I let someone have it today

[springydaffs]

Unfortunately I can be extremely sharp, to the point they could probably wish they'd never been born. I wouldn't like to be on the end of me when I say my piece

I'm not sure what the issue is with the so-say drip-feeding and it may be too much to go into but I'd say it was because I felt someone was a gargantuan taker and ran me bone dry before I had the chance to blink. My patience was up to here, stretched to the max ... and I blew

I didn't shout but oh my goodness I cut straight to the quick with 'you' comments re you are one of the most self-absorbed people I have ever met etc. (quite a few etcs ) I really woul't have wanted to say this to her (or anyone) and really wish I hadn't. it is absolutely true but what good is saying something like that? Since when was I the judge and jury.

Anyway, I feel very low about it. In my younger days someone literally went white and slid down the sofa after one of my exocet missiles. I know that sounds funny but I am not proud of my ability to destroy and wish I had more self-control. Or whatever.

Any tips/empathy/whatever? is this hot-headed/fiery or is it toxic? I really wish I didn't do this. Is it anger management I need? I don't shout but I'm deadly. I don't 'blow' often but when I do, God help anyone in my sights.

But did you mean what you said today? Is it the manner of saying it or the substance that you are regretting? I know you say you don't do so often, but do you have a history of losing friendships because of it? Or is the problem that you keep things tamped down inside for too long and then blow after years of being frustrated? If so, it may make sense to do more, rather than less, plain speaking, but in a much more controlled way, and earlier into the pattern of taking, if that's one of the things that always sets you off. Better that you say 'The way you assumed I would fall in with X makes me feel very taken for granted' straight off the bat, rather than biting it back for twenty such incidents and then losing your cool and being really vicious...?

I did mean what I said - but it shouldn't have been said! it was a character assassination - all the worse for it being an absolute bullseye. But since when was it my place to let someone know they're this or that?

I agree with you that I need to speak sooner. I am so taken aback I don't know what to say, particularly when some of the 'misdemeanours' are so minor it would sound petty for me to say. Some aren't though, you are right.

Yes I have had a history - now and again, not often - of this and yes, losing friendships because of it. At the time I am not the least bothered to lose said friendship, nor after. But this isn't the way to do it! It's awful, there's something wrong with it. I keep coming back to the judge and jury thing - it is not my place to say these things, particularly to hit so deep.

Sounds like you need to go on an anger management course to be quite honest :(

I dont mean that to sound flippant and nasty or sarcastic btw.. I mean it genuinely as you seem horrified by your own behaviour and unable to control your temper.

Sounds a little like you are quite proud of your ability to do this, or am I reading the wrong thing into your words?

I think you are textual. I am not proud of it, isn't that obvious? I am horrified by it. That old adage about one finger pointing, 3 pointing back at you... I may feel a certain thing but it isn't necessarily the whole truth iyswim, I can't know the whole truth, just the bit I'm seeing that I don't like. She is pathologically self-absorbed, to an alarming degree (suggesting a disorder of some kind). But I can't get away from the very clear behaviour on my part - regardless of the circumstances, I can't be doing this, I can't be subjecting people to this, even if it's not very often.

What you say reminds me a little of my own mother, who puts up with being exploited for ever by refusing to admit the exploitation, and then, after years in some cases, will explode in fury at someone 'safe' - though at least you are exploding at the offending person! (She used to do it at us when we were children when her fury was about someone else, which was terrifying.)

Seriously, you need to try to be a bit more assertive, rather than less. Tackle what you perceive as other people's bad behaviour in a clear, but non-aggressive way, and as it happens, rather than letting it build up and put you in this state of blind fury when you say such cruel things. And those old 'how to have a productive fight' rules are probably good ones in your case - I mean things like using non-accusatory 'I' statements, like 'I feel taken for granted when you do X', and talking about specific things that have happened, rather than going for the jugular with 'You energy-sapping, emotional vampire, you ungrateful, self-absorbed cow etc etc'.

It's better all round in the long run, as presumably when you sound off like you did today, you end up apologising, as you've put yourself effortlessly in the wrong by going mad - which of course allows the other person to focus on your temper rather than on their own bad behaviour.

It's just some of your terminolgy that led me to question so; I apologise if I misread that. I think you are being quite brave by trying to understand why you do this and what you can do to stop it. All I can say is that I never think it my role to sit in judgement on people (even though privately I think we all do), I guess what I mean is that I don't verbalise any judgements I form unless I can give something positive back to that person. None of us can take responsibility for anyone's elses behaviour, only our own. I guess my only bit of practical advice I can offer is to think back to the point at which you are triggered to react in this way and start to plan some strategies to pull yourself back. It all comes down to pyschology - there are ways we can make our points without attacking.

Yes! As someone once put it, they load the gun, I fire it

The shocking thing is, I know all about 'I' statements. This woman - or her outrageous behaviour - just snuck under the radar (at lightening speed) and lit the fuse. I blasted her with a torrent of 'you' statements that were smack on... but shouldn't have been said. As tempting as 'You energy-sapping, emotional vampire, you ungrateful, self-absorbed cow' (bitch, actually), I'm too well-trained to say stuff like that.

I'm just aware of a volcano underneath is all. Does anyone know about anger management courses? I don't think I could count to 10 once the fuse has been lit...

" I never think it my role to sit in judgement on people (even though privately I think we all do), I guess what I mean is that I don't verbalise any judgements I form unless I can give something positive back to that person."

well yes, but no amount of thinking can pull back a raging bull. I think all of those things too - I've done the therapy and the classes and the reading and the studying. Sometimes things are going on that are more powerful than 'thinking'. Hence the volcano. She had something coming to her, but not that (nothing like that!).

Hi again Springydaffs, so, I guess you are saying that you have no control over this, albeit rare, behaviour traits? The counselling I had years ago concentrated on me taking ownership of my own behaviour and my "responses" to other peoples behaviour. I have someone like this in my life (work) that can really pull my chain (NPD) and it has taken me a while to understand why she is the way she is and for me to accept that I cannot control her behaviour, only my own. I know it's easier said than done but I just do not care enough about her to react any longer. I concentrate on all the good people around me and have reached the stage when I pity her. It's taken the power out of it.

Textual, when you lecture me, I feel irritated. Of course I'm responsible for my own behaviour and responses - I think my thread adequately illustrates that. However, your observations about your NPD colleague are valuable to me, being as I seem to have been surrounded by narcissists my entire life, and one just ended up practically in the hearth.

If you've been surrounded by narcs your whole life there's a good chance there are some in your family background and that may be why you let her have it. She may have touched on raw feelings which have been buried. Does she or the situation remind you of anyone?

And also, if you've been surrounded by narcs your whole life, you have not had a good model of how to appropriately handle feelings like anger.

Someone mentioned assertiveness techniques above, and I second that, if you are looking for concrete help. Assertiveness training is just as much to help those who express themselves aggressively, as it is to help those who don't express their needs at all.

I agree that a lifetime of sociopaths leaves you with some strangely direct communication tactics [hgrin] [hblush] I don't explode like you do, but some friends told me ... at the age of 47! ... that I drop verbal grenades without even knowing it. Apparently I'm always right; my grenades are perceptive, but utterly inappropriate and frequently painful. I also felt very :( particularly for the millions of times I must have done it without anyone's remarking on the trail of conversational destruction I left in my wake.

Assertiveness training very much is a help - there's a good primer here, and you also need face-to-face training in a group for the practice. CBT's also very helpful because this tendency comes from a habit of seeking the core problem before anyone's even asked if there might be one! It's a form of negative thinkingGood, free course online here.

Other quick fixes include the obvious ones like stopping for a long, deep breath whenever you feel that little 'kick' inside you - and counting to ten really does help. It's okay to wait before speaking, and to make others wait.

Most crucially, remember it's natural to behave like you did. Our 'old' brains - the deep-set parts: amygdala and so on - evolved to thrive in very hostile environments. When your 'new', social, brain perceives a comparatively subtle 'threat' - like dealing with a self-obsessed twat - it still sends the same old 'threatened' messages to the amygdala, which responds with instructions that would have been appropriate when we were lizards [hwink] In your case, "ATTACK!" Your new brain then goes, oh, okay, I'll attack with the weapon used against me (words.)

Could be worse. You could be responding with a heavy object ...

The key to the solution is the opposite of self-suppression (what most people mean when they talk about self-control.) It lies in having a wise & gentle understanding of how human minds work, including your own, and using your 'new' brain to achieve desired results more gently, minus unnecessary conflict. CBT and assertiveness help with that.

If you're interested in finding out more about this, have a look at Paul Gilbert's "The Compassionate Mind".

Onwards and upwards, eh [hsmile]

I think we were very possibly separated at birth garlic. INstead I got the wrong twin, the totally headfuck twin; toxic, a viper who never ceases to astound me

so that's one down (toxic twin), many more to go in my immediate family. Scorpions would about sum them up. Can I possibly say I'm the only sane one among them? I don't feel I can, though this dawning, and shakey, realisation marks many years of self-examination/therapy, believing at the core for too long their version of events: that it is me who is mad. But I'm going off topic.

So, yes, she did hit a soft spot - the woman who got 'a piece of my mind'. I didn't get the 'ping' of anger that I know to act on immediately by getting AWAY (I once turned heel out of one boss's office because of the 'ping' in my guts that meant anything could happen and it was time to go. I came back when I'd calmed down after a walk around the block). What happened in the recent (controlled-ish) meltdown was an overflowing frustration and outrage, that cascaded out, like a flood, all 'training' nowhere to be seen

What I am saddest about is that the accuracy of my perceptions (and yours too by the sound of it garlic) could be used for tremendous good but are deadly when used to harm. I sometimes wonder if I am aspergers/autistic as my comments can, as you say garlic, deeply offend people's sensibilities; with me left in confusion re 'what did I say?'. People have sometimes reacted violently and I am none the wiser about what caused the offence - particularly as I'm supposed to know, it's supposed to be obvious and I am apparently being obtuse to not get it (at all, actually). One woman actually exploded "It's the things you say!!", which was hardly enlightening. I suppose I hold greater store in concepts (if that makes sense) than people's feelings, including my own; I don't ignore my own, or theirs, but expect us to be adult about our feelings. It may be an excuse - I don't know - but the insanity, the endless tantrums/strops/offences in my immediate family were just nonsense mindbending and impossible to decipher or negotiate with any degree of success, which left me clinging to rationale as the only bright spot in bedlam, the only thing that made any sense. Perhaps those of us who hail from chaotic, narcissistic families are only comfortable with The Facts.

I would also never allowed to speak in my family. it was absolutely forbidden for me to speak. I am still not allowed to speak but I don't associate with them unless I have to, having reached a safe truce which satisfies our parents (we are all 'speaking' - ha! not all of us!!) but gives me the freedom to choose the level of contact and at which I do my best approximation of a block of wood.

long post - apologies. thanks all for the links and support

Springydaffs, your last paragraph completely resonates with me. I know I lash out as an adult for the same reason - girls and women expressing anger, or indeed any negative emotion, was not allowed in my family. My mother is a deeply screwed-up individual, who has never worked out that her daughters are not her (and that she's boiling over with repressed rage), and would never allow us any autonomy as children and teenagers. Speaking, especially when it involved expressing your own needs or saying no to something, was Not Done, especially not for eldest daughters (she's an eldest daughter, and so am I - and her own mother was the most astonishingly toxic woman I have ever met, and that's not an expression I use lightly). I learned early on that my needs were to come last, that other people were always more important than me - and I know that this has contributed to making me a rather fierce adult woman, though I'm much better at controlling my temper than I used to be. I'm good with words, and I know I'm capable of virtuosic verbal cruelty. I generally manage not to give into it.

Garlic's post offers lots of good advice - and I definitely think it's helpful to think of working on assertiveness training as you learning to express yourself rather than suppress yourself.

Put the three of us in the same room, we'd have a blast [hwink]

Springy, don't be too quick to diagnose yourself with behavioural problems. I've been doing those online tests for both Asperger's and Personality Disorders for the past few years ... each year, my score drops nearer to 'normal'. I'm just a mass of 'FLEAS', which I consider inevitable under the circumstances, but I do the quizzes regularly to check that I am the sane(r) one!! We're all de-fleaing ourselves, slowly but surely ...

Possibly one of the more damaging sayings I learned as a child is the one about the mad soldier, who yelled "Everyone's out of step except me!" It's not long since I realised my father was always saying it to me - I guess he spotted my 'difference' before I did, and went to some lengths to convince me I was the barmy one.

An awful lot of your 19:00 post clicked home with me. I'm learning, I think, to use that acuity more constructively: for me, it involves a lot of "starting from the beginning" rather than interrupting someone else's thought processes with the completed fact. I also need to understand that: [a] my completed fact might not be what they're looking for right now; [b] there are many ways of looking at the same issue. I feel I should have added [c] I may be wrong - but I'm right 90% of the time, so I shan't

Another thing I'm aiming to use constructively is the chaos and deceit. I'm creative: all that fantasy, smoke and mirrors may yet prove a rich seam of inspiration, when/if I get enough distance on it.

I know that I still have a long way to go in taking my time, finding the right pace, looking for the good news as well as the bad, using all that empathy for my own benefit and others', practising compassion and so on ...

... It's bloody nice to know I'm not out here on my own! Thanks [hsmile]

at the risk of being flamed your OP sounds pretty NARC. a disinguenuine sounding/remorseful post backed along with almost advertising how acerbic you are.

Eh, so does mine, Rollon. Believe me, you 'catch' this whole mindset when you've been surrounded by it since birth. That's why recovery groups call these learned (mad) behaviours 'FLEAS'. (Comparison: If you were the hearing child of congenitally deaf parents, you wouldn't naturally learn not to bang stuff, whether to sing loudly or be quiet or how to conduct a two-way conversation. When you came into contact with other hearing people, you'd find them very odd and you wouldn't know why they were annoyed with you.)

The x-ray vision for madness and negativity comes from having lived with it so long; the tendency to deliver verbal assaults without even noticing is the direct result of being around people who do it all the time.

The difference: OP is worried about hurting other people's feelings. Not only is your Narc unaware of what they did, they don't care.

it does seem rather like shes secretly quite pleased, just how it comes across

I find it interesting though that, amid the remorse, Springydaffs is so convinced of her perceptiveness and acuity. I think that is the part which comes across badly. Most people are humble enough to realise that their view of a person is only ever partial, and perhaps coloured by their own experiences.

I agree though that the way to prevent yourself building up a head of steam and then losing your rag is to tackle problems assertively and more diplomatically as they arise.

back in the day, when I did my mammoth therapy stint (due a top-up I think) we were taught about hyper-vigilance re the poor sods who grew up in a chaotic, poisonous environment learned to be hyper alert from the off, the year dot. Those of us with the misfortune to have been reared in toxic families learnt to recognise - in order to survive don't forget - minute changes and signals that could herald another incomprehensible onslaught. As a result, powers of perception can be acutely tuned to infinitesimal (sp) degrees. ie the ability to 'read' situations, people etc with astonishing accuracy. Unfortunately, the tuning is far far deeper than anyone wants or is useful, particularly in relating .

It does come in handy though if, as so often happens, you end up in the arts (I wonder if the sensitivity, the fine-tuning, preceded the abusive upbringing or is a result of it); it can also be handy with eg academic study, in that we are very well-practised at recognising themes and patterns. It is mainly a curse because you can 'read' what you would rather not, what you would rather be blind to. It can be exhausting and very painful -x-ray vision indeed - and takes a lot of re-training to tune out/drop stuff - particularly as conclusions can be distorted (not the whole truth); plus you don't need it any more, you're not fighting for survival. However, it pops out - of course it will: your frame of reference in your formative years was on an extreme level, that's how you learned to view the world- from the bottom up.