It is difficult to deal with a narcissist when you are a grown, independent, fully functioning adult. The children of narcissists have an especially difficult burden, for they lack the knowledge, power, and resources to deal with their narcissistic parents without becoming their victims. Whether cast into the role of Scapegoat or Golden Child, the Narcissist's Child never truly receives that to which all children are entitled: a parent's unconditional love. Start by reading the 46 memories--it all began there.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Malignant Narcissist

An elderly woman visits her doctor for a check up after a mild heart attack. While in the examining room she has a sudden stroke and the doctor immediately admits her to the hospital to which his clinic is attached. The following day her sister-in-law, a registered nurse who is the executor of the elderly woman’s will, calls the small family together for a conference. The hospital will not turn off the woman’s life support without the consent of her next-of-kin, who are the nurse’s two sons, the old lady’s nephews. One son votes to turn off the life support—oxygen and IV fluids—while the older son advocates waiting until his aunt regains consciousness and then ask her. Because the family does not unilaterally agree, the life support remains in place and when the old woman regains consciousness a few days later, she opts to keep it going.

At a family dinner two months later the nurse castigates her older son for voting against pulling the plug. The old woman is now in a nursing home and the cost of maintaining her is eating away at her (not inconsiderable) assets. “This is your fault!” the nurse screams at her son. “I should take the cost of this nursing home out of your share of the estate! She is using up all the money because she’s taking too long to die!”

Another malignant narcissist plotted for more than two years to steal her grandchildren from her daughter so that she could give them to her childless brother to adopt. She sends her son to the daughter’s house to spy on her and, after years of ignoring her daughter and grandchildren, she begins dropping in unexpectedly—laden with gifts for the children—and snoops in her daughter’s cupboards and rooms. She even calls Child Protective services and makes baseless claims so that there will be a record of the daughter being investigated. With her son’s corroboration, the woman then spreads false tales of drug addiction, prostitution, child neglect and other horrifying stories among the extended family, blackening the name of her daughter and turning the family against her. In a court hearing in which the young mother’s uncle (brother of the grandmother) perjured himself—he had not seen his niece in more than five years, yet testified he had witnessed events in the last few months—the judge gave the grandmother a one year temporary guardianship, admonishing the stunned mother that she had a year to “clean up her act.” Visitation was granted, but when the young mother arrived to see her children several weeks later, grandma’s house was empty and a “For Sale” sign stood in the front lawn.

The grandmother took the children to another state where she obtained a permanent guardianship of the children by telling the court their mother had abandoned them. She got around the requirement to notify the mother of a court hearing by saying she had no idea where her daughter was and publishing a notice of the hearing in a newspaper in a city in which her daughter had lived several years prior, calling it the young mother’s “last known address.” The court terminated the mother’s parental rights and gave permanent guardianship of the children to their grandmother whereupon she uprooted the children yet again, moved them to the state where her childless brother lived, and gave the children to him for adoption. The children’s mother did not know where they were for eight years.

Yet another malignant narcissist, on admitting her terminally ill husband to the hospital, lied to her brother and sister about the nature of his admission, knowing the word would get back to her estranged daughter: she said he fell off a ladder at home and injured his back. When the man died of his illness a few weeks later, his daughter was not notified and she eventually discovered the fact of his death through a cousin, weeks after he had been cremated: her name was left out of his newspaper obituary as well. There is no gravesite for the bereaved daughter to visit and his ashes, according to a family member who has visited, are kept in a plastic bag in the closet of the spare room of the widow’s home.

Another daughter worked for more than 30 years in the family business, side by side with her father. On the few occasions she considered going out into the general workforce, her father convinced her to stay. “I need you here,” he told her. “I can’t run this place without you.” When he died unexpectedly, her mother inherited the business and promptly fired the daughter without notice, severance pay or references.

At Christmas dinner a woman who was the executor of a relative’s estate thrust some legal papers in front of her son, one of the heirs, demanding that he sign them immediately. The son, who suffered from dyslexia and for whom reading was difficult, politely demurred, saying he would take them to a lawyer to review when the holidays were over. She began screaming at him in front of the assembled guests, saying that if he didn’t sign the papers immediately, he was “stupid.” This insult cut him to the quick, as she knew it would, because he had struggled with feeling stupid for a lifetime because of his dyslexia, even though he was of above-normal intelligence. The man’s fiancée stepped up and told his mother “He’s not stupid! Do not call him that!” to which the mother replied, eyes narrowed and mouth twisted triumphantly “I am his mother and I will call him anything I want!”

The man took the papers and immediately left the dinner with his fiancée. The mother loudly blamed the fiancée, screaming that she was a bad influence on her son. She ignored his wedding five months later, as did the rest of his family. Early in November, however, the mother called her son to invite him and his new wife to Thanksgiving dinner, as if nothing had transpired between them over the past year.

Another woman received a series of disturbing letters in which her mother threatened to go to a lawyer and have the daughter brought up on criminal charges for defrauding the government. She claimed she had proof and she was just waiting for the “right time” to instruct her lawyer to proceed. The daughter spend weeks in a state of anxiety, not knowing what her mother was talking about, but fearing that the police would be knocking on her door at any time. It was not until she conferred with friends and sympathetic family members that she realized that a private attorney does not have the power to bring criminal charges against anyone, and she was then able to write it off as yet another random, unwarranted attack by her malignant narcissistic mother.

Yet another woman began spreading malicious rumours about her mother, calling her a liar, after reading her mother’s blog. The blog contained some ugly truths about her own mother (the young woman’s grandmother), a malignant narcissist who had disinherited her daughter in favour of her granddaughter, guaranteeing continued family discord. The young woman told the extended family about her mother’s blog, saying it was nothing but lies (although the majority of the entries were about events that had occurred before the young woman’s birth and about which she could have no first-hand knowledge) and suggesting that the family cut ties with her mother. Not only did the young woman cut off all communication with mother, so did many other members of the family, fearful they would be recognized in the blog and be shamed or held up to ridicule or public embarrassment by her revelations. Nobody, least of all the young woman, stopped to consider that if the blog was a lie, as she contended (and no real names were used), nobody could be recognized since the stories would not be true. It was five years before the writer of the blog learned why her family had shut her out.

A man sat with his soon-to-be ex-wife, signing papers. “Why have you been so angry with me?” she asked. “You wanted this divorce as much as I did.”

“Because you stole my thunder,” he answered.

“I don’t understand,” she replied.

“I was planning to go out to do some late Christmas shopping,” he told her. “And never come back.”

They had separated in June—he had been planning an exit guaranteed to make her and their 13-year-old son frantic and ruin Christmas for them—and he was planning it more than six months in advance! Why? Because the first Christmas they were married, when the boy was just an infant, she had bought a Christmas tree, ornaments and gifts and he was outraged that she would not return the purchases for a refund. He did not want to spend money on—or celebrate in any way—Christmas, he considered it a waste of money. She refused, saying he didn’t have to participate if he didn’t want to, but she was not going to allow him to ruin the holiday for their child. He had waited 13 years for his opportunity to retaliate.

Malignant narcissists are the personification of human evil. Well-known psychologist and author, Erich Fromm, coined the phrase “malignant narcissism” back in 1964 and characterized it as the “quintessence of evil.” Psychoanalyst Otto Kermberg claimed that the antisocial personality was essentially narcissistic and lacked morality, indicating that malignant narcissism includes a sadistic element, which serves to create a sadistic psychopath. In 1984, Kermberg proposed malignant narcissism as a psychiatric diagnosis. Writer and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck (People of the Lie) identified malignant narcissism as “the primary root of most human evil.” Peck further characterized it as “militant ignorance.”

According to Wikipedia and Richard N. Kocsis in Criminal Profiling, “malignant narcissism can be described as ‘an extreme form of antisocial personality disorder that is manifest in a person who is pathologically grandiose, lacking in conscience and behavioral regulation, and with characteristic demonstrations of joyful cruelty and sadism.’

“As a syndrome, it may include aspects of schizoid and narcissistic personality disorder, as well as paranoia — recent ‘contributions have confirmed the importance of malignant narcissism and the defense of projection’ in the latter syndrome, as well as ‘the patient's vulnerability to malignant narcissistic regression.’

Malignant narcissism can be comorbid with other psychological disorders such as borderline personality disorder, sociopathy, even psychopathy. Malignant narcissists, however, cannot be helped by therapy. According to Jacques Lacan in Écrits: a Selection, “the patient attempts to triumph over the analyst by destroying the analysis and himself or herself.” The patient cannot stand the idea that anyone other than his own lofty self has the power to free him from his condition which, all too frequently, the narcissist sees as being preferable—even superior—to being mundanely normal.

In What Makes a Narcissist Tick by Kathy Krajco, it is stated that while a personality disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis, in the law the narcissist’s behaviour is viewed as “premeditated and volitional.” She later opines “…it is quite likely that psychopathy (Antisocial Personality Disorder) and malignant narcissism are one and the same. [They] go through life doing their thing by laying waste to lives in other ways like malignant narcissists do, as “love thieves,” parasites, gold diggers, climbers, slanderers, verbal abusers, child abusers, wife beaters, pied pipers (i.e., religious and political messiahs), and the like…leaving poverty, destroyed careers, ruined potential, lost nest eggs, psychological injury and even suicide in their wake.” I can personally attest to poverty, ruined potential, psychological injury, and even near-suicide as the result of relationships with malignant narcissists. These people are just plain dangerous. They are evil.

Peck says that evil has to do with killing, it is that which is against life and liveliness. “When I say that evil has to do with killing, I do not mean to restrict myself to corporeal murder. Evil is also that which kills spirit. There are various essential attributes of life–particularly human life–such as sentience, mobility, awareness, growth, autonomy, will. It is possible to kill or attempt to kill one of these attributes without actually destroying the body.” Emotional abuse, manipulating and controlling another person, denying them autonomy and freedom: these acts, common to narcissists of all stripes, are acts of evil.

Evil, however (according to Peck) is not so much the sin itself but the refusal to acknowledge the sin, to admit you were wrong and seek to make amends. So while any person may do something that hurts another, like participating in the bullying of a co-worker, for example, the truly evil are those who refuse to acknowledge their wrong-doing. This is the difference between having a conscience, knowing remorse, and the narcissistic lack of conscience, even going so far as to blame the victim for his feeling hurt: “…he was asking for it, wearing those pink socks with yellow pants, dressing like a geek—we just gave him what he had coming…”

Malignant narcissists take it one step further: instead of waiting for an opportunity to ride someone, they make their own opportunities. They stalk, cyberstalk, harass, bully, and even plot against their targets for extended periods of time. There is nothing too low for them to stoop to, no behaviour too extreme for them as they pursue their goal of power and dominion over those around them. A malignant narcissist will do anything she thinks she can get away with in order to get what she wants. There is nothing they will not do to get their way, to create ways to get gratitude and admiration from others, to punish those who thwart them. From intentionally digging at someone’s emotional tender spots to stealing their children, to keeping a terminally ill man home until he collapses on the way to the bathroom and breaks a bone, then concealing both his illness and death from an adoring daughter (who didn’t so much adore the narcissistic mother), these people have no boundaries, no sense of shame, no limits to what they are willing to do to get what they want.

Malignant narcissists: they are the evil that walks among us.

16 comments:

  1. There is not (yet) enough information available about this topic. I spent 52 years of my life, feeling "not good enough" and wondering what was wrong with me; when all along it was my mother's illness. I would never expect a one legged man to run a race, and now I don't expect my mother to become a warm and loving parent...and this is freeing! Thank you for your stories and comments. It helps. Now that I have turned a corner on my personal dealings with my mother, we are opening a new chapter, as she is drawing my daughter in. Wish me luck!

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    1. My NM succeeded in drawing my daughter in, and then my daughter drew in one of her brothers. As a result, my daughter received half of my NM's 6-figure estate (the other half going to my GCBro), which she uses to control her brothers.

      I do not know how to tell you to fight back. If your daughter is a young child, end all communication between them and keep them apart; if she is not, then I must warn you that even truth, evidence, and witnesses cannot help you if your daughter is successfully drawn in by your NM...I had all of them and what I now have is a dead NM and a living clone of her in the person of my daughter, who continues spreading her poison 15 years after the old bat's death.

      Best of luck and sincerest wishes for success in this.

      Hugs,

      Violet

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  2. My mother is a malignant narcissist. I've gone no contact with her. She is refusing to take heed to my warnings. I am preparing to call the police on her if she keeps stalking me. I have nothing left for her other than the mere sympathy that I would have on any old lady who's ran all of her family members off due to being an overbearing, manipulating witch. I've taken back my control and am longer in engaging in any sort of relationship with her. Thank you for reminding me of why I need to stay away from her; permanently. She caused this and I have now been forced to severe my relationship w/her. Glad I did before she brainwashed my kids against me; I don't know if I could live through it.

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    1. Orchid Lily, yours is a situation in which I heartily recommend journalling. Pick something from your experiences with her and write it down in the minutest detail. When you have finished it, save it where you can access it again, then pick another experience with her and write it down as well. Try to include your feelings and fears along with the narration of the events. If you need a "model" to help you see how to do this, read a few of the 46 Memories on this blog as inspiration.

      Why? Because aside from the beneficial purging you get from writing, you now have an easily accessible memoir of why you are NC and why you should stay that way. There are no rules to personal journalling...grammar, spelling, sentence structure are all unimportant and you don't have to write the stories in chronological order. This is for you, for your own peace of mind. It is a remarkable tool and accomplishes a variety of good, not the least of which is a written reminder of why you severed your relationship with her.

      Hugs to you and thank you for your comment. Hope to see you here again.

      Violet

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    2. Mine did turn my only child against me with the promise of her getting my share of her inheritence. I never thought I would get anything from her anyway. It was all going to the Goldenchild - I knew that decades ago. I loved my little girl with all my heart, and I thought she loved me, too. I got over the loss of never having a mother. Now, I don't think I will ever get over NM destroying the one relationship I thought would be mine forever.

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    3. Dear Orchid lily, I had a counselor who told me to sever all ties for the sake of my children. So I did. That did not stop a community wide smear. I even had to move away. The minions persued me harder. The end result was I got to lose my children anyway. Thank God for this blog, it is very healing.

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  3. Mine did the exact same thing--and in the exact same way. And when she died, NM split the estate between the Golden Child and my only daughter. NM has been gone nearly 15 years and the rift with my daughter appears to be irreparable. I can only hope the same is not true for you.

    Hugs to you and my deepest sympathies,

    Violet

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  4. I'm calling myself "Hope", as that is what I have, and I don't want to reveal my identity. (I am not talking about hope for a relationship with my n mother - I am talking about hope for my healing.)

    Sweet Violet, I am so sorry for what you have been through. My experience was with a "garden variety" n mother, not malignant. Her torments have been much more subtle, for the most part. Your comments to Orchid Lily have inspired me to start my own blog! I haven't "officially" gone NC, but that is what will happen, de facto, if I don't initiate contact, because I have set some boundaries with n mom (who lives 2000 miles away) in an email, and she will now stonewall me unless I come back with my tail between my legs. I know coming back will be tempting, because I still want to believe she is the deeply caring, albeit damaged, person she thinks she is. She's damaged alright, and deeply caring - but only about herself! Also, my much younger 1/2 brothers live with her, and I may be tempted to cave into her so that they don't think I'm evil like she of course is telling them I am. You are such an inspiration - thank you thank you thank you!!!

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    1. You are very welcome...but I am compelled to make a comment here with respect to your younger half brothers.

      You cannot sacrifice yourself for them. I know that sounds cold and unempathetic, but the truth is, they are going to believe what she says, no matter what you do, until they are ready to see the truth...which may be never. You cannot give up your healing on the remote chance that a couple of children 2000 miles away MIGHT realize their mother is a narcissistic bitch just because you are in the picture. When they realize it, they will realize it when they are ready to assimilate the idea of what and who their mother really is. Your presence or absence will have little bearing on that, especially while they depend on her for their daily bread.

      I would suggest you send them birthday and Christmas cards (be prepared for her to intercept them and destroy them, as my NM did)--don't sent them cash (she will keep it) or gifts (she may intercept them, rewrap them, them say they are from her). If you wish to send them something, send checks so you get the cancelled check (or a copy of it) to prove you remembered them on those days, and keep copies of them in a safe place--there may come a day when one of them says "You moved away and forgot about us...we never heard from you again!" At which time you can show them the cancelled checks with the comment "I remembered every birthday and every Christmas...I send you cards with checks in them, checks that Mother cashed...here's the proof. Are you telling me she never gave you the money or told you it was from me?" (This is nearly a transcript of a convo I had with one of my kids at one point.)

      Be prepared for her to fight dirty--but do not ever sacrifice your healing because of the dirty tricks she might pull. It will only encourage her to escalate.

      Best of luck to you,

      hugs,

      Violet

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  5. The other thing I wanted to say is that your blog spectacularly validates my position that not all mothers "love their children and just want the best for them." This is something the sweet yet very naive man I am dating said to me when I talked to him about speaking my truth to my n mom. I countered by telling him that some mothers kill their children, which of course he is aware is a fact. I was thinking that some mothers do much worse than kill their children, but that is a difficult concept to get across to many people. But, my "killing" comment did have an impression on him, because the next day he apologized and not only encouraged me to speak my truth, but even suggested that I send her a recent book I read about narcissists to go along with it. LOL!

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    1. Sounds like you just might have a keeper, there! He listened, he did not dismiss what you said but obviously considered it, he changed his point-of-view after consideration, he apologized, then took up a position of support. Wow!

      Hugs to you

      Violet

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  6. My sister is a MN, and we used to live together. I had a friend over for a cook-out one night, and I was tending to the chicken on the grill. My sister asked if the chicken was ready, I replied that I had just checked it, and it was not. She grabbed the spatula out of my hand, physically pushed me out of the way and said, "You're so stupid, it probably IS ready." Horrified by what he had just witnessed, my friend said, "Don't talk to her that way, she's your sister!" To which my sister replied, "That's right, she's my sister - I can talk to her anyway I want to."

    At the time, I didn't know about narcissists - but at that moment - I realized that there was something very wrong with my sister. She wasn't just "difficult" or "not easy to get along with". To her, I HAD to put up with anything she decided to dish out - I was her sister after all! I moved out shortly afterwards, and now have very little contact with her.

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  7. Hi Violet. Having an MN mother is the worst blow a daughter could have. It is a horror that never ends...as long as the MN is alive, and extends way beyond death.

    I thought that after the MN was dead, my two siblings and I would resume life together. Now I realize that the toxin from the MN has extended to these two siblings and they in fact, are not just well trained flying monkeys, but Narcissists themselves. And they also are married to either narcissists or well trained monkeys. Our interrupted and perverted relationship will never stabilize even after the death of the MN. It hasn't a chance because they are exactly like the MN... one a pied piper , a wonderful definition! and the other a pp in training.

    I have one son...an only child that was terribly affected by the MN and the neglect by the two siblings. Talking to him last night, I realized how close I was to losing him because of my own issues dealing for all these decades with the family of narcissists. I am grateful that we talked...and I could realize how much I put his life in the midst of this familial crap.

    NC is the only way to sanity for those of us who were so terribly maimed...It's a time out to reconsider so much over the years, and a time for ourselves to disengage. We can never win with narcissists, and we can never change them. They are evil, Peck was right. They are the evil that walks on the Earth, without pitchforks or horns.

    No Contact is the only sane and healthy way to live with such. It's hard, because we are full of self-doubt..and we have been trained by them for this. I am glad that I have finally realized how destructive and hopeless they are.

    Lady Nyo

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  8. "Normal" people do not want to believe that mothers can be nasty. I wrote my evil bitch mother off a long time ago. She is perfect of course, there is nothing wrong with her, all the problems are my fault. Well fine. I'll go off with my problems and that should be better for both of us. My sister has stopped speaking to her as well, realising she won't change. But I find my sister difficult too. I went to meet her somewhere and when other people were around it was fine, but when we were alone, my sister was so rude and unpleasant, even when I was trying to be helpful. It was a horrible weekend - I spent most of it trying not to cry in front of her when she was attacking me. It was as if she learnt that because my mother spoke to me like this, it was OK for her to do so. Well it's not. I don't expect them to change, but I will not put up with their crap. My mother knows that now, and I think she is a little scared of me because I will stand up to her and no one else will. She is not physically violent, just viciously controlling. She's angry because I won't give her what she wants. I also expect her to be polite, and she can't manage that. She makes me anxious, as does just about everything, but she can't control me any more and I'm not afraid. In many she is irrelevant actually, what bothers me is the damage, and not being able to fix it.

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  9. My Dad died 2 weeks ago. I have lived 7 miles from them for 3 years. In Dec. 2012 I was in a terrible accident & ended up with a paralyzed leg. I continued to pay for their garbage pickup & my husband cleaned up after their dogs & mow their lawn. My Dad owed $1,500.00 on a loan he could not afford to pay after leaving his job for health reasons so I set up a finance plan & paid it off for him. 2 1/2 years ago my sister moved in with my parents so I could go to Houston & help my teenaged daughter get her life back on track after she quit high school. 6 months later mom called to tell me Dad had lung cancer & Kelley (my sis) had quit her job, mooched off them for 4 months & moved 4 states away to live with her drunk, unemployed boyfriend & had taken the food stamp card, with their SSN'S on it so they couldn't get another one. Then mom got a knee replacement & I was crippled & begged Kelley to come help. Kelley refused. 21/2 weeks ago dad went into hospital critically ill. He & mom gave strict orders to the hospital staff NOT to allow Kelley to contact dad. I stayed 3 days in the hospital caring for him until his death. Kelley flew here unannounced. Mom refused to pick her up from the airport so she called mom's neighbor who took her to mom's. I was incapacitated that day from grief & pain. Kelley had flown her cat up too & talked mom into giving my dog away. While Kelley was driving back from the breeder she was rear-ended in mom's car. Mom called & told me which hospital Kelley was in & I took her back to mom's & went back home now grieving my dad & my dog. Dad had left me his electric guitar & amp & when I went to mom's to pick them up, Kelley produced a receipt from mom stating that she could have the guitar & amp & I was now disowned. I cried for days. It seemed that since Kelley could walk she was worth more to mom so I got burned. This was last week. Once it all hit me & I was able to pray & settle down, I disowned THEM. They are now blocked from all communication with me. I'm sure soon Kelley will tire of taking care of mom but this time they'll be on their own. My therapist told me today that this is God's way of finally releasing me from these horrible people so I can go on with my life. It is sad that I must give up the only family I had left, but I know it is for the best.

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  10. My Dad died 2 weeks ago. I have lived 7 miles from them for 3 years. In Dec. 2012 I was in a terrible accident & ended up with a paralyzed leg. I continued to pay for their garbage pickup & my husband cleaned up after their dogs & mow their lawn. My Dad owed $1,500.00 on a loan he could not afford to pay after leaving his job for health reasons so I set up a finance plan & paid it off for him. 2 1/2 years ago my sister moved in with my parents so I could go to Houston & help my teenaged daughter get her life back on track after she quit high school. 6 months later mom called to tell me Dad had lung cancer & Kelley (my sis) had quit her job, mooched off them for 4 months & moved 4 states away to live with her drunk, unemployed boyfriend & had taken the food stamp card, with their SSN'S on it so they couldn't get another one. Then mom got a knee replacement & I was crippled & begged Kelley to come help. Kelley refused. 21/2 weeks ago dad went into hospital critically ill. He & mom gave strict orders to the hospital staff NOT to allow Kelley to contact dad. I stayed 3 days in the hospital caring for him until his death. Kelley flew here unannounced. Mom refused to pick her up from the airport so she called mom's neighbor who took her to mom's. I was incapacitated that day from grief & pain. Kelley had flown her cat up too & talked mom into giving my dog away. While Kelley was driving back from the breeder she was rear-ended in mom's car. Mom called & told me which hospital Kelley was in & I took her back to mom's & went back home now grieving my dad & my dog. Dad had left me his electric guitar & amp & when I went to mom's to pick them up, Kelley produced a receipt from mom stating that she could have the guitar & amp & I was now disowned. I cried for days. It seemed that since Kelley could walk she was worth more to mom so I got burned. This was last week. Once it all hit me & I was able to pray & settle down, I disowned THEM. They are now blocked from all communication with me. I'm sure soon Kelley will tire of taking care of mom but this time they'll be on their own. My therapist told me today that this is God's way of finally releasing me from these horrible people so I can go on with my life. It is sad that I must give up the only family I had left, but I know it is for the best.

    ReplyDelete

I don't publish rudeness, so please keep your comments respectful, not only to me, but to those who comment as well. We are not all at the same point in our recovery.

Not clear on what constitutes "rudeness"? You can read this blog post for clarification: http://narcissistschild.blogspot.com/2015/07/real-life-exchange-with-narcissist.html#comment-form