Poison Drunk Willingly

The narrator states the diagnosis more bluntly than any doctor: the tragedy is not that Jacob destroyed — it is that Simon came to need it. When the only stable intensity in a life is pain from one person, the psyche rebuilds the very system of needs: pain becomes the dose, hatred the fuel, humiliation the catalyst of desire.

“It didn’t break — it mutated” is the exact formula: a broken psyche stops working, a mutated one works flawlessly — by monstrous rules. That is why “just leaving” such bonds is nearly impossible without help: one would have to leave not a person but one’s own rebuilt system of desire. It can be healed — not by willpower, but by long work with a professional.