The Good, The Bad and Nothing Else
We all like to attach labels to people. People do it instinctively in respect of someone who they have just met, someone they have read about, a person they have known for a long time or someone they have seen on television. It is rare for someone to say that they do not have a view or an opinion about someone. Examples might include: –
“He’s a dependable chap, always there when you need him.”
“He’s a funny looking fellow.”
“She is very catty.”
“She is stunning looking.”
“A complete attention seeker.”
“A genius musician.”
“Really annoys me, I don’t know what it is but he does.”
Those are just classifications based on looks and personality. One can classify somebody by race, religion, birthplace, occupation, gender and so much more. Labels are used all the time as people are placed into boxes and compartments. Our kind do the same, but we differ in a fundamental way. We have an instant classification of people which is very straight forward. We will place people into further categories after this initial categorisation often using labels you would not and then we may well attach additional labels similar to the ones you use. What is this initial categorisation? It is simple. A person is either good or bad. That person is either with us or against us. They either do what we want or they do not. There are no ifs and maybes about these classifications. There is no grey with us when it comes to deciding into which camp someone should be placed. You are either white or black. You cannot be light grey, mid-grey or dark grey. We do not do the middling; it is one or the other. Let me give you some examples of those around me at the current time.
Julia (my boss) – Good
My mother – Bad
Paul (a lieutenant of longstanding) – Good
Andrea (predecessor primary supply) – Bad
Rachael(sister) – Good
Eric (colleague) – Good
Tania (lieutenant) – Good
Lesley (It Girl) – Bad
Elizabeth (litigious former girlfriend) – Bad
Phillip (lieutenant) – Good
Colin (competitor at work) – Bad
Not one of them am I indifferent to. You should be aware that this categorisation is based on my view of them irrespective of their behaviour towards me. Lesley for instance responded to a hoover a little while back and still messages me with pleasant comments from time to time. I play along as I am a far from finished with her but she is a bad person because of what she has done and moreover I know she will be looking for an opportunity to unseat me and seek some form of revenge over me as a consequence of my repeated thwarting of her ambitions. I know her game.
These categorisations are fluid. In fact, they are extremely fluid with some people, usually our intimate partners who are our primary sources of fuel. You may begin as a good person when I wake-up but by breakfast you are a bad person. Sometimes you will be utterly unaware of why your status has altered and it may appear capricious and arbitrary but it is not; you will have done something or failed to do something which has shifted your classification. Most often it is linked to your failure to provide me with fuel and therefore you will be designated a bad person and subjected to treatment in accordance with such a status; devaluation and denigration. Conversely, one can also move from bad to good in the blink of an eye. You won’t necessarily realise why this is, but we do. It is entirely logical to us.
As I mentioned once we have classified you as good or bad, we will classify you further, usually linked to the fuel you provide and how under our control you are. After that we will use similar labels to you – an interesting, handsome person and so on. Thus, take Paul my longstanding side kick. He is naturally a good person but I also regard him as a very good source of fuel, a highly reliable source of fuel and completely under my control, loyal and dedicated. My mother is a bad person. Whilst she is a good source of fuel for her emotional outbursts and temper tantrums, she is only fairly reliable. I have little control over her, she is a traitor and scheming to dethrone me, she has no concept of loyalty and is actively plotting against me. Thus whilst she may provide fuel the other factors cause her to be placed in the bad classification. I do not consider her to be grey just because she provides fuel but cannot really be controlled.
Why do we regard people in this manner? Why is it that we cannot take a holistic view of them? For instance, one might suggest that with the ex-girlfriend Lesley that she at one point was loving, dedicated and did much for me. Yes, she became a broken appliance and let me down, she also caused affront to me for which she must be repeatedly punished. She continues to try to be pleasant to me. Do I not look at this myriad of attributes and factors (plus more besides) and place her on some kind of spectrum between good and bad? No I do not. Why? Because my need of fuel is such I cannot have wishy-washy, amorphous classifications of people. This person is good – I can rely on them to give me positive fuel and do as I say. This person is bad – I can get negative fuel from them but I must be careful as they are plotting against me and seeking to avoid my control. This then enables me to apply my manipulations appropriately. It is also necessary to enable me to maintain my superiority and my self-worth. I need to keep those two aspects alive at all times. If you do not do what I want, you are calling into question my superiority. You are suggesting that I am worthless. Thus you are a bad person and I am the person who is admirable and worthy, you are wicked and evil. If you do as I want, you are confirming my superiority by submitting to my will. I am full of self-worth because you are acknowledging this by acting in accordance with my wishes. Deviate from that and you become a bad person.
You should have learned by now that because we look at the world through a different lens to you, there are many things that you will do (which you will not be aware about) which cause us to oscillate from regarding you as good to bad and then back to good, often in the space of an hour or less. This is all based on how we perceive your compliance to be. During our seduction of you, you are only ever a good person because you represent that wonderful potent source of positive fuel which we desire. You represent the prospect of an undimmed source unlike the bad person we are devaluing and about to discard. You always respond positively to our overtures, our love-bombing and you give us what we want. Hence you remain a good person. Those who are in our coterie, our lieutenants and those who form our façade remain good people. Challenge us, defy us or even worse see through us and you are challenging our need for superiority and self-worth and you must automatically be designated as a bad person, irrespective of what may have come before, that would create a more complex view. You failed to do what we want; you are a bad person. You then change and do what we want, you become a good person. It is a simple and necessary classification that we utilise.
Accordingly, everything is either good or bad with our kind. Admittedly, though it usually turns ugly as well….
27 thoughts on “The Good, The Bad and Nothing Else”
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So during his silent treatment, I am considered bad but when it appears I’ve come crawling back and am welcomed, does it mean I’m then good? What if it’s an experiment on my part? Does he know?
My other comment went poof!!!
HG Tudor how can someone switch from black to white, or it is the narcs discretion only? Are permanent discards always black/bad.
Hope it is ok to ask questions.
It is our perspective that causes us to switch from viewing you as white and then black and then white again. It can happen in a matter of minutes and it is all based on our need for superiority and to create contrast.
There is no such thing as a permanent discard – please see the article The Final Discard.
I must be white/ good…well for now, right😏 Anyways.. He still engages with me. We parted on decent terms.
Least I understand him better now by learning why he acts way he does. That is… thanks to you, Mr Tudor.
Will go read that article right now👍
You are welcome.
OMG! That article was on target!!
I’m BAD then, by all means.
I remember the mask slipping once, he said “But you’re not doing what I want”. And then he said quickly, “And that is fine”.
I thought let’s do aaaaaall the things YOU wanna do (in a Jim Carey voice).
*Opposite sex parent could be seen as a comfort of some kind*
The same way an Empath feels compelled to keep enduring the abuse and manipulation of a Narcissist (especially if Narcissists were family members and a part of growing up), can’t Narcissists also, at a subconscious deeper level, latch on, or unknowingly get pulled towards, someone who reminds them of their abusers too?
I know it’s in the Empath’s nature to do this. But is it that the Narcissist fears vulnerability and losing that power to an IPPS who could very well be like their Narc Mother/Father and all the victims are just toys to be played with in the meantime?
I know there is hate and wanting the control towards that, but I just wondered if it could work the same way. An Empath who has a Narcissist Father can be moved by, and feel something, for a Narcissist as a love interest – even though the abuse could have been bad because it reminds them of growing up. In the same way they say we tend to go for the opposite sex parent’s traits for a partner. In your case, the degrading abuse of your opposite sex partner could be seen as a comfort of some kind. Could the fuel and rockiness of a relationship like that work for someone like you HG?
I do not choose an abuser as my victim because I am the abuser.
I’m borderline and i think like this too – black or white, good or bad. But i am trying to change and accept gray. I think i’m improving.
So this thinking ensures that you never have to take responsibility for your actions if you don’t want to? Even going so far as to blame the victim for putting him / herself in that situation in the first place? And with a lack of empathy, if your (hypothetical) child, an extension of you – was in trouble or being abused, would you not help said child? Or is this fuel, too? And you somehow revel in your child’s discomfort?
So very true narcissists are like wild animals always on the alert and consider you a threat if youre not in their “good books”
My narc…i think considers me mostly good but is cautious bc i co front him when im fed up with his shananigans. Once i confront im bad.
My mum(narc)..thinks im rotten to the core im sure bc i never go along with her bs. There was a time i cared but now im happy to be in her bad books i consider it “good”.
My brother(narc)…he knows he bad and knows im good but that threatens him and puts me in his bad books. The fact i went no contact 11 yrs ago makes me very bad for any type of triangulation fuel. He knows i dont go along with his bs so hes taken it a step further to smear me which really i could care less. Im fine being in his bad books.
What matters is how i feel about me and im good hearted so any narc/ nonnarc that thinks im a bad thats their problem and theirs alone!
50 shades of fucked up
Hi HG,
You say: “You failed to do what we want; you are a bad person. You do what we want, you are a good person”
Does it relate only to the formal relationship? Or also to hoovers?
If we reply to your benign text hoover? Are we “good, bad, or just a sucker” (with a Greater)?
Thanks
To hoovers as well.
If you reply a benign text hoover then you are a good person (albeit a sucker for replying).
That makes me a “good sucker” then.
Lovely!
Thank you HG.
My ex-evil
My ex’s narc sister-not too bad for now
My ex’s narc niece- not too bad for now
My narc mother-evil
My narc twin-evil
My narc sister-evil
My sister’d co-dependent husband-Idiot!
My narc nephew-evil
My narc friend-not too bad right now
My empath spy-Awesome!
My empath sister-Awesome!
My normal girlfriends-Awesome!
You failed to do what I want; you are a bad person.
Accordingly, there are many different shades of grey with my kind. and sometimes it turns ugly as well….
Black and white like the Star Wars universe , with no room for grey.
Wow.
Every time I read your blogs it fascinating me. This one reminding me that when the Narc told me to do something and I did not agree with him, he said … you never listening what I tell you. I know what is good for you. And in the other hand when I did what he wanted, he said, “you see my way is the best way” here maybe he calls me good, in he’s mind. But many times I stop and think, analyze and think again about his theory and he’s facts and the result would be not good for me. And for it was the worse thing to do was going against he’s will…took me a lot of energy because I had to stand firm in my decision and do what at the time was the most appropriate and correct in my point of view. Well he of course punished me for that . “Here probably he calls me bad” in he’s mind.
I hope I am understanding the meaning of The good, The bad, and nothing else.
I am very grateful for what you do for us… When I read or listening to your videos I always think why I did not found you before. I also buying your books. I read the comments and there are so many people as well thankful with you helping us to understand and Knowing the Narcissist.
Thank you! 🙂
So where am I on this scale right now?
Pedestal or depths of hell.
Very interesting and informative read.
Thank you HG.
Where does your father fall when you think of him?
Gray is possible. I see you, HG, as many things. You are very complex and not simply bad/good.
Not only narcissists see in this black/white manner (I know you know this HG). Many with borderline disorder, bipolar disorder, codependency, and others see like this too. It actually increases defensive thinking and emotional dysregulation as one is so invested in this narrow view. Gray thinking increases diplomacy, peaceful thinking and is closer to the complexities of reality.
HG, I see you promote gray thinking a lot in you more intellectual discussions. You consider others view points in cognitive debates (i.e. That NPD is complex and likely a result of multiple factors, not just one-that is also gray thinking). Logic mind. But emotion mind IS more black/white, wrong/right, etc. i bet, if you wished, you could practice gray thinking in your view of people too….if you wished. Yes, it isn’t as tasty as firey black-white thinking, yes it is more compromising, though it is more calm. Is there fuel is calm, though? Probably not. You tell me.
What exactly did lesley do to cause affront to you? I can’t recall reading something like that. Will lesley ever be white again
What exactly did lesley do to cause affront to you? I can’t recall reading something like that. Will lesley ever be white again
How about only having one friend.. and one parent? No lutenants … only one new supply. A very lonely narcissist … hard life..
will die only having one friend .. very few would come to his funeral.. for sure not me!!!