A Good Man In a Bad Job
I didn’t ask for this you know. I know you did not either but for once let’s not make this about you and let’s talk about me, yes? I never asked to be created so that each and every day I must gather the fuel that is necessary for my existence. Yes, I must eat, I must drink water and I must breathe the air, just as you do, but for me I have another staple requirement of daily living. I must have fuel. Did you choose to always needs food and water? No, you did not. Neither did I. I did not choose to require this fuel either but without it I will cease to exist. What I have created in order to survive in this world will come toppling down and that will be the end of me. How far would you go to eat? At first it is simple enough is it not? You go to the grocery store or you order online from the supermarket and acquire the ingredients to make a meal or receive a pre-cooked one. You chop, you peel, you mash and you stir and you make that meal. A hundred thousand different recipes to choose from. Instead you may remove the packaging, pierce the cling film and pop it in the over or the microwave. Either way you have food, ready to eat and to sustain you. But what if you had no money to acquire this food, how would you quell the rumblings in your stomach? Perhaps you might ask to be given food from neighbours, from food banks or left overs at supermarkets. It is demeaning but you need to eat don’t you, so what does a little pride matter so long as your stomach is filled? However, what if that charity ends? What if the benevolence of friends and neighbours dries up? What would you do then? What if there are no friends and no neighbours? Would you look to survive on berries you find by the roadside, drink the water from a stream? Would that sustain you for long or would you tire of that? Would you scavenge through the bins outside a supermarket for food that has been thrown out but is perfectly edible? Is that stealing? Perhaps not. Would you cope with the stares of pity and disdain from those who saw you surfing a dumpster?
Would you steal from the shops in order to quell the hunger pangs? Snatch a loaf from a bakery, sneak into a house and steal that cooling pie or rifle through the cupboards in order to find something to eat. What if there is no edible food in the dumpster, would you remove the mould and eat what you find, risking illness? What if the supermarkets ran out of food and there was nowhere to steal it from? Would you scavenge from the orchards until that fruit ran out? Would you catch fish or hunt a lamb or grab a chicken in order to cook and eat it over an open fire? What if the usual sources of meat began to vanish, having fallen prey to starving wild animals following the collapse of civilisation, what then? Would you try new sources? Would you, driven by hunger hunt down and eat a sparrow or a robin? How about an owl? Seagull? Would you slaughter a fox in order to eat its meat? Where would you stop? Would you eat another human being in order to survive? When needs must where would you draw the line? How far would you go to feed yourself and your loved ones? Begging, growing you own, stealing, savagery, cannibalism? Do you have a limit or when the chips are down and your stomach is knotted with the agony of starvation would there be no limit? How far would you go? Would you fight another person for a packet of rice? Beat someone up in order to steal their hoard of windfalls? Would you consider their loss of their food source and their injuries an acceptable consequence of your own necessary survival? Would this become collateral damage in the pursuit of survival? Abhorrent as it may sound, I should imagine, when the need really arises, that you would go beyond the unpalatable in order to survive.
Now replace food with the need for fuel and you will understand that I have no choice other than to gather this fuel from different sources and in different ways throughout the course of each day. The consequences which arise may seem regrettable to you but they are purely the result of this need for me to gain fuel. I did not ask to have to do this, but the way I have been created makes it so. In the same way that you would fight to ensure your own survival, rather than curling up and dying in a hole, so must I. Does that make me what would be regarded as a bad person for just doing what I need to in order to exist? I suggest that it does not. I know that what I do has consequences for others. I am not blind nor am I a fool. I understand fully the devastation that I cause as I tear through someone else’s life like a whirlwind, sucking everything in, hurling it about and then discarding it broken and shattered. I have heard the complaints, the stories, the recollections and the accounts. I have heard the cries of dismay, the wails of misery, the screams of terror and the slow sobs of pain. I know what is caused by my actions but what choice do I have? I do not set out to achieve these things but they must always arise as a consequence of what I must do.
I feel no guilt nor remorse. I am devoid of those emotions. Another consequence of the way I have been created. I feel no shame in these actions, no pity for those who suffer from my behaviours and no sense of empathy for those who are remorselessly cut down by my machinations. I am not burdened by such emotions so I do not toss and turn at night, I do not have my sleep peppered by nightmares of torment, I do not sit in anguish and seek absolution for everything I have done and everything that I am to do. Those concepts are not applicable to me. What I do is invite you to understand me. I want you to understand what I am, what I must do and what arises from this and if you were in my shoes then you would do the same. This does not make me a bad person does it? I am a good man who is having to do a bad job. Yes?
50 thoughts on “A Good Man In a Bad Job”
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A good man, yes
Making choices in situations many would find many atrocities in. Do I agree with some of these choices, no I do not. I have been on the receiving end of them many times.
Here so many can express the anger they hold towards him and he accepts this graciously and still be able to give the answers many need to hear.
The fact he had to go through what he did to be able to bring this into the light angers me to my very core. He is carrying a burden no man should ever have to.
So yes, a good man having to do a extremely bad job.
HG,
What a great article and wonderful analogy. I feel really bad after reading this-I know that you have to do this but can you just float from Golden period to Golden period? I know after reading Fuel that the negative fuel is more potent. So, there has to be a way that the empaths are able to leave during devaluation, we are also allowing it to happen. So I have asked myself a thousand times-why did I allow this from A and never anything remotely close from anyone else?
Thanks to you and the knowledge you provide hopefully more of us will become informed and their will be a little less chaos-You think?
Lol…lets not make this about you? Lets make this about me! If someone gave me a dollar for everytime i have heard that statement over the last 7 years i would be rich!!
Its ALWAYS ABOUT YA”LL!!!
i understand a lot … but not entirely ..
but i am very curious:
who has made you thus?
I asked a similar question before.
Didn’ t see the answer HG
An expedient response to the situation I found myself in.
HG
Is that the answer to my question?
Do you mean:
“I and my kind cannot escape the way we were made?
If i’d only knew though who has made us so.”
HG i firmly believe that even the most ingrained deep Narcissists trait can be altered and changed into a more conducive trait.
I guess one would have to believe it and try it.
what if you don’t disappear? what if instead you are given a chance to be the real you, and if not to be the real you, then the chance to create yourself anew – not a false self but to fix and build your real self in a proper healthy manner, the same way the survivors of the narcs rebuild themselves after being crushed and confused and having been chipped at? What if you could shed the shell and still be just fine and people accepted and maybe even embraced the broken self you hide behind that shell to protect yourself. what if in fact, you could have a choice? we all begin small and vulnerable. some of us just choose to grow and become strong without hurting others to do so; not by beating others down but by building ourselves up and learning healthy behaviors. we choose what fuels us. even if you are devoid of those emotions you’re obviously not devoid of logic or understanding. glands aside, you are intelligent enough to know this is not proper or acceptable but you reject it, you rationalize it, you make excuses for your behavior. the end justifies the means, doesn’t it, in your mind…? your true self has learned to thrive by being hidden behind the powerful facade, it’s learned behavior… same as seeking food by begging or by planting a seed and growing food, or buying at the store…it’s learned behavior and the opposite can be learned if someone wants it enough. but narcissism, it is where your comfort zone is… it is not, in fact devoid of choice. isn’t it more honest to simply state it’s out of your comfort zone and you don’t feel like bothering to make different choices?
Perhaps, the only “fuel” HG may get from this blog, is in observing us attacking each other! Then, sits back and smiles 😏…. No need to comment, HG, unless you wish, it’s your blog
I actually gain little fuel if you are attacking one another (unless I caused it). I derive some wry amusement at some of the attacks which do take place though.
Yes, I sensed that, HG… Its all good though, lol
Boo.
Word.
HG are all of your kind afraid of age and death? I’ve never meet a grown man that absolutely refused to even talk about it before! “I’m never getting old”!
It is a concern for some of our kind and not others, it very much depends on the school or cadre. See Time and the Narcissist for more.
@windstorm
Thank you!
Just finished my fourth book since yesterday and looking forward to reading a few more and follow this blog. The hard part is that the sadness usually follows the anger so .. you know my state of mind now! Funnily enough to I just started following one piece of advice today and it works! Every time the idiot (that is his name now) pops up in my mind I simply say no and change what I am doing… I am purging him out … feels good!
Look forward reading your comments here too
☺️
Sent from my MetroPCS 4G LTE Android device
I read all the comments (new here) and yes some of them are a bit strange to me too. For me this is no game, it’s my life and I’m trying to survive. Perhaps some of you have found a way to purge the N and therefore can flirt etc with HG?! Again a bit odd since we are all here for a reason to be free from them right? Nevertheless, I read them all and hopefully one day I too can post something funny or try to piss him off. I have a long way to go but the anger in me has subsided. I have no need to troll, try to aggravate or give HG fuel. Instead I see him as the only one that can finally explain how his kind work and hopefully I can use his knowledge to finally heal and strive again.
Broken
You are right in many ways. We are all here for a reason, not always to be free of our narcs, though. Some want primarily just to learn, some probably see it as a game or entertaining. Sometimes it’s hard to understand the motivations of commenters, but that only seems fair to me as few people ever seem to understand me either. We all have our own personalities – often warped in ways from our living with our narcs. You seem to have an open mind. Glad to hear your anger has subsided. That’s an important step toward healing. Keep reading and thinking. And welcome to our group! I look forward to hearing more from you with time. 😊
I am snarky. My relationship with N2 is 22years and in his mind, still going. I now understand why. HG is the main contributor to that. I joke bc the alternative is some path I will not travel again at least today. I want to say I will never travel it.
Glad to hear that! You sound strong! Keep it up and we will follow ☺️
Thanks and I will follow as well.
Dear Broken,
One day you will flirt and you will post light heartedly.
HG will give you the tools and you have an abundance of support with the other bloggers.
Good luck in your journey back to being whole.
Ah Oh
I hopefully will flirt with my kind of people and post more uplifting things in the future. I will never flirt with another N .. ever… But glad you are having fun because that is what life is about.
For sure I am gaining much knowledge here and looking forward to the private session with HG next week. I do find this blog so much more fulfilling then the other one (we all know which one) where so many do not want to gain deeper knowledge only to fall back in the trap over and over again.
Thank you Ah Oh… I am feeling the support already! Good luck to you too… we all need it. Its looking brighter by the day and soon my life is once again back and he is alone in his misery.
Yes…. i do appreciate his sharing. It makes ya mad but …. how else would we know ?! 😉
Its about the addiction. Clearly. I used to smoke cigarettes. My description of my addiction to other people was the comparison of nicotine and food. It was the only way I could describe it. Their body craved nouishment, mine craved nicotine. Same feeling.
But…their nouishment served THEM well. My addiction damaged MYSELF. Your addiction HG damages OTHERS. That, is the difference. Agree?
The job of surviving? Hmmmmmm
Dear HG
I agree with some of the other comments.
Food is a biological necessity. And granted in the situations you posed, yes, I think most people would fight to survive for biological needs.
Your fuel is questionably a biological need.
Is it not psychological?
I have had to confront some awful things in my life. I have been consumed by rage & knew I was an emotional vampire for a time. Needy beyond needy.
When I confronted the beast, not only did I survive, I have become a person more balanced than I could imagine. And the progress is continual.
The fear of confrontation & not knowing is severe.
There are alternate means of fuel on the other side of the beast.
Awareness is the beginning.
“Man is condemned to be free” (Sartre).
HG often asks for opinions or poses questions at the end of some of his written pieces.
He gets answered in as no nonsense a fashion as to match the uncompromising content of the article containing his questions at the end of
them.
He has previously stated before that he gains some new insights at times himself from some of the posts.
He can take it.
He is unemotional and intellectual. He is always ready to absorb and glean.
He would not let the comments on if it was breaking any etiquettes.
As hurtful as it all is, I appreciate your honesty about it, HG.
Then again this statement is coming from the girl who is still in love with the illusion, sadly.
The only thing is, you only believe you would die without it. You would not actually die.
They die as they know it and perhaps go into a depression or go into psychosis. This is the fear. The mind is such a mystery.
With so much effort employed to obtain fuel, it’s hard to imagine a narc ever finding peace, simple contentment. If your need for fuel is met, do you feel happy? Or are you ever the hungry void, ever empty?
It is a sense of contentment Bronwyn. I do like your name by the way, are you Welsh? I like Megan as well.
Thank you, HG. Unless my Danish relatives are hiding a naughty tryst, I’m not Welsh.
Noted, thank you for claryifying.
Keep reading, G. Read and weep. He doesn’t care that he has a personality disorder. He doesn’t care that you know that. He doesn’t care what you think of his behaviour. The sooner you understand that the sooner you’ll get over him and get on with the much more important job of living your life. Read everything HG writes, he will save you.
DJ,
I am still trying to figure out why I am so connected to him knowing that I would never, never,ever be with him. He knows that! Even if he was the last man in the planet.
I keep reading, but sometimes it is difficult for me to understand everything because English is not my first language and I have to translate a lot of things, unfortunately.
HG’s blog is undoubtedly the best source of information on narcissism anywhere on the web as he writes in an open and honest manner about his psyche, perspective and life. My advice to you however, as a former victim, would be to learn just enough here to understand that there is no hope for your ex or your relationship then leave the blog behind and concentrate all of your efforts on healing yourself. Coming back to HG in the future with hindsight, and a healed heart, is actually quite an entertaining and enlightening experience to be savoured (honestly you will get there). Melanie Tonia Evans helped me loads with the healing bit, but she’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Good luck x
I understand, you view life from a perspective we will never relate to but you give us a glimpse by sharing your thoughts with us. My narc ex told me its about survival, survival of their lives not anyone’s. Those of us who read your posts should read them with the purpose of understanding our narcs, surviving relationships with a narcissist and protecting one’s self. Trying to shame, correct, troll or get the writer to see how wrong he is, is futile.
Why do you feel the need to school people on how to read hos blog? HG doesn’t get much fuel from participants so he doesn’t wound easily from comments and he is immune from shame the way we know it and experience it. He probably easily converts any ‘attacks’ into negative fuel. People have lost alot to the likes of HG and bursts of reactions seem completely normal and understanding. I don’t think they affect him much at all….
Quite right, I would do a lot to survive. Big difference though in ACTUALLY needing food to survive and BELIEVING that you need fuel for the same result. I would do a lot of things yes, but what I would NOT do is molest the steak I find in the dumpster with ketchup (heinous), make a bear dance before I shot it (for my own entertainment), eat chicken nuggets or an egg from a garbage pail in front of a chicken (cruel) or mock the lamb by telling him he was Baaaaaaaad before I stuck it and watch it suffer while it bleeds out slowly for my own pleasure. No, I do not play with my food unecessarily as you do.
NarcAngel, well put. And it’s really just a belief, yes. But Carroll is right, too. It’s futile.
Ava101 and Carroll
Futile? Now what kind of Empath talk is that? Haha, just teasing. For an Empath to even use the word when it signifies that hope is lost is encouraging to me. Not because I want you to feel defeat , but because it means that you will no longer exert effort to that cause when there is greater gain elsewhere.
I challenge him as do others, to consider things from another point of view (and I like to think it keeps him on his game lol), but I accept him as he is and the gift he offers to us where others do not. Shame? Correct? Troll? All attention, and though its little-he wont turn it down.
Like a Cat and a mouse. It is all in sport and not for food at times.
Nice description. You have a knack.
HG, that was a really, really good pity play! You have convinced yourself you won’t exist to justify your behavior. Its really that simple and you are making it much too sophisticated. Guess what? It sucks to be human sometimes. You won’t evaporate and disappear. You will just feel and experience what being weak feels like and its not going to kill you.
How can you live like that , be like that? I cannot understand . If I were in your shoes I would kill myself. I would never be like that.
I told him today that he has NPD. And sent some links with articles I hope he will sick for help once he understand that he has a personality desorder.
Probably will not happen bc he does not see it.
This is mind blowing to me.