Incessant repetitions result in the construction of thick neural pathways of self-hate and self-disgust. Repeated messages of disdain are internalized and adopted by the child, who eventually repeats them over and over to himself. “Unrelenting criticism, especially when it is ground in with parental rage and scorn, is so injurious that it changes the structure of the child’s brain. Cult leaders also use contempt to shrink their followers into absolute submission after luring them in with brief phases of fake unconditional love.” Slaves, prisoners, and children, who are made to feel worthless and powerless devolve into learned helplessness and can be controlled with far less energy and attention. Slaveholders and prison guards typically use contempt and scorn to destroy their victims’ self-esteem. Particularly abusive parents deepen the abandonment trauma by linking corporal punishment with contempt. The child’s bid for bonding and acceptance is thwarted, and she is left to suffer in the frightened despair of abandonment. Before long, the child gives up on seeking any kind of help or connection at all. Rage creates fear, and disgust creates shame in the child in a way that soon teaches her to refrain from crying out, from ever asking for attention. Contempt is a toxic cocktail of verbal and emotional abuse, a deadly amalgam of denigration, rage and disgust. Contempt is extremely traumatizing to a child, and at best, extremely noxious to an adult. Many dysfunctional parents react contemptuously to a baby or toddler’s plaintive call for connection and attachment. “Origins Of Cptsd How do traumatically abused and/or abandoned children develop Cptsd? While the origin of Cptsd is most often associated with extended periods of physical and/or sexual abuse in childhood, my observations convince me that ongoing verbal and emotional abuse also causes it.

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