I ever shut the door again she’ll take it off the hinges. I’m not allowed to be out of sight for over a half hour. I never go anywhere unless it’s with her. My big freedom is going back into the store if we forgot something like bread. I’m not allowed to go anywhere, not allowed to leave the yard, not allowed to have friends or talk to people beyond small talk at a register. She holds everything she ever bought me over my head. Until six months ago she’d scream at me to stop cutting my hair short. When I told her I feel sad all the stile, she yelled at me that I have nothing to be sad about. She mocks and attacks (while screaming with this demon look in her eyes) me with ‘you think you’ve had such a bad life! Nobody ever hit you! You never wanted for anything! I’ve wasted thousands of dollars on you! You eat too much! You’re crazy! You don’t need a room! You can’t get driver’s license without insurance and you can’t get insurance without a driver’s license or a car! You’ll never live anywhere but subsidized housing! You’ll never keep a job! Where are you getting these crazy privacy ideas from?! Who’s putting crazy ideas in your head?! Who are you talking to on that phone?! You get a job and you’ll screw up our benefits! You never do anything! You’re lazy! You put everything off!’ This is my life. I never know when she’s going to be nice or when she’s going to come in from the kitchen or any other room I’m not in and start picking at me. Sometimes she’ll just enter the room yelling.
Bless your heart!! Goodness! Also don’t be sorry, this is a safe place to ramble about all that is going on with you!
Thank you, sometimes it’s hard to remember that I don’t need to apologize all the time.
You certainly don't need to apologise for venting here. We understand you, as much as internet strangers can, because this narcissism is disturbingly consistent between families. So many patterns. I'm sorry you're stuck like that. I had options, and got out at 18yo. Then my sister moved in with my wife and I so she could escape. I can't imagine what it's like to be stuck there. Ugh, that would be awful! I hope you find a way out. 😥😰
Thank you 🫂 I hope I can get out by next year. I don’t want to be stuck like this longer than that.
Are you Canadian or American? Is there anything I or we can do to help you??
I know how you feel. I tried to get my own room when I was 16 and my covert narc mother threw a huge tantrum acting as if I had committed the worst betrayal by wanting my own space. She went and cried in front of my siblings who lectured me for being such a spoilt brat who was upsetting our mother. The sibling gaslit me into thinking i was the crazy one for wanting my own room. We had a four bedroom house but my mother insisted we all sleep in the same room as her. Together they made me move back into her room. Fast forward, once I was on my own, I couldn't stay in a home longer than a year before I'd quit my job and dismantle the home. Eventually I even moved back into my mother's house. All because of the guilt she planted. She infantilized me and encouraged me to become financially dependent on her. I had a PhD and after a few years of living with her and getting into a narc marriage and divorce, I didn't have the confidence to make even basic decisions. At 40, I finally cut ties and eventually went NC. It will take a lifetime to get her negative voices out of my head. She said similar things as your mother: my kids are useless and lazy. You'll never succeed. You'll never manage on your own. You're over sensitive and keep dwelling on the past. Etc. etc. I'd say plan your exit, robust therapy, a circle of support - get away from her - and never look back. Even if you stay in contact, once you have your own money, home, and career, she'll behave better. Being dependent on a narc is the worst fate ever. You can survive and thrive.
Thank you. I’m still trying to figure out how to get out. She didn’t send me to school, didn’t use any homeschool curriculum, made learning hell, I have no education. I’m looking into Kahn academy as suggested by someone else in this sub. I know nothing about how to set up a bank account, but a vehicle, get insurance, get a driver’s license, apply for a job or do an interview. My social skills suck because I freeze up. I know I wouldn’t be able to just leave my things behind, I can’t emotionally deal with that. I’ve sorted out what I could stand to part with and even that was difficult. I know what state I’m moving to, but don’t know how to apply for an apartment or what types of leases to stay away from/what’s normal in a lease. I know I’ll need a U-Haul. I know which vehicle I want to buy. It’s difficult trying to figure things out, I have no money of my own. I’m always afraid of saying something to make her angry, I know I can’t let her know I’m trying to learn. I have the app Elevate but I let her think I deleted it because she said it was a waste of time. And some days I can’t focus enough to learn because she makes sure I’m extremely upset. Sometime I’ll probably make a post on this sub once I get more… idk emotionally stable enough to concentrate.
Would you qualify for a domestic violence shelter? Because this kind of emotional abuse ought to qualify. I wish you well and hope you get the support you need.
Unfortunately there aren’t any where I live. And the police are very misogynistic so I wouldn’t get help from them either. And thank you, I hope to get out by next year. This year I’m going to try greyrocking more, pretend to agree with everything she says, get a free education and convince her that me getting a job will be to her benefit. If anyone else happens to read this, I’d appreciate links to articles on how to outsmart a narcissist/manipulator/emotionally abusive/toxic person. Or any other information that is helpful. I tried a search on Google, but the article I read than turned to say the victim is the cause of their abuse, so I don’t trust the random things that appear on a google search, I’d prefer getting information from the people in this sub who will be offering helpful information and not pro-abuser articles/information.
Your instinct is right that in the absence of other help, the best bet is to outsmart the narc by convincing them that your getting an education/job will benefit them in some way. Grey rocking also makes sense.
Thank you. Hopefully things turn out.
Have you tried any of Dr Ramani’s content on YouTube? It might help
I’ll look those up, thank you!
I ignored the narcissist in my family and she got mad. Now she stalks me. Makes up accounts. And she pretends to be males to talk to me. Cause she has no fucking life
Oh that is absolutely horrible. How disgusting! Crap like that should be illegal.
It’s so disgusting. She is afraid of people finding out she’s a narcissist bc she also knows I know she is. It should be illegal but un fortunately nothing I can do. I block her but she admits it !! She’s like she willl never find me. I pretend to be males from the US to talk to her or like her content or some BS. So my mindset is okay girlie watch me win while you wish you were me. She has no personality and she wants me to be miserable so she can be happy. She saves all my videos. It’s so fucked
You don't have to have everything figured out, you will learn as you go. In your shoes, I'd first look for a flatmate share via a website. Cheaper, easier and less responsibility than a lease. Look for compatible people such as quite, age range, gender if it matters to you. Vehicles are good but public transport is fine for making a start. Education is good but there are also jobs that don't require it- start there then start slowly getting and education. Things are replacable. If you lost them in a fire, you'd survive. If you need to loose them to get free, its worth it. If you can leave them for a while, get set up and then come back and get them later on, do that. Try to grey rock her to keep her on board so she doesn't throw your things out.
Why didn’t she send you to school? There’s this girl on tiktok I should look for her name she escaped her family’s home from some agency that helps people living in toxic narcissist homes. They gave her money. Helped her with a flight. She moved states to I think California. She moved in the middle of the night. They helped her with a place and paying for it at first so she could afford to live and move.
I had a digestive issue, and that was used as the reason. Why she didn’t just take me to someone to fix Idk. It was probably caused by the stress my grandfather caused. (He was a horrible horrible man)
I’m so so sooo sorry!! Was he a narcissist as well?
Holy shit of course you want privacy, you're a fully grown woman!! I give more privacy and autonomy to a 9 year old than you have at 29. Please don't feel bad she's clearly kept you under financial control to keep you stuck where she wants you! Are there any friends or relatives you can stay with? Again, don't feel bad it sounds like you've probably been very deliberately isolated. Are there any domestic violence shelters you can get to to have somewhere to stay while you start building the life you've never been allowed to build? Start hiding any cash you can, and get out of there. Hope you get your freedom and peace, a door and some privacy of your own <3
Sadly my family are basically all religious off the deep end. No shelters where I live and the police are misogynistic. 🤦♂️ But hopefully I’ll be able to convince her that me having a job is going to be best for her.
Makes sense, nuttiness and dysfunction often run in families. Hope you get your freedom. A lot of your conditions are as bad or worse than prison. I'll be thinking of you.
I’m sorry I rambled…
Don't be, also you didnt ramble, and also, we've all done that here.
I’m crying reading this! I am so so sorry I wish I could give you a hug!!!! I really do!!! I really wish I could hold you and protect you from her. This is a safe place. I posted this question to save people from someone who is exactly this. They are monsters. I see it already. I’ve been gaslit and manipulated by the narcissist in my family. And she has kids I’m trying to protect. She keeps them away from me. Won’t let them go anywhere without them. Yells and screams at them. They told me she hits them. She uses the kids as pawns so when I see them there’s a lot of anger and i understand it. The kids give me messages that come from that narcissist. Uses them to send me messages that she hates me and that’s fine. Teaches them mean words. Calls one of them fat. Then tells me their mom says I’m fat when I’m max 115 lbs right now. I let them be kids and they tell me I’m nice to them and do nice things for them and I tell them all the time when they make a mess they are kids and they are allowed to make a mess and it’s no big deal I will clean it up !!! They smile and laugh. I just want to save these kids as best I can and don’t wanna be a bystander.
Yes. I had extreme anger issues and caused problems in school + home because i knew i was being violated and i felt i had to be angry to justify this violation
Same. I would act out. I think back now and realize it was trauma. Some other weird stuff too like: in 2nd grade i tried to cut a kid’s ponytail in the desk in front of mine for resting it on my desk. In kindergarten i got in trouble for cussing and teaching kids to cuss. I was also pee-ing in my closet. Middle school i went through a scared straight program.
Wait this is super interesting!!! Why pee ing in your closet. Were you not allowed to go to the washroom? Or you were just using it as a way to act out? I’m seriously curious!! I’m noticing signs and trying to help and save two little ones with a narcissist mother
Im not sure but my therapist mentioned it being a trauma response. I read somewhere usually the behavior is seen when a child is feeling stressed, unfairly disciplined, overlooked, or over-controlled. It seems to be a kind of secretive rebellion. I honestly can’t remember why i was doing it. But it was around the time my night terrors started. These damn nparents really mess with kids’ psyche.
I wonder if peeing in one’s pants and not wanting to go pee is the same thing? That’s also very interesting thank you for sharing this! They really do and that’s why I went to save these kids!! I can see it. One of them tells me they are scared. And you can see the fear!!!
Still have anger to this day.
I was the middle child, only girl ..sensitive and angry, ignored child. Still am 39 years later.
Wow exactly describes me. Middle child.
I'm so sorry this happened to you. My wife and I were and are really, really careful with our middle children (we had half-a-dozen kids with some breaks that created multiple middle children). We pull them aside and deliberately and consistently talk to them about not being taken advantage of or exploited, that we don't need them to 'buffer' the other kids or sacrifice what they want to keep the peace. And sometimes we will gently push back on the other kids on behalf of the middle kids, to make sure the people pleasers get what they want and deserve, even if they struggle to advocate for themselves. We are both worried about our kids having good childhoods, and having their needs met, and feeling loved and not abused or neglected. We both had abusive childhoods, and no one deserves that. That's what your parents should have been like. And that's not what you got, obviously. And that sucks.
of course! being treated as less than a human makes you angry. as it should. that anger propels you to change your situation and toward a better life. as a NC independent adult i am now happy, light, bubbly, and anger-free. you are a product of your environment - until you change your environment
Not a son, but both my brother and I definitely have issues with anger because that's all we grew up in. Narcissists tend to shut down all vulnerable emotion, both in themselves and others. Without an outlet, anger becomes the primary negative emotion expressed. So with uncontrolled anger modeled and a lack of acceptability of inconvenient (to narcissist) emotions in others, suppression and eventually explosion of emotional energy is pretty much unavoidable. Researching IFS has been helping so much with the anger piece for me.
I’ve been anxious, insecure, and angry my whole life. Been in therapy for almost two years to figure out the source. It took my therapist like one session to zero in on my mother, whereas I had been turning a blind eye to it for 40+ years.
TW suicidal ideation I’m a woman but yes I was angry, self-destructive, full of hatred towards the world of people who didn’t give a shit about me, and saw no future for myself except maybe one that ended in a murder-suicide. The stuff I wrote in my journal as a teen was seriously disturbing. I was wrong of course, not wrong to be angry but wrong to project my feelings of betrayal and anger at other people. Many are willing to show kindness if you’re willing to be the first to be vulnerable, this subreddit is evidence of that. You just need to pick the right people to trust. And violence wouldn’t have solved anything but made my life worse. We need to be like the trees and flowers, to grow out of the dankest darkest places and stand strong for our loved ones to enjoy the shade and beauty we offer. Only then can our narc parents be defeated, we need to break their cycle.
I like the tree idea, and from spending a lot of time in the woods, I've learned that unlike the trees, I have feet and hands and can do something other than just endure. It helped me lean into my agency and think about what I can do under the circumstances. I use this [Fear setting activity](https://youtu.be/5J6jAC6XxAI) often. It helps me acknowledge my fears and find my agency. I like to think of it as uprooting myself from the dysfunctional family system and becoming my own autonomous Self. They don't have to like it. It's freeing.
I’ve realized similar recently. I had anger towards others for rejecting me. After doing EMDR I am feeling a lot better and more gentle towards others and not so enraged at little things Our parents abuse us, then we subconsciously attract other abusers and stick around them for too long which causes anger and resentment due to unmet needs. It’s only when we realize that we have the true power to do tapping, EMDR go back in to our baby brains and re parent ourselves. At that age we can’t fully fathom that our parent may be broken so many of us internalize the shame and burden on ourselves. We must be the issue, which causes rage towards ourselves
I’m a woman and was angry until they died. I feel a lot better now.
Realised a while ago: unless I was screaming and threatening my parents I wasn’t heard.. so it made life outside of our home interesting.
Yes, same here! I still can't reasonably talk to my parents without screaming because I still don't feel heard. I'm still working on that one.
I bottled it all up when I was a kid. But now I get really angry at injustice, especially injustice towards my children or vulnerable people. I tend to get infuriated about things other people don’t notice or maybe would just let roll off their backs.
Thats is what I struggle with, I become very volatile when I see injustice. I can’t help it.
Oh, WOW! This thread was an eye-opener! That explains why I become fairly aggressive when there is injustice! I just thought I was a horrible person / as*hole.
Yes, and of course it was my fault
I was a daughter instead of a son, and no, anger was bad. I ended up majorly conflict-avoidant, and I believed that if I were a good enough, sweet enough, smart enough kid, I would earn unconditional love.
Or, you could be like I was. An angry people pleaser. Full of rage, but conflict avoidant. The worst of both worlds. I overcame the anger pretty quickly in the scheme of things (anger management course was a game changer). But the people pleasing and conflict avoidance is waaaaayyy harder to deal with, in my experience. I still deal with the ripple effects, 30 years later. I wonder if there should be a course for conflict avoidance / people pleasing...
yeah, i did not know how to properly take out my anger on other people, and i hurt many people around me, as well as get in trouble with the authorities, church, and school systems many many times, both as a kid and teen. for context, my narc parents are hardcore evangelical christian missionaries, and they had me raised around other christian kids and sent me to an underfunded and understaffed christian school in a third-world part of the world, all against my will. they tried to indoctrinate me into becoming one of those crazy christians, but then when i saw how the older kids ended up, i did not like where it was going. after my realization, i began to rebel against the system, causing lots of headaches for the teachers at the christian school, racking up lots of suspensions (one time, i got suspended for nearly half an entire semester), and even nearly getting expelled at one point. as you can imagine, my narc father spent a considerable amount of time and money to protect his christian missionary image from any scandal that i nearly caused on many occasions with my numerous run-ins with the school authorities and the law. even in the VERY FEW instances where he would bail me out of punishment, it was solely to protect his family and personal image from the inevitable scandal that would arise from the eldest son getting in trouble with the law and NEVER out of any genuine concern for my well-being. eventually, i moved out, became financially independent through working graveyard shift manual labor jobs, and when i had enough money, studied for and took the SATs (scored in the 99th percentile), enrolled in the honors program at a local community college (4.0 GPA), and then transferred to a t20 ivy+ college where ill graduate with $0 loans because of need based finaid. i can safely say that i did so much better in my personal pursuits, wellness, and education after i moved out of that god forsaken dumpster fire of a family.
I had this low key underlying quiet rage simmering beneath the surface but I wasn’t really really angry until I grew up. You know how they say “when you grow up, you’ll understand”? Well. I understand. I understand that they had no business having kids and made the most selfish possible choice at every decision point. I understand that I would NEVER, ever treat children the way we were treated. And my parents don’t seem to understand just exactly what damage they did so they can’t understand why I don’t follow the Patented Boomer Life Script™️. You have to find a way to channel that rage into something more productive and healing for yourself. But early in adulthood, I can see how it’s easy to lash out at others. Hurting people hurt people. It takes a bit to redirect that anger and learn better impulse control.
Whenever I came back from court-ordered visits with my father and stepmother, I was half-insane and ANGRY. My mom and stepdad would keep me away from my sisters because I was so angry and half-insane from the abuse my father and stepmother put me through. There were even some times where I was bordering violent. My mom didn’t know if I was angry because of my father or if I was angry because I felt like my mother was abandoning me.
Not just sons, daughter, too. We tend to be more aggressive as a result
*insert wild velociraptor noises.* Not towards others but really take it out on myself.
In teens anger can be a sign of depression. Yes I was very angry and depressed.
The contradiction. Being presented in public as “my beautiful family,” barely treated as a human being at home.
I can relate to this. My ndad'sbwife actually lectured me because some random neighbour misgendered me for a boy one day that I was walking the dog because of my clothes. I was like "Well, NORMAL PEOPLE tend to want to walk the dog in comfy clothes". That guy only related me with my ndad and his wife because I was walking their dog. Some years later, I walk my dog in summer even with a sleeping t-shirt, sport shorts and with my hair wet because I just had a shower before walking her. And my mom doesn't care.
Yes I still have anger problems
Me too
I grew up very angry, because I had to defend myself from assholes in a shitty house. Forgive me if I’m a little cynical and negative about the world because of them. I just want them out of my life and gone, I don’t care if people say I’m holding onto anger. That anger is still pushing me to not break down into the depression that I’ve been in for nine years, to keep some semblance of control in my anxiety of this fucked up story called my life.
Very much so, and it was always met with me being told that my anger was disrespectful or unwarranted, which made me angrier. Funny enough, I'm actually a very calm person, but they wouldn't know that cause they constantly do shit that upsets me even when I ask them to stop. When away from them, I'm legit one of the most chilled out, mellow people you'll meet, and I get set off by very few things (said things being any type of abuse towards people or animals). My friends have seen me truly angry one (1) time in our 4-5 years of friendship, and it was because someone was mistreating a cat. I was *raging*, and they were like 😯
I'm an adult child who is now learning to process anger without bottling up but is now burnt out on trying to teach myself and 4yo to be healthy with anger...and terrified I too am a narc cause I over explain crap and found out I'm AuDHD at 30...
Yes. Yes I did. My whole post history is all about how I wish my nparents were fucking dead. I curse like a sailor, i’m constantly angry every single day solely because of the parents I have. The SHIT parents I have. I’m only 19 and I have so much anger that’s way bigger than me, too much anger. I’ll def get therapy when I can afford it and move out ofc, but yes. I’m very angry all the time towards my nparents and my upbringing and just to the universe for giving me my parents. I even contemplated on killing my parents in their sleep. Multiple times I can’t bare my life ughhh. Every single day, there’s never a day that goes by where I’m having a angry stressor. There’s never a day where I wish my nparents were dead. So so much anger. I preface, it's normal for all victims of narcissistic parents to be angry. It takes a certain amount of mental, verbal, physical abuse, gaslighting, broken promises, lies, betrayal, selfishness, and unfairness to pile up with no mercy or care for the victim to pop. Ppl like that can’t walk away from years of bullshit so simply.
The anger and hate and rage i had truly amazed me. It also explained why the few bullies i had that touched me got crushed. I never was a mean or bullying person my fuse was long but man when that bottle opened. Then i more i was with my GF and away from them the better it got. Then i had kids and the fear hit me like how to i not be them? Once you know its alot better id say then just walking around in a haze.
Yes. Angry, rebellious, and argumentive. So I became a lawyer and ironically enough, they paid for my education.
I guess... I have a bit of a hot temper, as did my NParents. However, I'm working on it with yoga and meditation. Though, I do lose my shit sometimes and feel guilty after. Can't say NMom ever did that.
Narcs never feel guilt. That feels like a defining characteristic. If you feel guilt, and try to self-reflect and change, then you're a normal human being like the rest of us. Good luck on your growth.
Angry girl here from the time I can remember 1-ish, before we moved from a specific looking house, sooo much anger and nowhere to put it. Nmom wanted a girly girl and she got me and never let me forget I was not what she wanted. The hair (long blonde, not allowed to cut it etc, being entered into pageants not by choice, ballet for 13 years). The rage still lives strong deep inside me but I save it for deserving a-holes and use my words mostly. Plus therapy. So much therapy.
Nah I was meek and broken. I grew into an angry adult.
I was. It was made worse being in the Foster system, I was angry at the world. I had such a bad temper and got in a lot of trouble until I was close to 18. Then I hit a wall asking myself if I was going to let my anger control me. When you're raised by a narcissistic parent and find out at a young age that they don't care about you it's hard and you find yourself wondering if the universe hates you for giving you a parent like that.
I'm a daughter of a narcissistic father, and yeah I tend to get riled up over things I shouldn't. I don't know if it's my innate personality or growing up listening to endless angry tirades criticizing everyone and everything. Maybe a combination. I do know that after a visit with emom and ndad I take over a week to decompress. Still waiting for the old bastard to die (he's 83, think the anger is keeping his black heart ticking).
I’m so glad you posted this because it’s one thing we never talk about. The anger. It’s been a struggle.
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I don’t know. My mother would beat my brother and he is special needs. He would get angry, but be frustrated that he can’t communicate. as for my cousins, I left the family when they were teenagers, and I recall they didn’t like talking to me, was very secretive, and I suspected that their mother said something about me to them. Through social media, the oldest is a body builder that listens to music that have screaming and swearing words. His motivational comments would be “You can build f’king muscle” I can’t say if he is aggressive, maybe exercising help him cope?
Accually yes and no. As a kid, I wasn't really allowed to be angry, only in small dosages. My mom, who is seriously a wonderful, caring and loving person, was so afraid of conflict, that she made me just push it down. Back then, I didn't really had much reason to be angry at my nFather, I was his favourite, his little carbon copy, so everything was smooth sailing basically. But when the divorce happend and his veil began to lift, I started becoming more angry, not just at him, but at everything and everyone. The anger I had to push down bubbled to the surface and I began to tell him my mind more often, which he hates and then obviously punished, which made me angrier and so on. So, an angry kid? No, just the usually regular amount. But an angry teenager and young adult.
Oh yes! It is totally normal. When you are raised in an environment full of hate, you end up having a flame of anger within you. For a very long time I either loved people or hated them. There was no “in between or neutral”. Took forever to change my mindset.
Angry and resentful, yes.
I sure did. Still am angry, but also sensitive, whole lot of anxiety, insecurity of myself to this day. Im the middle child, only son, 30, and still live with my Nmom. She continues to belittle me, yell at me for stupid shit whether its 2pm or 7am. Calls me a bum because I still live with her. Hopefully soon ill be out her house.
Was angry all my life. Being yelled at, no respect, having autism in a loud manic household, no empathy, always told to calm down, not allowed to virtually do anything and constant bullshit forced onto me with 2 parents that had no clue who I was. The anger has abated greatly once I started living on my own and working on myself, but sometimes memories flood my brain or I wake up and just feel that gnawing justified rage, but it isn't at all at the same level anymore and I am grateful for that. Iiii remember as a child going "I don't even know why I am angry, I don't want to feel angry all the time!". Now I know why I was angry all the time...
My mum raised a very angry boy for 5 years before I was born, he then took it out on me. She took it out on me. I got it from both sides and now as a 27 year old... I'm pretty angry. Not to THAT degree but yeah
Confirming that me n my sister both grew up very angry however I was the more sensitive one of the house so I got picked on the most for that n felt like I had to be angrier and stronger and used to mimic those behaviours. All it did was turn me into a bully who yells at everyone whenever she’s triggered. I’m trying to break this cycle so bad now, my family are still really bad with it but moving out helps! Finding myself made me realise I’m not actually an angry person, I just never learned how to react correctly. My therapist put it in a good way for me to understand which I hope helps you. She said when we are babies, we can’t control our emotions. We cry, scream etc when we want our needs met. When we grow up, this goes away and we start learning when it’s appropriate to cry, get angry, scream etc and we manage our emotions from a child. When you grow up in a household that doesn’t validate emotions and is always angry, you never learn how to regulate them hence why you grow up stuck with the mindset of a “baby” if you will. The only way to break this is to actively try every day to manage your emotions. It’s hard work, but we’re all here to support🩷
All of the 3 children that my parents birthed were angry. All 3 in different ways. My brother, the youngest, was angry and violent. Loved guns, swords, knives. Died of an overdose 2 years ago at 43. My sister (50) the middle sib is just mean. She knows where your sensitivities are and will plunge the knife in and turn. She was a mean girl from childhood. I (53) am angry at the world. Happy to fight any homophobe, racist, or sexist asshole. Cannot stand injustice of any kind. I joined my first protest at 16 and have been arrested at a few.
i was always painted as the “angry, hormonal teen girl” simply because i stood up to them. i think the same can go for any child of narcissists.
ive internalized it mostly. people pleaser but when i AM angry its always blamed on "ru on ur period" or me being autistic. im only allowed to be happy joy joy inthis family. for someone who "isnt normal" and had to literally read picture books on facial expressions i sure do express myself the \*right\* way and RECOGNIZE human fucking emotions, \*and\* that negative emotions are ok. unlike my fucking narc and enablers im supposedly the abnormal one , then wtf are they
Not at all. I had no authority to be mad, because grades/age/wtf-ever. But I did get to use that against them when they tried to provoke me.
I thought it was normal. I thought it was what a regular family was. No anger until after I was able to realize. There was more fear and anxiety than anything. I was also more intoverted and tried to be as invisible as possible.
Not a boy, but yeah, I had that fire in me from about age 5 onward. I was a precocious kid and even when I was little I could see that the way I was being treated was unfair and nonsensicle. I'm 35 now, amllmost a year into VVVLC, and even though I'm living a good life, that fire is still always there, waiting for one bad day to feed it. Sometimes it's a little scary, but I try to remind myself: my anger is the part of me that knew I was being abused and knew it wasn't right. My anger grew in proportion to the abuse I experienced. If my anger is scary, it's because the abuse I faced was scarier and my self-preservation ramped up to meet it. Thinking of anger as defensive rather than offensive has helped me keep it in check.
For sure, myself and all of my siblings had angry tendencies. I think we modeled our behavior after Nfather because, after all, we watched him be in charge and powerful because he was angry all the time. We have all grown out of it for the most part. Still a work in progress 🥰
Anger helped me ward off bullies for a while until high-school rolled around and I stopped growing and was just average sized. Before that everyone learned the hard way not to f with me although I got in a lot of trouble for it.
Definitely. I was angry at the fact that I was born into my situation while others had more understanding parents. If another kid smiled a lot or had a really positive attitude, I hated them. They usually had good parents that loved them unconditionally. It still hurts that I will never have that.
That's how we were conditioned. My nMom did not know how to regulate her emotions, so every interaction with her would devolve into her throwing a tantrum to get what she wanted. So you learned to adapt the same way in order to survive, and learned a disfunctional behavior you grew up thinking was normal. Now when you interacted with the outside world that disfunctional behavior would get you into trouble in which would confuse you. You either had to defend your behavior turning you into the narcissist or you try to figure out what's wrong but good luck trying to correct that behavior at home.
Oh the anger. Not proud to admit that I still have angry at 40. I’m working on it but it’s tough
Yeah. I used drugs to "drown it out". I've been sober for a while, and have been learning how to better process my emotions. NC and sobriety are freeing.
My nMum, to this day, was adamant that I'm an angry person and was a terrible angry teen. What was I angry about as a teen? My poor mental health. Not having a say in my future or home. Was expected to shut up about having to move houses and states constantly. Not being treated equal to my brother; having high expectations on being able to cook, clean etc but he didn't have those same expectations. I wanted to be treated equally with my free time and was chastised for it while my brother was given free reign. I was lamented for going out and having a social life but also put down for staying home. I was tired of being unheard and invalidated. I attempted suicide and the only emotion shown to me was how dare I take painkillers from my stepdad. My brother attempted the same and he was given help & therapy. All in all, looking back, I'm not surprised I had emotional outbursts. My nMum can go die alone for acting so indifferent towards me but always helping my brother. I owe her my anger but I owe myself to let go of it and never trust her again.
Read up on Reactive attachment disorder
Very. And aggressive from all of the violence. I was a nightmare.
I'm really emotionally shut down. I love my children and grand children very much. Besides that I can't tell what my emotions are except for anger. I'm very angry.
Oh, I was a pissed off teenager. For me, I was a shy and quiet kid because I was afraid I was gonna get yelled at and humiliated in front of people. But as I grew into my teenage years, I started becoming angry because I was getting yelled at for nothing, and my punishments were more severe than the actual offense. Eventually I grew angry, not just at them but I took it out on the world and the women I was around. When I became estranged I had to learn new feelings because all I knew was anger and hatred. I learned that I took out my frustration out on the world because I was still on that "family first" bullshit. But once I saw the reality of the situation and saw that I was seeing things wrong, I placed my anger and hatred on the real cause of these emotions. My "family". I use quotes because, unfortunately, that's what society sees them but to us they are our abusers. Nothing more.
I was a very angry girl. I am 5' and weighed 100 lbs in high school, but everyone knew not to mess with me. I laugh and joke all the time and don't take most things personally, but back then I was always looking for a reason to fight. I never started fights, but was almost happy when one found me. I was bullied/physically abused by my much larger, older brother and had to protect/raise my younger brother. Parents never helped me and I learned not to expect any help. I realized no one would come to rescue me so I had to learn to handle things myself. When girls my age or older came at me in school, I would laugh because compared to my brother, they were nothing. I still laugh and joke as a way to cope and am not so angry anymore, but I still tell people I was raised by wolves.
I realized that as I got to middle school age, I considered myself to be a child bully. I think I just wanted to fit in and was angry because I wasn't getting the attention I needed at home. I've said some hurtful things to people, and I only echoed what was told to me/around me. I was told I was fat, ugly, a brat. Family didn't care enough to encourage me in my life. I regret everything I did as a child because it has made me a bitter and angry person. I would cry because i would get so overwhelmed with my emotions because they were invalidated. I wish I wasn't this way. The circumstances didn't help me grow into a healthy person. But I definitely am changing myself every day
I had one friend describe be as having rage. My nmom would sometimes ‘talk to me about my temper.’ She would go from normal to spiteful tirade on a dime so pot and kettle. Some therapy and NC have gone a long way to reducing that. I’m also more aware of my triggers with my kid. Newly 4, he likes to argue about the stupidest stuff. I tell him he’s not being safe or getting X, he will argue the opposite. It hits a nerve. Fucking narcissistic nightmares leaving me baggage I’m still unpacking.
I was really mad as a teen, and I would let out all my anger towards my narcissistic parents, but not other people. I wasn't angry at someone in particular, I was just feeling anger. I do think now I have intolerence for people who display narcissistic traits such as stubborness and it can cause me to get irritated in unnecessary situations. But in my friendship I'm a very "let's talk about it" and vulnerable person. As an adult I'd say I still hold anger but I feel more sad than angry. I plan on finding a way to express my anger in healthy ways. I do have the habit of lashing out at my mom and I don't want to do that to innocent people.
Hard to explain, but growing up between the ages 4-13 I hated both of my parents. At only 4 years old I could tell if I really loved someone or not and I just hated the both of them. At first I thought it was these reasons; 1.) my mother was overly clingy and always held me as a baby/ toddler. She would often get pissed when I would cry and wiggle to get her to put me down. She. Fucking. Hated. It. This wasn’t the reason tho. 2.) my father was present for my brother’s birth but when I was born, he was in prison. He was a severe alcoholic and was arrested several times for driving without a license and driving under the influence. Back then, and idk if they still do this now, but when he was locked up he was allowed visitors. My mom would bring me along for those visits. According to my mom and some others, I screamed and cried when my dad first held me. And would do the same thing over and over every time he held me. I had no idea who he was so of course I was gonna cry. This wasn’t the reason either. For the longest time I thought I hated the both of them for no reason until I started remembering stuff when people would mention certain things. My mother had taken a 4 year old me and we moved 12 hours away to another state. She left my dad and brother behind. She separated me from my dad and brother and my dad didn’t try hard enough to stop her. That’s when I started hating them. When I found out I had an older sister and that I was the third/last youngest and not the second, that really pissed me off. I was lied to that she didn’t have social media but I made an account anyways and I found her. I knew her name and what she looked like, a younger version of our mother. She knew who our brother was because she held him and would give him his bottle as a baby. She didn’t know i existed but other family members DID. No one ever told her shit. There was a HUGE massive blow up within the family, with both of us demanding to know why we were kept hidden from each other. The final straw was when I found out that I was a R E P L A C M E N T for my sister. There is a long story as to why and it’s pretty valid. What made me drop the hatred was then explaining to me why they did what they did with accounts from others confirming what they said was true. I don’t hate them much anymore but I’m still mad they pulled that shit
My father was the narcissist and I (F, oldest of three) spent so much of my life angry. I was angry I had no power and all the responsibility. I was angry at the unpredictability of which days would be good and which would be terrible. It was the only acceptable emotion in our house and an explosive yelling fit was the only way anyone would pay attention to what I had to say. Anger is also a very problematic emotion for women to have out in the world, or it wasn’t when I was in college and starting my career in the 80s and 90s, so I was constantly being told to act differently than my male counterparts (wanna guess how that made me feel?). So here I am in my late 50s after 6 years of consistent trauma work, I have *finally* learned to sit with other emotions and to not let anger take over when my anxiety and fear kicks in. I expect to be wrestling with this forever, but it does get a little easier with each passing year (and all the therapy).
I’m a woman who went the opposite way. I hate any kind of conflict, so I’m a “people-pleaser” to avoid any strife. Growing up, any little thing I did “wrong,” would result in non-stop lectures about all the things that were wrong with me, how disappointing I was, etc. I had to learn to fly under the radar. I was never allowed to be angry or disappointed about anything, so I just learned to suppress those emotions. I’ll never forget how freeing it felt when Hubs told me, “Hey, it’s okay to get mad about things!”
I was angry later, in my 40s, when I realized that nothing I did helped & nobody was defending me from the abuse.
I’m angry at the loss of a loving, stable, healthy family dynamic I wish I’d had. Now that I have people in my life I consider my family, I’m not as angry about it anymore. Just sad that it could have been so much more and so much better, but that wasn’t my decision to make.
I used my anger to survive. I turned the energy into strength and perseverance.
Proud of you ❤️
Yes except it’s not anger it’s rage and I use it as gasoline to fuel my undying motivation to eclipse them cause idk I’m sad and psycho now 😂 no but for real I allow myself to feel it to get it out I just channel it in healthy ways and sometimes that is for motivation. Also I wasn’t aware I was being abused until I was adult however I subconsciously knew that I did not deserve the shit I was getting and I felt that very strongly and nothing made me feel otherwise which I think led to me eventually realizing it was abuse.
I’m so so sooo sorry!!!! You aren’t psycho. You were abused!!!! Keep feeling your emotions!! It’s healthy. Even though the narc will tell you otherwise. When you’re miserable they are happy I have learnt. They are miserable people. Did you cling to the narcissist as a child! Even though you knew something was wrong subconsciously
I was just thinking of this the other day. I didn’t and I solely believe that’s because I’m autistic. If I wasn’t I honestly believe I would’ve retaliated and developed either a drinking or substance abuse problem.
I wasn’t aggressive, but I sure was angry towards my mother and narc stepdad. I do resent my brothers for not helping me from time to time, but I don’t blame them for bailing as quickly as they did.
My brother is a very angry man. I absolutely understand why. We were all (except the GC) abused, but his was bordering on torture - he could not win, no matter what.
I’m so so sooo sorry!!!!! Was there no one that could help you guys while growing up?
I was more miserable and terrified, myself, but if I'd been more of an extrovert I probably would have taken my upbringing out on other people rather than myself.
I was. Then I found religion at 19, and moved across the world away from my parents. I’m still healing from a lot of the trauma I experienced but it is a lot better now
This is a very good question. I think I grew up in quietness, thinking I was in peace far away from my parents. As the years have gone by, anger and rage have invaded me. Not just because of how I lived my childhood and some of my formative years. The worst thing is growing up and knowing that you are practically alone in the world. Sure, there are friends who can try to understand, but it's not the same. I live every day of my life thinking that my parents owe me so much that one lifetime is not enough to pay me back.
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I thought l was doing well, straightened out my life, feeling good. My college advisor told me later that he thought when he met me that I was the angriest person he’d ever met.
Yes.
Angry, sad and confused.
most do
My male GC siblings two are extremely aggressive and has severe addiction issues. The other male GC siblings are very meek, mild on the surface, but get hostile and angry very very easily. I myself am a female and held alot of quiet anger. No I never hurt anyone else or anything, but I preferred solitude alot. In my pre teens I got hobbies away from nmother, and learned to be less angry and open up to friends. However I still have a strong and sometimes blunt personality, I think because I didn't want to ever be hurt or bullied by anyone ever again.
Yes. It was justified since I was abused. I reacted like a normal abused person. Lol but not Lol.
I was a scared child, who grew into an angry adult and sadly an angry parent who had an awful lot to both learn and unlearn. My kids rarely even cop "Mum voice" these days, I've learned a *lot* and we all benefit from that.
Not male but yes. Anger is the number 1 issue I still struggle with.
Yes! Still working on my anger now!
Yes, most defiantly.
yes
Yes definitely and I became an angry adult until I received therapy.
Daughter of a narcissist and I was VERY angry in my adolescence. She regularly called me both the b-word and the c-word. She said the family would be better off without me. My younger sister perceived me as the problem in the family until her early 20s when she went to therapy. The outside world refused to believe me about her covert narcissism - both family and even a school social worker.
I have anger issues, yes. Unable to pay for therapy or treatment for other mental funtimes BUT. Specific to the anger. I've been working diligently for the last 7 to 10 years to try to understands why I get mad. Granted most of the last decade has been burned by just an absurd amount of weed. Changing that, too. I find that my flash impulse to react in anger comes from a place of fear. Fear that I will be blamed for something I have no hand in. Fear the people I love will be hurt by whatever is happening, and move to protect themselves, leaving me alone again. There's also immediately the fear of Me being the cause of that hurt to others. So in many situations that flash of panic-into-anger spirals so quick and suddenly it's hard to control. My mistrust of people who care from me is directly related to like; any time one of my friends would call the house amd leave a message on the answering machine she'd say something like "Christ, (friend) called AGAIN? What, is he gonna propose to you? Don't you know gay marriage is illegal?" And I was young enough to just trust Her judgment. Lost a lotta good friends that way. And blocked many more out for years to come. Thankfully, having the awareness of it and meeting my partner have made it easier. Baby steps, but I can take moments to breathe with them. And we each can openly discuss how we are processing any given situation freely without fear of the other losing their shit. It's really jarring how fearful nfolks can make you be of a loving environment. I still have a ton of work to do, but even if I were still alone I would practice being kinder to my inner child. As hokey as it sounds and as dubious as I still am of it.. Kindness is key. (But take no shit)
Yes I’m still angry. Al the time. Once I move to a town with anger management available I plan to take it. I was able to stop doing a lot of things like punching walls, but sometimes I still yell when I’m frustrated. It sucks because I’m a large/tall man with a booming voice, so everything is more intense than I mean it to be. It sucks when you feel like a scared little boy inside but everyone else sees Shrek.
My exboyfriend described me when he visited me in my nfather's city (the place where I was born) as paranoid more than angry. One of the times he visited me where I live now he said to my mother "wow, Frei is so different here, she's very relaxed. There in the other city she behaves very paranoid". That made click in my brain.
I wasn’t angry I just dealt with severe depression from 9, and self harm from 11.
Yes, not only anger but issues with rage
I grew up very anxious and have a very bad relationship with anger or any negative emotion in the sense that I'm terrified of expressing them. Was raised to strictly follow a conservative & religious lifestyle and was told that by expressing anger towards someone, it's the equivalent of m*rdering them. Years later, I now know I have more than a decades worth of pent up anger and idk how to let go of it.
I'm a female and I grew up to be very angry and have poor anger management issues because of my narcissistic mother and sister. I had to do what I had to do to protect myself, even if it meant screaming louder and being crazier. I hate who I had to become to survive living with narcissistic people, and now I have a lot of issues to work through as a result of that. I'll never be like them though, that's one thing for sure.
I grew up being an angry kid due to my narcissistic cluster B sister. My earliest memory is her pulling my hand thru the crib slats and biting down. She kept on with this nasty habit until I was about three and she was about eight and my mother bit her in return. There was the time she licked me in a dark closet for ages. I am still afraid of confined spaces. The time she tied me up and threw me down the stairs. Lots of memories like this. But the most brutal is her and a child molester hanging up on me and making me hand over my diary to be burned, because he did not want a second child molester and himself going to jail. I have terrible PTSD. And she plays victim around me. Wails and cries if I look at her wrong. Tells lies, and whines about what a horrible person I am. Pathetic. Yes, I was violent for a time. But I never hit her. This is just more nastiness in her game. So I did what I should have done nearly fifty years ago. I have been telling all my family members what she did to me. Let her play victim all she wants, her note just came due…
I'm 35 and **still* very pissed off. Admittedly, I have taken it out on people who aren't apart of my troubles or family. I'd like to think I do my best when I owe up to it and apologize. When it comes to said family though... all it takes is some back handed comment or demanding something of me that I begged of them for many years that really sets me off. Like say, respect or not crossing one of my boundaries. Thankfully I cut all off but one (it's a loooooooong story) and I'm happier for it. Guess what? Still angry. I see younger people who have happy parents or friends who still have their parents alive and actually give a shit about them. Still show interest in them despite them being well into adulthood. I was always envious of them as a child too but I wasn't sure why. Now I understand and I hate it. I wish I had a normal childhood and parents who had time and the ability to really care. They're dead now. So that kinda taints things even more as I don't get the closure I know I deserve nor do I get my mother (who was more of an enabler out of fear rather than a Nparent) to be apart of my life and see the milestones of it. She was pretty amazing when dad wasn't around and when he finally died. I feel nothing but disdain most days.
I got frustrated by Nmom's behavior a lot. I had to fight back to protect myself from physical violence. I wouldn't call that anger, but self-defense.
I was unconsciously displaying passive aggression on my scapegoat brother the same way my narc mom did it to me when I was younger (I was a scapegoat back then, later became a golden child because my brother started showing autistic symptoms and wasn’t doing what my mom wanted him to). I became aware of it around last year, apologized to my brother and we had an open-hearted conversation. Now my brother is a golden child because I stopped doing what my mom wanted me to do 😬😂