When individuals are jealous-fueled, what is happening? One thing that’s happening is that they are often looking for rage, looking to rage, in all the wrong places.
So this is important to establish up-front: The jealous-laden individual is using his jealousy as a basis to unleash his stewing rage. He is using jealousy as a means to feel rage; to feel outrage; to feel, somehow, self-righteously betrayed; and finally, to justify (through his jealousy) his pursuit of these feelings.
Thus, he is looking, contriving, convincing himself that the basis of his fury is legitimately, suspiciously, here”¦or there!!”¦or there!!”¦or here!!”¦or over there!!
Regardless, he will find the basis for his suspicions whenever it suits him—whenever, that is, he seeks a rage catharsis through his jealousy. From his suspicions, he will immediately rationalize the rapid escalation, and release, of his righteous indignation, which he will almost instantly transmute into expressions of jealous rage.
In his rage, you (his target) will naturally be declared guilty even without his having informed you of the accusations against you. It’s almost as if, in his arrogant grandiosity and sense of entitlement, you barely deserve to know the accusations he’s leveling.
After all, you should know them without his having to inform you, because you are guilty of them!! Who are you kidding?! Who are you trying to dupe, playing the innocent?!!
In such fashion he ratchets up, equally rapidly, his paranoia, convincing himself that you are weaving a real deception, really making a joke of him, the thought of which further primes his paranoia and escalates his self-justified fury.
To be sure, you are guilty of something treacherous. He knows it, he’s convinced himself of it. He believes that you too, of course, know it, but just don’t want him to know it. So he assumes a kind of paranoid omniscience. He is soooo smart, way toooo smart to be had; thus, you must be patronizing him with your innocent, shellshocked reaction.
As if he is going to fall for the pretense of your bewilderment? To the contrary: it will merely makes him legitimately more incensed.
And so the jealous rager, consciously or subconsciously, in conformity with his aim, puts you in a lose lose position: admit what he accuses you of (that is, falsely confess), and even more hell will break loose! Tell the truth, of your actual innocence, and more hell will break loose!
You are like the suspect in the interrogation room on whom he, the interrogator, in his smug conviction, believes he has all the evidence; like the suspect with whom he is toying as he watches you (from his warped perspective), and derives a perverse pleasure in watching you, try to squirm your way out of the guilty, damned status he has arrogantly, smugly stamped you with.
The jealous rager, in this fashion, will enjoy, perversely, the process of (from his warped perspective) watching you dig yourself deeper and deeper in a hole that he has made for you, that he set you up to fall into, and then assured that it will have all the escapability of a quicksand pit.
Rather, it is a pit into which, from his warped perspective, he watches you sink little by little, lie by lie, evasion by evasion, omission by omission, inconsistency by inconsistency, into his “doghouse,” or really his “hell-house,” inside of which he will slam the door shut, bar your escape, and menacingly confront you, seething with the self-righteous fury of the betrayed, entitling himself to “payback” for the treachery of which you, of course, innocent, in the abusive forms he chooses.
This sheds some light, perhaps, into the mind of the jealous rager.
(This article is copyrighted © 2010 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of male gender pronouns is for convenience’s sake and not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the attitudes and behaviors discussed.)
Steve,
You have spoken to a situtation that I encountered last evening. I could see, feel and smell the inward rage a person had for me last evening. I did not engage HER! I knew on some level that she had a target on my back. I refused to acknowledge her behavior.
As I was lying in bed last night I began to think about this very subject. This woman and I had been close and I knew she had a short fuse, I had on occasion ask her “why” she thought such and such. Her answer was always the same. ” I just know”. Know what? I don’t get it. The forum here has helped me see clearly these twisted thoughts that some people have. I went totally grey rock on her, which of course made her more paninored (sp?). I am just absolutely not going to play the game. In the past I might have called her and made nice not now not ever—it’s not worth it.
Steve I am also thinking about another article here can’t remember(swiss cheese brain) if it is yours or someone else-the jest of it is a reality check and shifting our thinking about long held believes. I did MOST; and I say MOST because I am now shifting more, of my shifting in my early 20’s. Although at times I have asked different people from different walks of life why they beleive in a certain idea or situtaion and I almost always get the same answer “that’s the way it’s always been”. I find this incredibily lazy thinking. It is so difficult for indiviuals to have a paradim shift unless something tragic happens, and sometime not even then, even if it will make their lives better and less toxic. It almost like telling the world that the earth is round but they insist that it is flat. To do otherwise would shatter their whole believe system. Make their lives up to that point NOT REAL hell it’s real for sure but it can change without it being the end of the world as we know it. This is true in politics it dosen’t matter if you are republican, democrat, liberal or conservative or pink. It’s all designed to keep us in check. If I don’t have to think about it, it doesn’t hurt me. I see this problem in my own family. IT IS THIER REALITY!!!! how ever worped it is. Just cannot make the diconnect it would be to painful to realize that what they thought is green is now red.
I’m sorry if I am rambling–it makes sense to me anyway and I get it out of my system .
Thank you for the Post—
I read more that I post here. There are many here that are of great help to others.
Again a big thank you for your time and energy to Post this article. It came when I needed it as most things do when we open ourselves up to recieve what we need and not what we think we want. Hope you have a Blessed Day. Seeing Clearly
Stay Strong Stay Safe and Stay Sane
Yup. Mine followed me all through the house one day, screaching and accusing at the top of his lungs that he just knew I was cheating on him because he found a kleenex in the waste basket with lip stick blotted on it. I always wore lipstick, but on that day, it was evidence I was cheating.
Even at that time, however, I knew he was just looking for something to vent his rage on.
I would go out of my way to make sure he didn’t feel jealous, or suspiciousabout anything. Drastically changed my life-style. He would still accuse and start arguements.
He had an uncanny ability to KNOW where I had been, who I had spoken to, and even though it was innocent, he would imply guilt. Creepy. When it came right down to it, though, I don’t even think he REALLY WAS jealous. It had no real depth. I think it was control for the sake of control. Plain and simple…and it worked like a charm.
And then, on the other hand, he would play head-games to make me feel insecure and to get a reaction out of me, like openly flirting with someone else, in front of me. He was really good at messing with my sence of confidence in myself. So absolutely incapable of caring how anyone else felt…But very good at knowing just what to do to make them suffer.
The cheating accusations were also a projection, since he WAS cheating. But he knew that I was loyal and like you, Kim, I went out of my way to make sure he knew that.
That doesn’t mean he wasn’t jealous though. He was jealous of ME. There was so much envy. He even envied my loyalty to him, my ability to love HIM. So when he raged pretending he was jealous, the only pretension was what he was jealous about.
good morning kim and sky – i posted on another thread this morning, about projections.
the spath always projected that others were stalking one or all of the characters she created. ad freaking nauseum. this gave her lots of excuses for raging.
one of the characters expressed jealousy of my relationship with the other. another excuse to rage.
and some of the characters (and she always does this in her cons) would rant about how whoever the dupe de jour was, was on the outside, that they had closed ranks against her (by and large the dupes are women), as they had to ‘protect’ the vulnerable from the mean, manipulative, predatory dupe.
oh yah, she’s all about herself.
Skylar,
I hear ya girl—I’ve experienced that on a business level so many times. People pat you on the back and at the same time give you a shank in the kidneys. It’s hard to fathom what their thought process is.
There is a difference in “I want to be like you” and “I want to be you”. I have never wanted to be anyone other than myself, Howrever there are plenty of people I would like to emulate their finer qualities in a way to make me a better person.
I had a woman a few years back tell me she wanted to be friends with me. I asked her why? Her reply: You have everything I want. whoa whoa and whoa. Have never talked to her again. Scary stuff!!!! and from a complete stranger.
And I wasn’t all that sucessful at that time. I wondered at the time what she wanted that I have. My joy, my passion, my love of family and life. People are envious even on a smaller scale. Go figure. Can’t figure out or do the work necessary to claim their own life, so they take yours, how very very sad.
Stay Strong Stay Safe and Stay Sane
Steve
It is your article that I am referring to in my above post–the one “Is He A Narcissist?”
It’s like teaching someone a foriegn language. You hear the words but the accent is wrong. Sort of like a New Yorker talking to Canjun from LA. O as in Umbrella. Did I hear you right? Double speak and no substance.
A company I worked for many years ago ask employee to come up with ideas on how to promote a certain product that they want to take to market. A female employee gave this 5 min presentation of the product. You could see the disconnect on everyones faces b/c she never really told what the product was or how it would be used. Someone ask: so what’s your point? Answer: what I just said. huh!!! the product never went to market and today I still don’t know what it was we were trying to promote. Telling isn’t it? Confuse enough people with bs and they’ll think you’re a genius. Keeping it REAL!!
Kim – Skylar.
The jealousy (by spath) is true. Where have you been to til now? Who was there? What time will you be home? Will you be home for dinner?
Jealous of my kids, phone calls, dog you name it he was jealous of it!
Now on the other hand….he would openly flirt with any female, look at porn (found him out) to pleasure himself, have secret messages on his phone, chat to women on msn, have a second email address (for his eyes only) etc,,,,,,,,,,
So it was ‘ok’ for him to do all of these things!!! but heaven forbid if we should. Well he can go swivel 🙂
Then again the jealousy of an spath isn’t so much out of love ( as it is with normal people ) but sort of a “you are an extension of me, IE : my property, my object and it should remain that way”
( In fact in that respect, I wouldn’t even necessarily call it jealousy. Jealousy the word to me, implies as if there’s some passion involved. There’s no passion involved with an S, this “jealousy” concept we are trying to put our finger on is no more than “not wanting to share his toys with other people” … yes, I think that would be most true to the reality )
So much as TALKING and joking around with a guy was construed as flirting.. but he didn’t rage about it, just mentioned it passive aggressively ( this was about 2-3 months into the involvement ). “He seemed like he liked you.” ( For giving a guy a high five ) Although the joking was out of genuine camaraderie, and very short-lived ( an 2-3 minute exchange ) Funny how that is.. because he would call ME jealous when I would find out about him taking girls out and sleeping with them all whilst lying to me and calling me crazy for it. Then again we’re talking about sociopaths, so I don’t suppose you’d expect anything close to normal anyhow. Ah yes, down in the rabbit hole, like always.
And if I joked around with his acquaintance ( ie : had a good laugh.. i refuse to use the word friend cause they don’t have any real friends. This guy always kind of seemed a bit put upon, like demands wise by the S. ) he would later lie to me and tell me that his acquaintance said something negative about me ( Such as they were leaving cause I was too drunk.. of course he admitted to lying later.. but only because I was angry and about to be unglued )
Another acquaintance of his added me on facebook after meeting me, and the S asked me “did he message you” ( As if it’s any of his business?” then goes,”He asked me if he could add you.. cause he knows that i like you.” ( who “Asks” their friend if they could add someone? That’s pretty fishy to me. ))
Kim said, “I would go out of my way to make sure he didn’t feel jealous, or suspicious about anything. Drastically changed my life-style. ”
Yeah, same. Almost hypersensitively about intuiting it. On the otherhand, the S would shamelessly go around taking women out ( and although he did make attempts to hide it, there were pretty damning pieces of evidence.. including a girl’s online journal ) and whenever I’d get upset he would say preposterous things like ” I can’t have a jealous girlfriend” ( notice the word he uses “HAVE” like i’m some possession .. not a person with thoughts or feelings ) you’re crazy, etc etc ( I think everyone here has heard the same verbage of garbage before )
It’s an interesting/important thing you touch upon Steve, this expectation of “immediate compliance”.. my gut feelings regarding having these sorts of things imposed on me were pretty strong & visceral. It’s almost as if they expect you to act a certain way ( blank, faceless, thoughtless, and simply do as they say ) and if you “act out of this projected behavior” you are punished for it.
( IE : you’re supposed to “ACT” like the accessory you are, not be having meaningful conversations with other people.. which takes away from the S’ glory, challenging his delusions as to his being the center of the universe )