The hiding stage is critical. Yet the IDD cycle misses it, and treats "idealize" as the start of entanglement. And it misses the goal, for Mallory at least, which is "consumption." She does not eat her victims' flesh. She just empties them of money, power, and energy until death can feel welcome.
Finally, the IDD cycle misses the detailed way Mallory builds her control over time. It is not one cycle at all. Rather, there are larger and smaller cycles that overlap and repeat. This is why the timescales seem so variable. Mallory may IDD someone on their first meeting. And, then go on to a decade-long relationship with that same person. As I’ll show later, this is not contradictory. It is part of the mechanism.
So, the IDD cycle is accurate, consistent, and predictable. Yet it is also incomplete and shallow. It does not model the relationship between Mallory and her children. It does not model the one between Mallory and her willing helpers (secondary psychopaths). It does not explain why Mallory works to break people before she discards them.
As I see it, the IDD cycle tells the victim’s story. The story is valid, yet biased and incomplete. We must look wider and deeper to understand the whole picture. The "discards" are lies aimed to dig the hook deeper. Only the last one is true. And when Mallory does walk away, there is no relationship any longer. It is not just over. In Mallory’s mind, it never existed.
Let’s rewind. Mallory has detected a target. Before the first IDD cycle bites, she is preparing her attack. This preparation is so consistent you can tell where you are in Mallory’s eyes by the mask she shows you. By the time she is idealizing you, you are already entangled. I’ll explain how the entangling starts.
Hiding
Mallory cannot survive exposure. From an early age he must learn to act "normal." This is a hard challenge, as "normal" is a moving target and a devious one at that. It’s almost as if social humans move the goal posts every day to mess with psychopaths. Mallory often avoids the problem by hiding in plain sight. One way is to act so loud and lurid that people don’t look twice. We call this histrionic and narcissistic behavior.
I’m not claiming that every loud, flashy, extravagant person is a psychopath. There is no accurate visible test for a psychopath, and cannot ever be. This is the balance of evolution. Yet, if you think of Mallory as a cold, gray person, you’re wrong. He is often dramatic, unpredictable, mysterious, ineffable. He is passionate and emotional. It is nonetheless an act, and it fools most except other psychopaths.
Let me draw you a scene to make this clear. You’re in a party, with some friends. There is a woman who doesn’t laugh, makes no expression at all. She looks at you like a butcher deciding which pig to slaughter. Now and then she looks at others, and then looks back at you. She smiles, and it’s not a gentle smile. This would be Mallory wearing no mask. It is a frightening sight, and a rare one.
And there’s a guy, wearing a stupid orange hat, dressed in lurid colors. He’s laughing out loud, a huge stupid grin on his face. Everyone loves him. He’s the life and soul of the party, roaring loud and happy, his face and hands animated. He looks like a harmless fool. If you meet his gaze, you feel warmth and affection. You could fall into that gaze, it’s so deep. That’s Mallory wearing his colors.
Mallory learns his masks from friends and family. He mimics accent and tone, speech patterns, facial expressions, body language. He is a professional actor immersing himself in his roles. He keeps these masks all his life, fine-tunes them, and wears them as needed. These masks are caricatures, yet more convincing than the real thing.
The point of this is to distract and control. It’s the technique of the stage magician. Drama, music, and smooth words get the audience looking one way. And so they miss Mallory’s real moves. It works with a single person, and it works with a roomful.
The Interview
Once as a young student in York I strolled, with my band of friends, into a small house. The friendly people inside were offering a "free personality test." They let us play with science-fiction machines that measured our stress levels. They sat us down for one-on-one talks. A young woman chatted with me a little about why I was there and what I was looking for in life. She jotted down my name and address, and then started taking notes. "What’s the worst thing you ever did in your life?" she asked me. It was the same casual tone as you’d use to ask someone, "what did you eat for breakfast?"
It was an unexpected cold finger poking into my private mind. I slapped it away and thanked her for the cup of tea, and took my friends and left. One of our group, a girl, stayed a little longer. Six months later we had almost lost her. With a lot of convincing, she stopped going to the group. She stopped spending her money on their weird literature and courses. She resumed her studies.
The friendly people stalked her, and us. They went to her dorm, and followed us on the streets. "Why are you not coming to sessions?" they would ask her, not so friendly any more. "Why are you hurting your friend?" they would ask us, "she needs her courses," sometimes yelling at us as we ignored them. They persisted for more than a year before they gave up.
I’m not mentioning names, as Scientology might take offense. Some years later that psychopathic organization took my cousin. It was years before he returned, a different person, his joy and laughter gone.
People ask me sometimes where my interest in Mallory comes from. My friends and family, and myself… we’ve bled and wept over and over. How could I not notice the parade of predators that stalk us? I don’t make it personal. I don’t get angry about it. Instead, I decode, understand, and dismantle the frameworks of lies that Mallory depends on.
The Interview is one of those lies. It starts as, "I care about you, and we are sharing an intimate moment." It ends with blackmail and extortion. It is rarely so overt as a person writing on a clipboard. More often it happens in a bar or club, or social setting. These are contexts where we expect small talk and are happy to chat. Often there is alcohol involved, so we drop our guard.
Mallory wants to know how good a target Bob is, and what direction to work in. It’s the car salesman asking, "what is your job," then, "are you married?" The probing may be gentle yet is insistent. She slices to Bob’s weaknesses, and the opportunities and risks he presents.
Mallory wants to exclude false positives. That is, people who look like opportunities yet are not. So the questions focus on Bob. There may be theater and drama. Yet the conversation zooms in, and Mallory reads every microscopic reaction and twitch.
The interview is part of a growing promise of some kind: sex, money, or salvation. The threat emerges side-by-side with the promise. If you don’t answer, I’ll walk away, and the promise will vanish with me.
You can tell when Mallory is interviewing you, if she is in a hurry. If she is careful, you cannot tell, as it will happen over days or weeks, or even longer. And the interview can happen behind your back, through people you know.
Often though, you can see it. She is nicer than she needs to be. She smiles a lot at you, and acts dominant in a casual way. She approaches you, not vice-versa. She asks questions about your background, your family, your work, your relationships. It seems rather intimate for casual discussion. Your intuition is uncomfortable. Yet the interactions hit your triggers, and you get dopamine kicks of pleasure. So you keep talking.