Strangely enough, the grand finale is also the psychopath’s greatest tribute to your strength. It reveals their accidental respect for you. It seems impossible, because you’re at rock bottom. You’ve never felt so worthless in your life. And this is exactly how the psychopath wants you to feel. But why?
There are four general cases that result in a grand finale. And in every single one of them, the psychopath is giving you an indirect compliment:
1. They’ve found another partner
If the psychopath sees their new target as more valuable than you, what exactly does that say? It means that he or she is more likely to provide them with the unconditional adoration that they crave. It also means you’re not doing enough of that. When the psychopath dumps you for another target, they are writing you off as a less useful victim. They see you as less submissive, less controllable, and less vulnerable than their new target. When they dump you and rub the other partner in your face, they’re not proving how happy they are. They’re trying to erode your self-esteem so that they can convince themselves that you’re worse than their new conquest.
The only time people need to prove their happiness to others is when they are, in fact, unhappy. When psychopaths triangulate you and post new pictures for the world to see, they’re not happy. They’re miserably and pathetically trying to convince themselves of a lie by manufacturing your downfall. They’re complimenting you in their obsession with your failure.
2. You caught up with their lies
Did you ever hear this phrase: “God, you over-analyze everything”? Strange how your supposed over-analyzing was always a result of their cheating, lying, and triangulating. That phrase is the psychopath’s way of making you feel crazy for pointing out the truth. When they punish you for pointing out their lies, they are once again complimenting you. By trying to destroy your sanity and intuition, they are telling you that these qualities of yours are currently too strong. They recognize these traits and try to convince you that they are weaknesses—ensuring that you won’t use them anymore. If a psychopath accuses you of over-analyzing everything, it just means you’re a good detective.
3. You’re too happy
Psychopaths love to build people up in the idealize phase, but then resent the happiness and love generated by their partners. Weird, right? It makes absolutely no sense. So the psychopath’s solution is to harbor this resentment through passive-aggressive abuse. They make you feel un-hinged and anxious, shattering all of the confidence that they built up. When they do this, they are flattering you. This means you embodied everything they hate: love, happiness and joy. They despise these qualities, because it’s a reminder of everything they can never feel. Qualities they see as stupid and useless. Your smiles and laughter are a strange, nagging reminder that maybe being human is better than being a demon. To convince themselves otherwise, they plan the grand finale in order to make a mockery of these characteristics.
4. They’re bored of your emotions
Psychopaths love the idealize phase because everything is perfect. There are no problems, and they don’t have to deal with anyone’s dreaded emotions. But after they’ve tricked someone into falling in love with them, they suddenly find themselves in a strange predicament. Their victim loves them and wants to foster a greater emotional connection. The psychopath gets bored and uncomfortable with this very quickly. In these cases, the grand finale will often be about the victim being crazy, bipolar, or hysterical. Again, these are all a flattering way of saying: “Hey, you have a heart.” But psychopaths hate things they do not understand, so they seek to destroy you. While you were spending so much time trying to repress your emotions to be the perfect partner, you were actually doing just fine all along as a regular person. Emotions are what make you human, and the psychopath got very tired of those human qualities.
Everything the psychopath values is the opposite of what you would value. So when they punish you, they’re actually giving quite a tribute to the things you probably care about most. It’s twisted and manipulative, because they convince you to doubt your greatest qualities—but looking back, you can begin to understand how this abuse was a subtle acknowledgment of your own strengths.
Granted, you probably don’t want to hear any of that right now. After the grand finale, there is no hope. No humor. No future. You have been deeply wounded by the pain this person inflicted upon you, and it will take years to fully comprehend the extent of their abuse. So turn the page, and we will walk this road together.
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