What To Do If You are a Victim of Narcissistic Rage

Narcissistic rage is a dangerous life or death experience: how to best survive it

First, I’m really sorry for what you’re going through.

I’m sure the pain you’re experiencing feels bewilderingly unjust, wildly disproportionate, and deeply traumatic.

The experience of narcissistic rage becomes even further isolating than the abuse did, because the rage can be so shockingly deranged and horrific that people struggle to believe that anyone could be capable of it.

And other abusers will automatically doubt, gaslight, and victim blame you as you struggle to communicate what’s happening and heal from the trauma.

When I’ve experienced it, it was hard to understand what could possibly motivate it.

It happens because it is negative supply for the narcissist: they are projecting their and grief pain onto you.

It sounds counterintuitive, but the harder they hit you with rage, the more they actually loved you.

This is because their loss of you as a loved one is a shame they cannot process, and if they come at you with vicious and life threatening revenge, this means that losing you made them suicidal, so they must project their wish to die upon you through rage.

Narcissists cannot emotionally attach, but they are human, so they do feel love and want love. But they know how they have behaved lifelong and they know what dark secrets they’re protecting: they know that anyone who discovered them would abandon them, and this is why love actually triggers phobia, abuse, and paranoia in them.

Their rage happens when they’ve split you to black and can never come back from that, usually because you collapsed them by discovering one of their secrets, unmasking them, or deciding to no longer endure the abuse.

Once they recover from a collapse, they think you deserve revenge— they’ll always be obsessed with breaking you. You threaten their grandiosity by surviving.

I never intentionally brought on the narcissist’s shame monster.

It was just an accident of being an authentic and loving person: you continually remind them of their faults.

Unfortunately, when they split you after they face their shame monster, there’s no going back.

They will want revenge forever. They’ll hate you forever. They’ll check on you forever. And they’ll plot forever.

In their minds, they have nonsensical reasons that justify that, a burning self loathing that they are forcing you to wear as a costume so they can love themselves and survive.

It’s like always having a shadow trailing you that sometimes looms huge in front of you.

To survive, unfortunately, you’ve got to think like a predator.

You’ve got to become crafty prey.

You have to BECOME THE SHAME MONSTER.

To do:

Keep evidence of anything they do.

Keep record of it on your computer, send it to friends. If they are hacking you, they’ll see it: a document of all their shames with record that could unmask them to all and maybe put them in prison.

Tell people.

Have witnesses to your character and their behavior and your pain.

Analyze them.

Think hard about what they’ve shared about their childhood. Think especially hard about what they’ve accused people of. Those are their secrets. Those are their worst shames. The shames that would kill them. Do they say all POC are rapists? They’re a rapist. Do they say child molesters deserve prison and torture? They’ve molested a child, maybe even when they were a child after being molested. (The shames are also their pains they project). When confronted with these truths, with someone knowing these truths, they collapse.

Do not reveal all you know and don’t reveal it to their faces: they can’t survive it and this is when they kill.

However, document it privately. (If they see it, they’re gonna run and hope you forget them). If you have to interact with them, hint at knowing. They always panic and flee. It seems counterintuitive, because this will make them hate you worse. But it also makes them feel fear.

Get police involved.

This is tricky because police can be narcissists and antisocials, and they can potentially be triggered by victims and be abusive and ignore your problems or act like you’re crazy. Of course, the stories seem crazy, so it can be frustrating. Police have never been helpful to me, but at least there’s record of your complaints in case you’re killed. It lets the narcissist know, should anything happen, this will go straight back to them. That unmasking is often not worth it to them. Sometimes, not being able to get away with something is the only thing that stops them because they have no conscience. Though, restraining orders are pointless — they’ll break them — but at least there is a trail to accountability. They hate accountability, so this will make them angrier, but it’s still prudent to do.

Tell your job.

Again, there may be narcissists there. When I had to tell I was being stalked and raped, I got victim blamed by some people. A narcissist confronted with a victim goes immediately into devalue mode. However, the important thing is you have records and witnesses.

If you have to, gather your evidence and press charges.

It can be the only way to stop them. However, this is when you’re most in danger. This is an extinction event to them, and they’ll need to try to kill you. They’ll go to any length and can be crafty, so if you choose this, you must seek safety and distance first.

Safety precautions

Cameras, extra locks, a lock inside a closet with food and water if you need to call police during a break in. Carry mace and a pocket knife. Consider investing in a gun or self defense classes. Keep wasp spray next to your bed. Envision being violent with them over and over to numb yourself should you be faced with it.

Keep a bag packed in your car so you can flee at a moment’s notice.

Have credit cards you don’t use should you need hotels, a new living situation.

Move

If you can, and don’t share your address. They may still find you. Because they’re crafty and obsessed with “winning.” They truly see you as “playing a game” with them when you make boundaries and they kind of like the game. They like the idea of you being afraid, of losing money, of suffering in some way. Because it’s all about offloading the suffering they feel. They often have backgrounds in military training or police, so they’ll use anything and anyone at their disposal to spy, gang stalk, make you feel crazy or unsafe.

Do not show suffering. Do not show fear.

This is what they feed on. You have to show the opposite.

I know this is easier said than done. My experience with a stalker did produce fear in me, and I have a dull fear response from my childhood. But one thing that helped me was to remind myself that the amount they try to scare you is THE AMOUNT THAT THEY FEAR YOU.

Violence is never power: violence is fear.

A person being violent towards you is GIVING YOU POWER because it means they’ve LOST CONTROL.

And narcissists thrive on being in control. Their violence is their desperation at feeling out of control as triggered by love.

YOU actually have the power when you have LOVE in your heart.

And when life is as awful as it is in the midst of a narcissistic rage and the trauma that accrues, you are reminded that death would be a relief, not something to fear.

Also, when you survive on desperate prayers, you learn about miracles and how to deepen your faith.

Not showing or letting fear affect you is work, but it will take you to deeper avenues of healing and reveal to you the lie that fear always was all along.

Only love is power. Only love is real. Fear is a lie that comes from liars.

Avoid being petty or trying to get revenge.

It’ll stir them up to play like a cat chasing a mouse.

Become boring

Make all your social media private. Keep the same photo forever as your profile pic (or even not a photo of you). Live a boring life of a good person minding their business. Act dumb. Act like you don’t know what they’re even doing. Don’t respond to a thing they do except for clear lines of accountability (like calling the police when they come near). They are children at heart, and just as bored and fickle. If they’re having a tantrum and mommy is not responding, eventually, they’ll get tired and find a toy to amuse themselves. Narcissists need constant supply daily. If they’re coming for you when you don’t respond, supply is very low, which means they’re very dangerous, which means it’s even more important not to respond at all.

Heal and learn everything about NPD and ASPD.

The more you know them, the better. A good predator knows its prey. And trust me, they’ve mined you to your core.

They target you because they think they know where you’re weak. But they don’t have empathy, so they don’t actually know you. All that they think you are is actually who THEY are.

So you need to learn who they are and know where they’re weak.

After enough education, they’re boring, predictable, and just plain depressing.

I never understood when I’d hear the quote that evil is just very banal until I fully understood NPD and ASPD.

Last tip: scientifically, they’re emotionally toddlers.

Always remember that.

They can be super smart and crafty because their cognition has developed, but don’t lose perspective: they are a child and YOU’RE NOT.

They can’t heal and YOU CAN.

They can’t love and YOU CAN.

They’ll never feel that.

How tragic. How sad.

PITY THEM.

A.M. Champion is the author of She Saints & Holy Profanities (Quarterly West, 2019), The Good Girl is Always a Ghost (Black Lawrence Press, 2018), Book of Levitations (Trembling Pillow Press, 2019), Reluctant Mistress (Gold Wake Press, 2013), and The Dark Length Home (Noctuary Press, 2017). Her work appears in Verse Daily, diode, Tupelo Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, Salamander, New South, Redivider, PANK Magazine, and elsewhere. She was a 2009 Academy of American Poets Prize recipient, a 2016 Best of the Net winner, and a Barbara Deming Memorial Grant recipient.