The Good, The Bad and the 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….
42 thoughts on “The Good, The Bad and the Nothing Else”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
This is the part that is mindblowing to me and it’s what I keep trying to wrap my head around. So the N can be in a knock down drag out with someone, calling them all sorts of horrible names and saying things like, “I hope you die and rot in hell” and then what seems like seconds later be begging the person for another chance and saying things like, “Let’s just start over from where we are now. No more mention of the past. No one make my heart flutter like you do…. ” and really, actually mean both extremes? I went from “bad” to “good” like the flip of a switch and he _actually_ felt that I was bad one minute and good the next?
I wasn’t “good” until I threw up my hands and said, “No more; get out.” As long as I was defending myself and fighting back, I stayed bad. Then I was supposed to flip a switch, too, and pretend the whole argument never happened. And I was supposed to instantly trust he wouldn’t do it again… I don’t know how to make my brain work like that, and honestly, I’m glad I can’t. I don’t know how to live in one extreme or the other. Seriously mind bending to try and comprehend.
I need to stop trying the empathize with narcs, right? I can’t possibly see from their point of view because my brain just doesn’t work that way. It’s exhausting….I guess more than anything, I wonder how it can be entirely logical to narcs that they treat someone with utter disdain and disrespect one minute and shower her with kisses the next and we are just supposed to roll with it. If someone calls me a whore and wishes me dead, I don’t want to roll in the hay with him 10 minutes later… I still want to punch him in the throat. Maybe we all just need to learn to let go of anger more quickly?
@snarkandgrace–I believe I’m going to get major stick for this comment, but I genuinely think I can say something helpful, so screw it!
You discuss the difficulty of empathizing with Ns and your desire to find a good box to keep them in in your heart. For me, the most effective and logical way I have found to view my Ns (and all Ns that I can identify) is to think of them as non-human. At times, I think of them as sharks or scorpions (as in the frog story). At other times, I think of them as robots or those claw, grabber machines. Of course, I still see a human before me with a voice and a body and a will. However, when dealing with them I have NEVER found it helpful to think of them as actually human. Quite the opposite, my family members who treat them as human are the ones who consistently get stepped on and expose themselves to emotional (and quite possibly physical) danger… not to mention THEY are the ones who are hit up for fuel most often. Viewed as a scorpion or a robot, Ns become MUCH more decipherable.
You only need to let go of narcs, Snarkandgrace…
“I need to stop trying the empathize with narcs, right?”
You can love narcs as much as you do, they are human beings just like everyone, but you can not live with them, because they are abusive and they will hurt you again and again. There is no reasoning and no talking.
Black & white thinking, as well as a lot of other unwanted characteristics are a result of their mental disorder.
We are not all created equal.
Yesterday I read a scientific essay stating that bonobo’s, in tests, will choose to side with jerks & bullies, rather than with empathic bonobo’s.
Due to evolution we may look a bit more mature than them, but in a lot of our behaviour we are still apes 🙂
It is with insightful posts like this that you both baffle and fascinate me, HG. You SO deftly put your eyes upon yourself, your choices, your modes of operation, come away with precise analysis of what you do and how you do it, and yet, still choose to walk down the same path as ever. I understand that it works for you to achieve your goals. However, I would think with such genuinely keen insight you would pursue an alternate path if only to try it and see what other outcome it might produce… if only out of curiosity. Perhaps we all do this really. Would you ever attempt such an experiment? Could you? Have you ever toyed with the idea of doing so? (Perhaps I’m prying, but, as I say, this issue fascinates and baffles me. I can scarcely conceive of a Narc who can see himself so clearly… They are usually so very very blind.)
I’ve said this before….genuinely astonished that you have a boss. Mind blown!
Happy New Year HG and Happy New Year Tudorites xx
This:
“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.”……”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.”
Do you how frustrating this is?
Are you ever indifferent to anyone, especially previous IPPS or IPSS? You’ve identified me as a Super-Empath. I know there are people I’ve been in relationships with that I’m indifferent to.
I may feign indifference for the purpose of provoking that person.
So is the decision to discard a primary source only after they have been acting consistently “bad”? Or will a primary source still be discarded while they are alternating between “good” and “bad”?
See the article 5 Reasons Why We Disengage
K, hahaha, it was me, the old M. you answered to. Thank you for your answer. The other M just became Mara.I will also try to notice which K is writing what!
Mara, thank you 🙂
My pleasure, M! Just look for the angry-purple-face-gravatar and that is me.
“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,”
Indeed. This explains a lot. And on top of it, now that I am” bad”, I suspect this badness magnified also has to do with me becoming the target of his own projections.
Hello M, this is M. here. I hope you are well. Let us do something about our names, it might get confusing. I have been using “M.” for two years now, would you care to modify your name here or should I do it?
Regards,
M.
When Ms collide….
I will change it, M.
Thank you
There are two Ms. I like M & Ms. There are two Ks and I thought I was losin’ it when I read the comments cause I didn’t remember writing them (I gas lighted myself). Now I just look at the gravatar. I just posted a comment addressed to an M on Protection. Thank you for commenting, I enjoy sharing thoughts, opinions and ideas with others.
Happy New Year, HG! Quick question. If a narc, when an interaction took place, was civil, polite, friendly, confided in, and promised future contact with a secondary source (shelf DLS), this means he views her as white?
Yes.
Thank you, HG! I appreciate your response!
I just came home from an appointment with my therapist and a quick visit with my elderly parents who rely on me to take them to doctor’s appointments, dole out their medications, and bring supplies to their assisted living home. I was gone for less than 6 hours. It takes an hour of driving to and from the location where my therapist has an office and where my parents live. Last night, my narc was telling me how much he loves me. When I left this morning, he was messaging with his girlfriend. When I got home today, he made a snide remark about how “insane” it is for me to go to help my parents twice a week. He also remarked about my “no good” brother. My brother does his part to help, but he usually only sees our parents once a week. Like you said, HG, things can change mighty fast.
Anonymous, if you get rid of this guy, maybe you can get rid of the therapist as well.
When Narcs Collide: This Trump Tweet made me laugh. Trump is a ULN.
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!
7:49 PM – Jan 2, 2018
141,103 141,103 Replies 165,039 165,039 Retweets 407,258 407,258 likes
A narcissist dick measuring competition.
Ha ha, both 2 cm. I guess
eeww.. don’t even wanna think about it, to be honest)
I think you already have.
Ha ha ha…that is exactly what I thought! Whip ’em out gentlemen and let’s measure them and get it over with.
Let’s hope they keep these dicks in their pants!
Ha ha.. yes, let’s hope for those pants staying the hell on! I don’t want to think of these men as sexual beings at all.. ha ha..
Almost all males are 6 inches. Get over it.
Oh my gosh — so sorry, you guys! This comment was supposed to be directed toward “all males who obsess over their size + control.” I was not trying to slam the original commenter… so this comment came back to my inbox, and I thought, “Holy cow, Caroline!”
My apologies.
I’ve mentioned before there is this woman’s YT channel I follow who speaks about narcissism and she absolutely LOVES Trump.
She likes to say ‘no political posts’ in her FB group and then when someone posted a clip asking if Trump was a narc/psychopath, she deleted this person from the group.
How can someone who runs a narc support group be so blinded by Trump, even putting his ridiculous opinions aside, I don’t see how anyone intelligent can support this man, given especially his recent war on science (when you tell the CDC that they are forbidden to use the word ‘fetus’ among others, that is a problem).
Not to mention he constantly throwing abuse to everyone around him.
This is one of the reasons I have suspicion that the woman who run’s this group is a somatic/elitist narc herself.
*runs. Sorry for the typo.
Hi K! Just like Matt Lauer had his magic button under his desk to entrap co-workers for sexcapades. Achieving any kind of power tripping “button” on your desk must be the epitome of achieving top rank over the brethren in the Narc club.
Hello MLA!
Oh yeah, I heard about his door-locking-button. Honestly, their sense of superiority and entitlement knows no bounds. Before I found out about NPD, I called it “Little Dick Syndrome” or ‘Short Man Disease”. Amazon has a WTF button, maybe I will get one for my desk so I can feel superior, too.
I’ve just always wanted the Staples “easy” button and I would be happy. Call me basic. lol
oh my god…..that’s why…..shatters my view of him
It’s dark …. so dark….Better wait it out.
I don’t think that I will ever really get it. I’m trying hard to understand, but it is all so unknown, my brain just can’t make the right (or wrong?) connections. It frustrates me, because I want to not only know what narcs think, I want to feel what they feel.
They don’t “feel” like we do. They feel, just without the full range of positive emotions. Just know it wasn’t personal even though it hurts like hell and feels like it was. There isn’t a person that will be treated by them the way you wanted to be.
Exactly Sophia. But that’s why I would like to feel what they feel and to stand in their shoes for one day, so I would know what it was like.
(just like you would want to be Elizabeth Hurley for a day or be in jail for once or be a penguin in Antarctica)
Blank
I crushed my shoulder in an accident, after the surgery they kept my arm numb (blocking the nerve at my neck) for three days. It was very strange for me. My arm was there, I could touch it and see it, yet couldn’t feel it.
IMO the world is numb to them, they see it, they can touch it yet can not feel it. Then taught love from another of their kind…..they are left in the wild to defend themselves alone.