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Invisible Illness

Medium’s biggest mental health publication

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How Covert Narcissists Use Good Behavior to Hide Bad Intentions

10 min readOct 24, 2026

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Trigger Warning: The following content includes experiences and discussions around difficult topics such as traumatic experiences, emotional challenges, childhood maltreatment, or abusive relationships. This content is for educational and informational purposes only. Some readers may find certain content emotionally distressing.

Think about the trust we freely place in other people without giving it a second thought. We trust our family and friends with our lives, we rely on our coworkers to do their job in the office, and we assume our neighbors aren’t going to break into our home the moment we drive down the block. We even place a basic sense of trust in transactional relationships like believing our mechanic isn’t charging us for repairs they didn’t do, or that the pharmacist filling our prescription isn’t giving us someone else’s medication.

Whether we’re trusting someone we’ve known forever, or someone we’ve only talked to when making a purchase, we usually go about our day assuming that people are basically good and harbor no ill-will.

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Annie Tanasugarn, PhD
Annie Tanasugarn, PhD

Written by Annie Tanasugarn, PhD⁠

Behavioral Expert & Author. I decode childhood conditioning, covert manipulation & hidden agendas to strengthen discernment, boundaries, and self-advocacy.

Invisible Illness
Invisible Illness

Published in Invisible Illness

Medium’s biggest mental health publication