You can think of this as a three-phase system failure:

PHASE 1: ESCALATION

• Control behaviours intensify
• Cruelty increases in frequency
• Empathy suppressed
• Behaviour still strategic
• Reward still present ↓

PHASE 2: DANGER

• Impulse control weakens
• Risk-taking increases
• Boundaries violated
• Threats, intimidation, legal overreach
• Regulation becomes unstable ↓

PHASE 3: COLLAPSE

• Reward system fails
• Behaviour becomes erratic
• Identity destabilises
• Smearing, paranoia, panic
• Loss of credibility and containment

The Integrated Truth

• Survivors heal faster because safety restores natural regulation
• Abusers decline slower because cruelty removed alternatives
• Aging magnifies rigidity and control reliance
• Escalation becomes dangerous when regulation collapses
• Collapse is neurological, not strategic

And most importantly:

Your recovery does not require their decline.

Safety rises on its own once threat is gone.

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