Have you ever known someone who is angry all the time, and also blames other people for mistakes that are obviously their own mistakes?
My ex had an uncle like that. The tension surrounding him all the time was palpable, like he was just going to explode at any second. He had quadruple bypass heart surgery by the time he was 50.
He had some pretty horrific experience in occupied Holland during WWII. A soldier put him against a wall, said he was going to shoot him. As a 9 year old boy, he was terrified. The soldier thought it was funny, because he was “just joking.” I think those experiences really shaped him as an adult.
One time my daughter was a passenger in a car he was driving. Without paying attention he blindly followed another car onto the exit ramp, realized it wasn’t an exit he wanted to take….then yelled at my daughter for “letting him” do that! She was 13 or 14, didn’t drive, and was in Seattle, a completely foreign city to her. She had no idea how to get to where they were going!
Do you, or have you, known someone like that?
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I did and it turned out they were bi-polar.
I don’t know that he ever got that kind of diagnosis.
@Dutchess_III: If he doesn’t go to a psychologist or psychiatrist and talk about his feelings, then he won’t get any diagnosis at all. Only if a professional knows the details and examines him will he get a diagnosis.
Right – so since I’m assuming he was never seen by a professional, there wouldn’t be a diagnosis. You’re just wondering what was wrong with him. At this point, who really knows.
I have met someone like that. They were in a position of power over me. I could never please them and everything was my fault.
As I said, being a young boy in occupied Holland was pretty traumatic. It may have been PTSD.
Yes. They usually are pretty unhappy people.
No, I surround myself with good, generally happy people, that’s the way it works.
Well, it was family so I didn’t really have a choice.
Forty or more years ago we had someone in the “neighborhood” we called her drama momma. Everything was intense and all the world was “causing issues” in their life.
@Dutchess_III I hope after that incident with the car, you kept this person far from yourself and your family. Even though it is family, you do have a choice.
He lived 2000 miles from us @jca. It’s a long story, but I only had to deal with him 2 or 3 times in my life, when he and his wife ( who was an awesome woman) came to visit.
He’s the reason my ex had an excuse to move 2000 miles away from his kids. My ex (his nephew) could come live with him! He jumped my case for pointing that he probably wouldn’t’ have left with out that “help.” It was when my ex and my oldest moved in with them for a while that the car incident happened. After Uncle kicked them out they moved to a homeless shelter.
I finally got my daughter back, when she was 15 and pregnant.
AND my now 19 year old grandson is here for the holidays!
Sounds like you met my mother. She was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder when I was a kid. Problem is, she denied the diagnosis, doctor shopped for a whole, started self medicating with cigarettes and Valium, then proceeded to make our lives miserable for years.
I’m so sorry @cookieman. My mom was on Valium too. That’s what they prescribed in the 60’s.
I don’t think the blaming others for your mistakes is that uncommon. The explosiveness takes it to another level, but I’ve experienced the weird blame game my whole life. People want someone to blame when things to wrong and ideally, that someone is not themselves! One time my husband blamed me when we turned the wrong way because the street sign post had been turned. When I was a child, my mom would get upset with me because of something my friend’s parents did, which of course, I had no control over. It’s just misdirected anger. I sometimes wonder if there is something in my personality that provokes this – do people feel more comfortable getting angry with me than someone else?
I’m not sure how this has impacted me as and adult other than I am probably a little more demanding of people to “be fair” and also spend more time trying to be fair when it comes to assigning blame.
I don’t think it’s uncommon either. But sometimes it just goes beyond ridiculous!
I remember Mom blaming me for locking the keys in the car, once. I was about 11 or 12. Well, it was my fault anyway. She had stopped at a garage sale. I didn’t want to get our of the car for whatever reason, so she let me stay in the car, with it running. (I’ll bet some song had just come on.) Any way, then I changed my mind and locked the car up and got out, without thinking about the keys.
She got really angry, calling me stupid and shit, and I started crying. She finally calmed down and said, “I don’t know why I’m so angry. I’ve done it before. Everyone’s done it. That’s just one of those things that can happen.” Then she apologized.
^^^Not exactly sure why that particular memory was triggered!
Not so much angry all the time, but yes blaming other people for things that have gone wrong in their lives. I too don’t think this is an uncommon thing. Some people never learn that in order to improve our lives, we have to examine the causal effect of our own actions and attitudes. If we don’t do this, we’re doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes. I think people who reach adulthood and still don’t work this out are either very immature or perhaps narcissists.
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