Adult
Children of Narcissists have been socialized to accept the
unacceptable.
We
have tolerated hatred, simply for existing, from the people who
should love us for existing.
Not
only were we programmed to experience contempt as normal; we were
trained to internalize the contempt. The narcissist’s goal was, and
always will be, to manipulate their victim into hating themselves. A
self-loathing victim is not a threat. A self-loathing child will
never be competition to the narcissist parent or golden child
appendage because that child will never live up to their potential. A
child with low self-worth will fear outshining anyone because they
will view themselves unworthy of attention. A child who feels
worthless will make the perfect scapegoat because that child will end
up being self-destructive.
Narcissist
parents do not want their children to have any self-respect. They
don’t want their children to be happy or to succeed in life.
Self-respect would mean that we no longer tolerate abuse. Our
happiness and success would cause the narcissists way too much pain.
And, it’s all about them, and protecting the fortress of their
fragile egos. If, against all odds, an adult child does thrive then
the malignant narcissist parent will get their selfish, sadistic
needs met by tearing that child down.
You
can never win with narcissists. The only acceptable state of being
for the adult child of narcissists is to collude in the delusion of
“family” with demonstration of bow and scrape to the Kings and
Queens of the fiefdom. A “family fiefdom” where you must denounce
all your rights and accept your lowly position as second class
citizen wherein you have all the obligations and responsibilities of
a chain gang member, and none of the privileges afforded only to the
narcissists, and sometimes strategically doled-out to their monkeys
and minions.
Sound
like a good deal?
Sounds
like a contemptuous relationship.
Contempt
is not just strong dislike, or hate. It’s a feeling that a person
is beneath consideration, unworthy of respect, notice or concern.
It’s hatred tinged with disgust. It’s growing-up in a home where
a parent screams, “It doesn’t matter what you think! It doesn’t
matter what you feel! It doesn’t matter what you need! You don’t
matter!” It’s growing up in a home where the people who are
supposed to love and respect you, show you everyday and in every way
that they think you are worthless.
Contempt
is about being deprived and denied and devalued. Contempt is the way
narcissists elevate themselves. Making others feel small makes the
narcissist feel like a big shot. Putting you down puffs-up the
narcissist. And again, it’s always about protecting the
narcissist’s infantile ego. The malignant narcissist mother has no
qualms about sacrificing her young in exchange for the power rush of
glorifying her image. And you have to be one sick, insecure bitch to
need to feel superior to a child that you already have unlimited
power over through your role as parent. But we all the know the
predatory malignant narcissist never stops feeding because she is
never satisfied.
When
I was about 20 years old I took the bus to visit my mother. I didn’t
call ahead to let her know I was coming. I just thought it would be
nice to surprise her with a visit. I remember I was feeling a little
down that day. I was probably technically depressed, but I didn’t
know it. All I knew is that I needed a bit of nurturing… from my
mother. Ha! You’re probably wondering what I was smoking. Nothing.
It was just plain old denial sprouting from 20 years of narcissistic
abuse. It was “normal” for me to go to the hardware store for
milk; to try and squeeze blood out of a stone.
I
walked up the pathway to the malignant narcissist mother’s house
and she peeked out the curtain and scowled at me as I approached her
door. I should have turned around and run like hell, but hey, I was
in a fog. Having the malignant narcissist mother shoot me an evil
glare as I innocently came a callin’ was normal. Despite all the
evidence to the contrary, I still thought she would be pleased to see
me and invite me in. I knocked on the door and she quickly opened it
and hissed, “What do you want?!!” My body shrunk and I
started to stutter, “Nnnnothing... I I I just came to see you.”
She grabbed her coat off a rack and angrily brushed passed me and
snapped, “Well, I’m going out!” I stood on her door-step and
watched her storm off to the garage, get in her car and speed away.
It all happened so fast. She was still wearing her slippers. I walked
back to the bus stop and sat down on the bench. A few minutes later I
saw the narcissist mother drive by. She was smiling/smirking and
tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. I watched her turn into
her driveway. She pretended not to notice me, but I know she was
happy I saw her.
THAT
my friends is contempt.
What’s
worse than the actual hatred and disgust emanating from the malignant
narcissist mother is the fact that I didn’t think there was
anything unusual about her behavior. Sure, I was hurt. But I just
chalked it up to her being in a bad mood. Her being nasty toward me
was normal. I was socialized to accept the unacceptable. I had yet to
accept reality – that she was grossly indifferent to the damaging
effect of her self-centered, aggressive, and psychologically violent
behavior. And it was indeed an act of violence. She didn’t actually
run me over with her car, but the incident was most certainly a hit
and run.
The
malignant narcissist’s contempt makes her extremely callous. How
can you give a damn about the humanity of another when you disrespect
all the qualities that make someone human? This callousness is never
more obvious than when you are weak, vulnerable or in need. Malignant
narcissists utterly despise the needy. Their grandiosity makes them
feel that they alone are the only ones entitled to needs. They are in
constant pursuit of every last drop of attention, so if you are in
need of anything this will trigger their contempt which
usually manifests in punitive acts toward the vulnerable. In other
words, you will be punished for suffering.
Here’s
an example: The narcissist has 3 children. One of the children is
very hungry and has nothing
to eat. Two of the children
have full bellies and still have some food left over from their last
meal. The malignant narcissist mother
will give a heaping plate of food to the children who are not hungry
as a reward for not being hungry.
The
starving child will get nothing. In other words, the malignant
narcissist parent will punish the child in
need for being in
need. She
may not actually starve the child to death, but she
sure as hell won’t give the child enough nourishment to thrive. She
will only give the bare
minimum required for
survival and
she will resent having to
give it. How dare you
inconvenience me
with basic human needs such as food, shelter, clothing, medical care
etc.?! Who the hell do you
think you are for needing anything?!
Contempt
= Abuse
I
was around 22 and I had just moved back to my home city. I was
working
at a low-paying job and struggling
to make
my rent. Most
of my
earnings
went toward
rent, and
there
wasn’t
enough
left
over
for a sufficient amount
of
food. So I started to
lose
weight, and I was already on the thin side so there wasn't much to
lose. One
day I
saw
the malignant narcissist sister,
and I guess she reported
back
to the
MN mother
that I looked
skinny. So the two evil bitches accuse me of being anorexic. There’s
no concern for me; just judgment
and
labeling
my need for food an eating disorder.
Next
thing I know I'm having to defend myself to
them and explain that
I can't afford food. They
knew
damn well that I couldn’t afford food; they just didn’t want to
acknowledge it
because then they might have to do something to help me.
So
what did they do? They taunted me about my need for money, for food,
for care and concern.
The
MN sister
was
living comfortably for
FREE in
MN mother’s
large 3 bedroom townhouse. Malignant
narcissist mother
was
laid-off from her part-time job that she did for fun, so she was
receiving unemployment cheques. To her that was
"free" money so she
used
those
cheques to shop
shop
shop.
One day the two malignant
hags
left
a
key
to
their Castle
"under the mat" so
I could enter their Kingdom to
pick-up some mail. I was absolutely
starving at
the time.
I
went
into the kitchen and I saw
a
note stuck
on the fridge from the
MN mother
to MN sister.
It said
have a “wonderful” weekend (the
MN
mother had
gone to
a resort for
the weekend) and her credit card was
attached. The
note went
on to say to buy whatever she likes. Love Mom. The credit card was
for a department store that had an amazing food floor and was
conveniently located near their house. Did I grab the card and get
whatever "I" like? No. But I did go upstairs to peek in the
malignant narcissist mother’s
bedroom. I was astonished. It was like a department
store
from the
1950s
had
exploded. There were boxes EVERYWHERE. Really fancy
boxes sprouting
colorful tissue. I
didn't even know retailers boxed stuff anymore. There were hat
boxes, shoe boxes, clothing boxes, jewelery boxes. Some of the items
were spilling out of the boxes and on display,
strewn across chairs and laying
on
the bed. It looked like a shopaholic
had gone on a major bender. The
malignant narcissist mother
was so cheap, she never
bought like that for herself, so it was this "free" money
from the government (that
she didn't need)
that
triggered
her
extravagant spending spree.
I
believe this whole over-the-top
scene was staged for my benefit. In other words, to make me feel bad
as
well as try to frame me.
The malignant narcissist mother knew I was starving so what better
way to demonstrate her contempt than by letting me see that she was
leaving
her MN frankendaughter a
credit card to
buy food at the swankiest food floor in town. She also wanted me to
see that she was over-flowing with luxury items while I couldn’t
afford a carton of milk. This was also a test. She
set me up to
tempt
me. She wanted to
see if I would take the credit card to buy myself food, or steal any
of her purchases. Despite
being in need, I
had
zero sense of entitlement so I did not
“take” anything. In
fact, it was my lack
of
entitlement and acceptance of a criminal state of deprivation, when
there was so much to go around, that put me in an unnecessary
position of need.
Well,
the two
malignant
hags
were disappointed that they couldn’t accuse me of anything. Can you
imagine the
glee
they would
have
experienced
knowing
that I had to succumb
swiping
a credit card in order to eat?! In
addition to gloating over my deprivation and marginalization; they
would
have relished
in
condemning me
for stealing.
It would have been
a
festival
of humiliation,
punishment
and degradation. It
was a typical no-win scenario designed by a couple of malignant
narcissist sadists.
But
I didn’t bite, so their malicious
need to humiliate me wasn’t satisfied. They
started plotting.
Fast
forward a couple of weeks. By this time I had lost a noticeable
amount of weight. So the two evil witches used
my literal
starvation
as a means
to demonstrate their contempt. They
concocted
around their bubbling brew of poison a
massive
insult to me disguised as a
"care”
package.
The MN
sister dropped
by my apartment with a bag of "food”.
Was
it
nice, healthy, fresh stuff from the fancy
department store food floor? Hell to the no! It was
all crap. And all the stuff I hated
and have always hated. There was some dusty old cans of pork 'n
beans, an
ancient
box of Kraft
Dinner,
and
powdered soup.
It
was all the shit that no one ever eats, but
that just sits and gets dusty at the back of the kitchen cupboards
and maybe is given as
a donation
for food drives at Christmas. And among this
Oliver
Twist “contempt”
package
was some cheese. But not a block of cheese in its own package. It was
a small slab of cheese chopped from a
larger
chunk and
it looked like some mold had been scraped off.
Even the powdered soup wasn't a whole box, it was 2 individual
packets
taken from a
box and
it
was
so old the powder had hardened.
These
malignant creatures
never stop reminding you of
where you sit on the food chain. They
will deprive and marginalize you into oblivion and then hate you for
being in need. They
will demonstrate their contempt for you at every conceivable
opportunity. They will never stop letting you know that you are
unworthy of the good stuff. A
box of Kraft Dinner?!
That garbage
food was a message
to let me know what they think of me. Well, I wouldn’t let those
two
greedy narcissist
pigs dine
at
a
diseased
hog’s
feeding trough. Even
my shit is too good for them to eat.
Malignant
narcissists perceive your time of need with contempt because they see
being in need as being stupid. They believe having a pathological
sense of entitlement makes them smart. The malignant narcissist is
much too special (and predatory and greedy) to suffer through hard
times. Why should she want for anything when she can steal, take,
manipulate, cajole and bully her way into a state of constant
comfort? The malignant narcissist’s selfish, self-centered status
of “entitled” confers in her the belief that she has the right to
get whatever it is she wants. In her mind, she is free to posses it
simply because she wants it. And if anyone gets in her way, she will
use any forces necessary to take what she believes rightly belongs to
her.
Contempt
= Entitlement
The
malignant narcissist’s contempt and lack of respect for others
leaves them feeling empowered and at liberty to exploit and violate
others without worry and without shame. They size up a person’s use
value and base their relationships purely on how much they can get,
take and steal. The flow of their fake love is in direct proportion
to how much they think they can bleed from someone. For example, the
malignant narcissist will love bomb – use affection as a weapon –
to get whatever she wants. It’s the malignant narcissist’s
characteristic contempt for humanity that makes it possible for her
to betray the trust of others and violate personal boundaries with as
much concern as one would put into a crushing a paper cup.
Contempt
= Exploitation
The
malignant narcissist does not take anyone or anything seriously
because she has no respect for anyone or anything. No respect at all.
How can she take anyone seriously when her pervading view of others
is that they are beneath her; a joke, and nothing but objects to have
her way with and use for whatever purposes suits her agenda.
For
example, the malignant narcissist daughter who gratuitously exploits
her mentally and emotionally weak father throughout his life and
takes and takes and takes without a second thought to how her
parasitic and destructive behavior will impact others. In fact, she
will not stop violating her dad just because he is on his death bed
and slipping in and out of consciousness. Indeed, she will use his
vulnerability and impending death to hastily steal a huge asset from
his estate. As his body is shutting down, she will shove documents
under his nose and steer his hand in order to TAKE what she wants
regardless of what her father, who trusted her, intended. With her
cool-blooded contempt, the malignant narcissist will treat her dad in
his final days as nothing but an object to exploit. She will not
mourn the passing of his life. She has a malignant disrespect for
human life. She will cause pain and outrage to others unburdened by
normal feelings of responsibility and accountability because she just
doesn’t care. Do you care what a fly is feeling before you swat it?
Contempt
= Callous
The
malignant narcissist’s contempt means she can’t take others
seriously. She doesn’t take laws of right and wrong and human
dignity into consideration because she doesn’t have the ability to
give a damn. So she’s caught in a lie? So she’s busted for
fraud? So people think her behavior is repugnant? Big deal. So her
denials of her crimes are absurd? So she has caused others extreme
grief and suffering? So what. A malignant narcissist is an
emotionally and interpersonally sick individual who, at bottom, has
no true stake in others. And remember, there’s no shame or
embarrassment in being confronted or busted by those she doesn’t
take seriously. The malignant narcissist’s signature contempt and
heartless disrespect inflates her grandiosity and sense of
omnipotence. This makes her feel fearless. She truly believes she is
invincible. She views herself flying high above everyone and
everything, including morality.
Contempt
= Delusion
The
malignant narcissist is convinced she is as smart, clever, and
cunning as others are dumb, naive or desperate. In other words, the
malignant narcissist’s bloated grandiosity makes her thinks she is
so superior that she is entitled to a life without consequence. She
thinks she’s good. Damn good. Better than everyone. And in
proportion to how brilliant she believes herself to be; she thinks
you are that stupid. As a consequence, the malignant narcissist’s
contempt leaves her at constant risk of underestimating others, and
over estimating herself. But again, no big deal. Her disrespect of
everyone and everything is a mindset steeped in indifference toward
life. What she stands to lose through her abuse of others, is in her
mind, as contemptible as what she stands to gain. A pervading sense
of emptiness and cold detachment colors the malignant narcissist’s
world.
Contempt
= A Barren Existence
So,
in the end, the miserable malignant narcissists can be as
contemptuous of us as they like because we sure as hell are not going
to internalize that contempt. We’ll externalize it by hurling it
right back at them.
We’ll
give the mother fuckers something to hate us for.
