Response to a narcissistic injury

Hello, what is your response to this phenomenon? And do you think it's possible to feel sadness caused by such an injury. According to me, it depends on the situation. For example, if someone criticises me, i am so angry, i can blow their head off. But my question is, if it's possible to feel sadness in response and not "narcissistic rage" (in a different situation). I know depression may be experienced, but depression is not sadness - it's even caused by internal rage.
What do you think? Could sadness be a response to "narcissistic injury"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP67zgY3LKA

demand an apology!

but yes i think sadness is a big response to perceived injury. whether it's self pity or simply "woe is the world" sort of lamenting. rage seems far more disproportionate to such circumstance

Depends on the injury, honestly.

I never feel sad unless the injury is huge. I get angry for scolding, critism and someone wanting it their own way, but I never feel depressed unless I am starved from admiration.

I agree that it might depend on the nature of the injury but yeah, sadness can certainly kick in. In my experience it's usually very much delayed so often i have to really think about what the feeling was caused by cos it's so long after the event.

However in the past I wouldn't have even recognised that the sadness was there, just completely detached from it. So it's interesting to have been on both sides of the mirror.

Could some of you describe the situations that cause you narcissistic injury? Obviously in the detail you are comfortable with.

And perhaps the inner experiance of narcissistic rage itself?

I ask as while personally I am very narcissistic, supply and injury are the two areas in which I am either blind to my own behaviours or divergent from typical NPD behaviour.

So as a non I'm not sure if I'm actually contributing anything. But maybe for comparison purposes I thought I'd share.

What feels like a narcissistic injury to me is when someone says something that I feel personally attacks my identity. Something that threatens to take away my rights for example...

I get an almost immediate surge of anger that rises up. It's like a space in my chest rapidly expands like an explosion. My eyes get narrow and my jaw tenses. And my mind sharpens towards "eliminating" the other person. Usually this is done through argument.

Sometimes I can recognize a feeling of sadness concurrent with the anger but only if the anger hasn't surged up to a high level. Usually if sadness comes in it's after the wave of anger has receded and it comes on in the form of a depressive state. Then my chest will feel hollow.

Quoth wrote:Could some of you describe the situations that cause you narcissistic injury? Obviously in the detail you are comfortable with.

Alright, let's start with my first - and only - wound as most would call it. Which is going to be a bit long to get a clear picture.

My first relationship was with someone I was very possessive about. Let's call her N1. It was a very abusive relationship to her, going by the descriptions she has given me about how she felt our relationship was. I got a lot of kick out of the relationship because of the constant "win-or-lose" type of situations, in which we would argue daily, and I would always be correct in the end. Either that or I would give the cold shoulder until she saw reason. I do not need to go into further detail, because it will drag on.

Basicly, what lead up to the injury was multiple variables all occuring at once; my girlfriend found out that I was having an affair for the second time, which pissed her off. I persuaded her to stay, but watched as she fell in love with some other guy. It was a huge blow to my ego, and I was f#cking furious about it. I mocked her daily, and tried to ruin everything she had. I must also say she downgraded anyway, but she was mine (and to some extend I still feel she is), and I wanted that rush. So she for once basicly ended the relationship that had been a cycle of me idealizing her to gain her trust back, only to devalue and leave her when she wasn't exciting again. There was something so compelling about it that I just didn't even think about it. Whenever she confronted me with my behaviour, it would always end up on her.

Due to my angry nature regarding her departure, most of our mutual friends (which were my only current "friends" at the time) decided that I was being too much of an ass, and when I asked them to choose a side, they all sided with N1. F#cking idiots. So there I was, without a girlfriend, all my former friends sided with her. Shortly after, a family member died. So now I had multiple $#%^ going on. It was a fall that resulted in internal hemorrhage in the brain. The neurological doctors decided that my family member was too old to save, and so she died.

I eventually fell into what I believed was depression. I was extremely hateful, and I turned inwards to cope with it all. Living in a fantasy world, thinking I could kill everyone if they were to ever f#ck with me. I started stalking my ex, figuring out what she was doing. I stopped turning up at college, grades dropped, but I just didn't care at all. It went to the point where this feeling of pure rage, overwhelming meaningless, dysphoria and apparent void inside left me wondering if I should ever be gone. The one classmate I had an affair with reached out to me, and snitched me out, so I got forced into therapy with the college psychologist if I wanted to still get payed for studying. Seeing that I didn't have a job at the time, I agreed to participate.

The therapist was weak as f#ck. He would let me talk endlessly about myself, and even agreed to let me slack in some classes in order to gain attention in others. The best part about therapy was that I had a valid reason for not showing up to class. After a few sessions, I felt I was back to normal. I actually rebounded super hard back from the wound I had been in, and felt over-the-top powerful. Now I was believing every girl wanted me, and every boy envied me.

Getting out of it left me with a very conflicting feeling, because I wanted to understand how I could behave this way when I knew most people thought of me as crazy. I didn't want my reputation ruined, so why had I been acting this way? This lead me on the quest to self-discovery. Not that I would say I completely have found an answer, but I have found a few ideas that resonates with reality.

And perhaps the inner experiance of narcissistic rage itself?

Narcissistic rage is like throwing gasoline at a bonfire. It's a very intense and real feeling of immense explosive anger. It is in that moment that you feel you could really stab someone 207 times without hesitation, to get all of that anger out (not that I've done it). It is a deeply rooted anger that I know in psychology is linked to a deep self-hatred, but because narcissists avoid this, it is externalized onto others, and they get the sh#t on for it. I can yell, I can throw things, I can become physically violent, abusive, vengeful and sadistic. When I rage, I will stop at nothing to hurt the people that has made me angry. And I can go from 100 to 0 as fast again if they comply.

I think it's like a "kill or be killed"-scenario for a narcissist. If someone challenges your whole idea of your identity, it's like destroying everything you am. So instead, you lash out by annihilating the threat that is trying to annihilate everything you are.

whichway wrote:So as a non I'm not sure if I'm actually contributing anything. But maybe for comparison purposes I thought I'd share.

I shouldn't worry about it, I joined this forum on advice to see how much I identified with the NPD I suspected and while I'm far from a non, I'm not convinced I count as NPD either.

What feels like a narcissistic injury to me is when someone says something that I feel personally attacks my identity. Something that threatens to take away my rights for example...

would this include calling you various pejoratives perhaps of a racial or sexual nature? What about someone yelling at you telling you you are a terrible mother/daughter/sister? Saying you are terrible at your job?

Because none of those would cause me issues beyond irritation, I might smack who ever did it around a bit verbally (probably) but that would mostly be about amusement/pragmatism so they wouldn't do it again.

I've actually had people punch me in the face in anger and fail to elicit an emotional response.

I can be very contemptuous in a "how dare you do x" sort of way and I get irritated by people who don't show proper professional deference. In these cases I get vengeful and spend a fair amount of time plotting and scheming.

Betrayal is probably the only thing I get properly ticked about.
On occasion that I have been in a position to receive a serious injury of that kind my emotions often flatline, so in a sense I spend my time defending against injury I don't receive. At worst I drop the persona and retreat within myself and let it wash over me and dissipate.

I'm feel pretty hostile most of the time but that isn't about anything specific beyond the other persons existence.

I get an almost immediate surge of anger that rises up. It's like a space in my chest rapidly expands like an explosion. My eyes get narrow and my jaw tenses. And my mind sharpens towards "eliminating" the other person. Usually this is done through argument.

That doesn't sound like normal rage as I experience it: a sense of determination to do harm, the sensation of extra power courtesy of the adrenaline, hearing my heart more clearly with a war drum quality, eyes widen and breathing becomes shallow. It's not really an unpleasant experience beyond the come down as the adrenaline metabolises.

Sometimes I can recognize a feeling of sadness concurrent with the anger but only if the anger hasn't surged up to a high level. Usually if sadness comes in it's after the wave of anger has receded and it comes on in the form of a depressive state. Then my chest will feel hollow.

when you say sadness are we talking the same thing as melancholy? Almost like nostalgia?

I Appreciate some of the questions here will seem a little childlike, my own emotional range is quite primitive and that makes it difficult to distinguish the nuances

Midwinter thanks for the big post

This is a good question to ponder. I have experienced narcissistic injury, although I didn't recognize it as that at the time. There have been major and minor events. The minor ones cause flashes of anger and I lash out -- either overtly or covertly. Someone is going to pay. The major events are devastating. No lashing out; just numbness and solitude until I can recover.

What causes this kind of reaction? Threats to my identity -- which is fragile and relies on others to recognize me a certain way. If that recognition is absent or denied, I have an internal response that feels like a tsunami.

Also i think another one that few of us would be willing to admit to, is when we are called out on our bull. Those situations when we are putting something across which we don't want to admit is a front for something else, and someone, particularly a partner, manages to cut through it, either intentionally or unintentionally, usually it's the latter.

I suspect often thats what people are REALLY referring to when they talk about their identity being threatened. Because of our inability to admit to (or even recognise) what we are really trying to do or say behind the facade, a threat to our identity is exactly how it feels at the time. But I don't think it really is. It's a threat to the mask.

That sense of rage and indignation is our outward reaction to our repressed inner sense of guilt and shame. And so we shoot the messenger so to speak.