The Malignant Narcissist's Contempt

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.