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The word narcissist is something that gets tossed around a lot more than it should these days but that doesn’t mean there are no real narcissists present in our world. Narcissists are still quite present in this day and age. 

The worst narcissist of them all is the malignant narcissist and that is what we will be going over within this article today. Malignant narcissists are very ego-driven and only think of themselves. They do not care about the feelings of others and tend to be quite deceitful. They spend a lot of their time flourishing at the expense of others and use manipulation tactics to their advantage in ways that the less prominent narcissists might not be capable of. While all narcissists are dangerous these are some of the ‘worst of the worst’ when it comes to those kinds of people.

Malignant narcissists have a very specific type of person that they target and being aware of that can help you to keep yourself protected from them and help you to identify the ones present in your life if perhaps they are. Whether your malignant narcissist is overly clear about his or her tactics or more-so hidden about the things that are going on, you need to be aware of him/her. These kinds of narcissists usually target those who are already insecure on some levels. 

They are good at figuring out our weak spots and using those to exploit us which makes our willingness to share our vulnerable sides with others sometimes a bad thing. For instance, these kinds of narcissists might pretend to be helpful all the while forcing people to humiliate themselves in the process. 

Psychology Today wrote as follows in reference to the people malignant narcissists tend to target and what they are:

The main qualities that define malignant narcissism and differentiate it from the more common exhibitionist and closet varieties are that malignant narcissists get most of their narcissistic supplies by destroying other people’s self-esteem and happiness. Instead of exhibiting themselves to an admiring audience or basking in the glow of someone else’s approval, malignant narcissists get sadistic pleasure from dominating other people and causing them harm.

Note: I am using the terms “narcissist” or “narcissistic” as a shorthand way of referring to people who exhibit the pattern of thinking and behavior that is commonly diagnosed as narcissistic personality disorder

Some malignant narcissists are subtly destructive.

Example: Sweet Aunt Sally

Jenna’s elderly aunt Sally looked like a sweet harmless old lady. But somehow every time Jenna visited her, she came away feeling depressed and bad about herself. It wasn’t until she brought her friend Mary with her to visit her aunt, that she finally figured out how subtly malicious her aunt could be. “Mary,” her aunt said, “a girl as big as you should never wear horizontal stripes. If you ever want to get married, you need to lose some weight. More cookies, dear?”

In order to identify these kinds of people in our lives, we need to rethink how they interact with us and stop looking at things from such a closed-off stance. Just because they pretend to have our best interests in mind does not mean that they actually do. The first step towards figuring out who is in your life for the right reasons involves a lot of looking between the lines and reading deeper into things. 

For more information on this please check out the video below. You do not deserve to be taken advantage of or made to feel small by the people who matter the most to you. Sometimes cutting ties is the best thing you can do.

Sources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understanding-narcissism/201810/are-you-dealing-malignant-narcissist

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/narcissism-demystified/201905/what-exactly-is-malignant-narcissism