Dr. Tristin Engels

So for Dorothea, control, again, was the only form of safety that she ever believed in and the only thing she placed her trust in.

So when someone compromised her control, she responded the only way her psychology allowed, and that's by removing them entirely.

So it absolutely suggests she's paranoid, but I don't think it's necessarily in a clinical delusional sense, but rather one that's rooted in hypervigilance and a lifetime of believing that the only safe person is herself.

So in that sense, it's functional paranoia, the kind that reinforces her belief that she's smart enough, careful enough and justified enough to keep going.

Has she gotten in over her head?

From the outside looking in, absolutely.

She's juggling fraud, multiple victims, forged letters, a backyard full of victims, people starting questioning her.

It's a house of cards.

But from her perspective, she's maintaining control.

She believes her actions are justified because the rules she's following aren't legal rules.

They're her rules in her society that she's living in, that she's constructed and that she's the authority over.

Dorothea knew exactly where to hit him, right in the center of his lived experience.

Bert knew what institutional living felt like, and she weaponized that instantly.

She hit him where it hurts because she knew it would on a personal level.

It taps into his shame, his fear of abandonment, and his desire for stability.

And just like that, the power dynamic snaps back into place.

Dorothea was conditioning him.

She reminded him that she controlled not just his present but also his options and that any attempt to seek help could result in a return to a life he wanted to avoid.

This is coercion rooted in intimate knowledge of a person's history.

It's not impulsive.