Contempt is the ugliest thing you can see in another person. It is a childish expression of vicious, outer-directed egotism: I am ultra important, you are a piece of shit, I can treat you however I want to and there’s nothing you can do about it. Once someone shows you contempt, there is no saving things, talking things out, reasoning, making peace. Contempt is the last corrosive word these assholes have to protect themselves against their own disabling insecurity.
It is always infuriating to be treated with contempt (also hurtful, unfair, despicable, indecent, etc.), but the best thing you can do, especially if one of these folks has any kind of power over you, is regard them calmly and get away from them as quickly as you can. Even a stranger showing contempt is worth not reacting to, there is never anything to be gained, even if you like fighting and enjoy bashing bullies in the face. There’s really nothing in it for you better than getting away from them for good.
Here’s a recent personal tale of facing contempt that I am actually grateful for. This asshole’s show of contempt kept me out of the hands of a lying, negligent maniac doctor who sent an entirely false report of tests he never performed to my other doctors. He works for Optum, by the way, which is part of United Healthcare — go figure! I guess the entirely fabricated report is one reason Optum never sent me a bill for the three hour session Medicare paid 80% for.
The doctor was friendly and reassuring the first time I met him. He scheduled tests and when I asked about anesthesia he assured me I’d be given conscious sedation before the tests, which was a great relief to me. Having things shoved into your penis, scopes, tubes, etc., while not as horrible as it sounds, is bad enough. I was glad I’d be conscious but sedated for the procedure, which involved putting a thin tube into my bladder by way of my urethra and then filling my bladder with water.
When I arrived for the test, the nurse who was going to put the tube in asked if I was ready. I said I would be, as soon as the conscious sedation was on board. She reacted with frustration toward the doctor “I don’t know why he tells patients they’re getting conscious sedation, we don’t give that for this test, we never give conscious sedation, we don’t even have it in the office. You have to be alert and answering questions. I guess he thinks it calms patients down when he says that, but I always tell him it doesn’t.”
I confirmed that it doesn’t. If I’d known, I told her, I would have taken a tranquilizer before I came for the test. She said that would have been her advice, if I’d been told to call her prior to the procedure and that she was sorry nobody had told me to call her. She had nothing she could give me. The catheter went into my penis and into the urethra before stopping at an obstacle somewhere on the way to my bladder. She retracted it. For the next ninety minutes this angelic woman held my penis, keeping it warm in the cold room, as various applications of lidocaine did their best to numb my urethra, and tried at least three more times to insert various catheters into my bladder. Finally she said the doctor would have to try it himself.
The doctor came in, sweaty and harried looking, by now it was getting toward closing time. He asked how I was doing. I told him I was wondering what happened to the conscious sedation. He lost his shit, raising his voice and snarling that it was impossible that he’d ever said that, essentially calling me, and his nurse, a couple of fucking liars. In that moment I knew this guy was not going to be my doctor. I managed him as one does an out of control five year-old flinging shit around the room. I made only one call to his office afterwards, to his nurse. She told me how to get the medical records for my new urologist.
Highlights of the report: results of the cystoscopy (a camera at the end of a wand inserted into the opening of the penis) he never performed. He found no tumors, normal this, slightly abnormal that, the report said. No mention of the unsuccessful attempts to insert the catheter to test the bladder, the test went fine, the bladder was normal. He discussed all this with the patient, also getting claimed legal waivers from the patient on about twenty different fronts, covering his ass front and back, and the ass of Optum, and insulated the $560B corporation from the aggressions of any plaintiff’s lawyer who might want to make a fuss about a fictional narrative detailing the results of tests the doctor and his nurse never did.
Think of this, though. If the guy hadn’t had a temper tantrum and started throwing his poop around the room, I’d have gone back to him. I’d have never read his scandalous report, never known he was a compulsive liar. I’d have been in the hands of a maniac working for psychopaths. So the fact that I no longer tolerate contempt saved me from a world of trouble.
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