The Last Word

The Last Word belongs to us. We must always have the final say, the last comment and the ultimate control. This stems from our concept of omnipotence and how we must control the environment around us. When we make a decision it carries with it the weight of a diktat from a dictator, a declaration from a monarch, a papal bull. What we say and do is demonstrative of the fact that we consider ourselves superior to everybody around us. We are the doers, we are not the done to. We make the decisions, we are not decided upon.

This requirement to be the one who has The Last Word permeates everything that we do. It manifests in that nobody is allowed to start eating at the family dinner table until we deem it acceptable for people to start. Everybody must await our nod of approval. If we are  doing something else and absent from the dinner table, everybody else must be made to wait until we appear and then eating may commence. You must not start any celebrations without us. Of course, in order to make it all about us (or if the celebration is for our benefit, to make it even more about us) we invariably turn up late, creating a grand entrance and a scene before we graciously indicate that the festivities may now get under way. You ought never to blow out the candles on your birthday cake until we are there to look at you and give you the slight tip of our head that indicates you have our permission to blow out the candles on your cake. Control through The Last Word.

All decisions must be run by us. Never leave us out of the memo, literal or figurative. Just when you think that the already elongated meeting is about to conclude, you can rely on our kind to make a final point even though it may just be repeating what we said earlier, or paraphrasing what somebody else has just said. We want to be the one who signs the meeting off, provides the seal of approval and ensure that our words are the last ones which are heard by people before they rise and thankfully stretch and head for the exit.

This is because everything around us must be subject to our control. This arises because we consider everything to be connected to us for the purposes of our greater glory. Since everything begins and ends with us (and is all in between) it stands to our reason that we are the ones who must exhibit this control by having The Last Word. Its manifestations are legion during the course of your entanglement with us, whether you are an intimate primary source, familial secondary source, social or colleague secondary source or a transient tertiary source. Here are just some examples by which The Last Word makes itself known.

1. Approving what you are wearing before you go on a night out.
2. Deciding where the group should eat on an evening out.
3. Commandeering the remote control so we decide what everybody else should be watching on the main television set.
4. Blaming you for something which cannot possibly be your fault. For example, we drop a glass which shatters and we say “look what you made me do.”
5. Always having to pass comment on what is happening or what is being said.
6. Insisting that all financial decisions must be approved by us in a domestic setting.
7. Requiring our sign off on decisions at work even though we are not particularly involved in the process or project.
8. Attending an event to which we have not been invited.
9. Hijacking a business meeting which is nothing to do with us.
10. Deliberately making somebody late for an engagement or appointment.
11. Commandeering the time of somebody when others are waiting to engage with that individual, for example spending longer than allocated with a teacher at a parent-teacher consultation evening.
12. Talking over the top of somebody.
13. Disregarding the opinion of somebody else.
14. Not listening to what somebody is saying.
15. Telling somebody to shut up.

 

It need not  actually be the last chronological action in an event or activity (although it often is) but rather in our minds we are stating the final word on the matter. After all, once people have watched, listened to and witnessed our brilliant contribution everything that follows is just dust isn’t it? Once we have opined about the general election, all contributions thereafter are null and void. That is why once we have said our piece we start chatting with the person sat next to us rather than being courteous and listening to the person whose turn it was to speak. This is why once we have decided that we are leaving an event, the party is over. Nothing more happens after we have gone. This is also a manifestation of our compartmentalised thinking. Accordingly, if someone attempts to tell us about something which happened after we left a bar, we are not interested. If we did not see it or hear it at the time, it did not happen, because if we are not involved then it was quite simply pointless and therefore may as well as not have happened. Thus, we will be dismissive of what is being said, waving our hand, talking over the person who is trying to explain an amusing anecdote about what a friend did after we left. It is meaningless, we were not involved therefore we have no interest in it. We already had The Last Word when we left at midnight.

There are three particular areas where this need to have The Final Word is most clear and is also often frustrating and/or perplexing to our victims. These three manifestations are generally the preserve of the dynamic between our kind and the intimate partner primary source.

The first is in the arena of fuel extraction and in particular, arguing with you. You are never ever allowed to have The Last Word when we are engaging in an discussion or argument with you. This is because we must always have the upper hand because we must be the one who is in control. By remaining superior, we are thus, logically, the one in control. If we concede an argument to you then we are ceding control. It does not matter if that discussion/debate/argument is about the time we have come wobbling in from a session at the pub or as to whether God exists or not. You are not allowed to have The Last Word. If you do, you win and thus that means we have lost and we do not like to lose. We are always the winners and accordingly, we maintain this state of winning, remaining superior and being the ones in control.

How does this appear? Sometimes it is literally the last word, where we have to be the one to say the final words and you stay silent or that our text is the final one sent. On other occasions it is figurative in nature and subject to our ability to warp the reality that you see before you, through our famed narcissistic perspective.

1. Continuing the argument when you think that it has ended. Engaging in a circular conversation is our way of having The Last Word.
2. Launching an ad hominem assault which has no bearing whatsoever on what is being talked about.
3. Bringing the discussion or argument to an abrupt halt.

“I have said all that needs to be said. That is the end.”

“Shut up, I have made my mind up.”

“Stop talking, there is nothing more to say.”

“I am right. You are wrong.”

“Shush. That’s it. Enough.”

4. Seizing on something arbitrary to signal the discussion is over.

“Yes well if you fold your arms like that it clearly shows I am right, so there is nothing more to say.”

“That’s right, raise your voice, it’s clear that you are lost the argument when you do that.”

“If you put the ‘phone down, I automatically win.”

“Go on, walk away, you know I am right. As usual.”

5. Walking off. Note how when we do it, it is not an admission of defeat (as it would be for you) but rather our recognition that we do not need to say anything more. We have won. Just as described above, everything said and done after we walk away is irrelevant.

6. Deflection. We ignore what is being said about our behaviour and talk about something else. Thus we have The Last (successful) Word on our behaviour.

7. Blame-shifting. We ignore what is being said about our behaviour and attack you for your behaviour.

8. Denial. If we deny it, it cannot have happened (more compartmentalisation) accordingly the argument is at an end. We win. We have The Final Word.

9. Triangulation. We compare our behaviour to someone else (who is worse than us) or your behaviour to someone else (who is better than you) and thus this conversational shift allows us to achieve The Last Word.

10. Repetition. We will hammer a point (however wrong, misguided or misconceived) again and again and again in order to batter you into silence. We will say the same thing over and over again, with the fervency of a firebrand preacher as we fight with you so you finally shut up and allow us to literally have the last word.

11. Text messages and e-mails. There will always have to be some sort of riposte from us, relevant or not, so that out text is the one that sits there last. Thus we have The Last Word and we are the champion.

There are others, however you should have identified by now that in many of our manipulations that we deploy against you, the desire to have The Final Word plays a part in much of what we do. We use the manipulation to achieve The Final Word and once achieved we, in our minds have won, thus we remain superior and in control. Naturally, fuel arises from your angered, hurt, upset or frustrated response to our insistence on achieving this Final Word. Keep in mind, it is not actually always about the one who speaks last but rather taking a step which from our perspective is The Final Word. Accordingly, if you are somewhat bewildered as to why we have done something, consider that you are probably witnessing a manifestation of The Final Word so we can draw fuel from you and maintain our incessant need for control.

The second major manifestation of the The Final Word is where you escape us. Just as in 1984 we re-write history. You did not end the Formal Relationship with us and escape us. That did not happen. We told you to leave or you might have decided to leave but that was because you knew we were about to discard you and in a final act of spite you tried to get in first. Of course, when this happens, you are treated to another example of our compartmentalised and contradictory thinking.

If you escape us, this ignites our fury and we will dole out an Initial Grand Hoover for the purposes of getting you back. We will apply the sugar, the honey, the Pity Plays and all manner of other hoovers of benign and pleading nature to get you to return to us. In that respect, we clearly recognise that you had the final word by leaving, hence why we are desperate to get you back, because we need our primary source of fuel to be reinstated.

At the same time though we will be telling the world (and we believe this) that we got rid of you, but we decided to give you another chance when you came begging on your hands and knees. Or that we saw how sorry you were and how well we fitted together so we forgave your transgression. The Final Word belongs to us and is required for the purposes of maintaining that all important facade.

The third manifestation concerns if you escape us and we fail to recover you (or we have discarded you) and this is when we smear you. This is not so much The Final Word as the Final Pronouncement as we tell all and sundry (utilising technology and our lieutenants) that you were the snake in the grass, the abuser, the drug-user, the alcoholic, the nutcase, the unfaithful whore, the inattentive workaholic and so much more all for the purposes of painting you black to everyone we can. As you now, what we say will have little or no resemblance to the truth of what has gone on. Not that that matters to us. The necessity of having the final word is of the paramount importance and this means we must have The Final Word through this smearing.

The Final Word can be found in so much of what we say and do. Its purpose it to maintain control so that we can continue to draw fuel, do as we please and make you do what we want.

And that’s all I am going to write about that.

Fin.