ANGER AND THE COUNTER NARCISSIST
Many people who are raised by narcissists become co-dependent. Another term for this co-dependency is COUNTER NARCISSISM. This term helps us see how survivors of narcissists often become the exact opposite of the narcissist. They over-function, overcompensate, and over empathize. How is it that in my practice, so many of my clients worry about being narcissistic themselves? While this is not impossible by any means, most who come to therapy for help are not narcissists. Like I’ve told hundreds of people, almost no one comes to therapy and says “Help me, I’m a narcissist. If they do, they most likely aren’t.
Many survivors report extreme reactive anger and this worries them. This is because anger can look like a selfish response. I get reports of angry reactions to the slightest provocations. Fury over minute slights or misinterpretations are not uncommon. Why is this so?
I believe that the experience of perceived abandonment and dismissal causes an angry reaction. The narcissistic parent constantly abandons his or her child because their self-involvement and self-interest get in the way. A child doesn’t understand this cognitively. She just feels bad. For many survivors, it's death by a thousand cuts. All parents occasionally misunderstand their children, criticize or dismiss them. This is human. Raising kids is hard and frustrating. The difference with the narcissistic parent is that this misunderstanding, inability to empathize, or dismissal of the child, is pervasive and frequent, and more often than not, intentionally mean. When that child grows up, it’s not uncommon for them to be over-sensitized to perceived dismissals or misinterpretations. One response to this is to become even more accommodating, and apologetic and to try even harder to be the “perfect” wife, friend, mother, daughter, etc.
Another response is to become angry. I am speaking here of inappropriate anger, and clear overreactions to what has actually taken place. Needless to say, in the normal course of life, sometimes anger is appropriate. When it is a reaction to a negative childhood experience, it often is not. Being co-dependent is exhausting. To have someone in our adult life who we trust dismiss us, despite all our efforts to be “good”, can be devastating and trigger inappropriate anger.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. I consider myself to be a good cook. Ironically, I learned to be a good cook from my narcissistic mom. I remember an occasion when my husband and I were making artichokes for dinner. I asked him to cut the top off the chokes and trim the leaves before he put them in the pot. He smiled and said he didn’t think that was necessary. I GOT FURIOUS! Crazy, right? We are talking about cooking artichokes here. What triggered me was the dismissal and the non-recognition that I actually know about cooking and he, well, not so much. My sweet partner almost always “sees” me and gives me my due. This was not about him. It was about one of those thousand cuts that happened during my childhood and early adulthood where I was never good enough, never given credit for knowing what I was doing.
How do we change these inappropriate anger reactions? First, we recognize when our anger is inappropriate and when it is legitimately called for. Hint: artichoke anger is seldom appropriate. Secondly, and more complicated, is to stop dismissing ourselves. If you constantly do that, reactiveness to minor or imagined slights gets worse. I had internalized my mother’s dismissals of me to the point that I felt reactive to perceived dismissals because they matched my perception of myself. If we truly think ourselves good enough, we don’t need the constant agreement by others that we are. Like most things, it gets back to self-love and acceptance.
