self-tormentor

self- +‎ tormentor

self-tormentor (plural self-tormentors)

1. A person who torments himself or herself.
   • 1659, Samuel Clarke, chapter 9, in Medulla Theologiæ, or, The Marrow of Divinity‎, London: Thomas Underhill, page 73:

     [Anger] macerates, and vexes the soul with fury, so that they become self-tormentors; Rage, and fury, tortures more then wrong and injury.

   • 1777, Samuel Jackson Pratt, chapter 126, in Liberal Opinions, upon Animals, Man, and Providence‎, volume 6, London: G. Robinson and J. Bew, page 61:

     […] a little observation upon the affairs of men, assured me, that I might kick, and prance, and give myself airs, but it would all be to no purpose: that I should only live anxious, and go down into the grave sooner, for acting the self-tormentor; and tearing my body and constitution all to pieces:

   • 1847 December, Acton Bell [pseudonym; Anne Brontë], chapter 1, in Agnes Grey. […], London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC:

     The very willingness with which she performed these duties, the cheerfulness with which she bore her reverses, and the kindness which withheld her from imputing the smallest blame to him, were all perverted by this ingenious self-tormentor into further aggravations of his sufferings.

   • 1940, John Buchan, chapter 8, in Memory Hold-the-Door‎, London: Hodder and Stoughton, pages 225–226:

     […] his will was not always the servant of his intelligence; he was an agonist, a self-tormentor, who ran to meet suffering halfway.