They peg you. And then they see that thing they thought about you either stop being true... or reveal itself to never have been true about you in the first place. Then they have a minor breakdown. Or a major one.
Because their whole conscious world is built on their pegging system. If their pegging system went wrong there, then where else might it have gone wrong? Is their pegging system now going to turn on THEM? Or expose itself as inaccurate and useless... and harmful... and cause other people to turn on them?
They remember the times they used the pegging system and were accurate too, though. The bit of logic it does include and was built on before it got off track and out of hand. And then out of control. And they think that discarding their pegging system will throw that bit of logic out with the bathwater used to wash away the bad parts of the system. Because they think that the pegging system is the only way to keep the logic, the part of themself that understands anything at all. Or they think that the pegging system is the logic itself.
They think they'll have nothing and do nothing and be nothing if they throw away that system... if they stop pegging people.
The pegging system is the punch they drank... whether they cooked it up themself or whether someone else supplied it. They are terrified that if they stop taking it, they'll suffer torture or death from the withdrawals. They're terrified that if they stop supplying it to others, they won't be able to afford any for themselves. They're terrified that if they stop for a second to question, then that's time away from looking for more of the precious punch to drink or get before they run out. And that others who also drink and/or supply the punch will turn against them (for a plethora of reasons you already know) for no longer supplying or drinking it themself.
The only way sometimes, if you care about a person who has drunk the punch, is to offer them a safe place to land when they are ready (most importantly a safe emotional place to land), and watch from a distance in the meantime... waiting until their system starts to erode. When it collapses and expels them-- which it will unless some other outside or inside force acts on them-- then you ask them again if there is anything you can do to help them withdraw from the punch either painlessly, or close to painlessly.
It's the story of cult members spitting on you and calling you an apostate and then the next day, calling you up and asking you how they can get out of the cult themselves. It's the story of addicted people. It's the story of the black sheep of a family or snobbing-off member of a friend group or rogue member of a political party (provided the family or friend group or political party is non-abusive and the right fit for them, which only they can determine) missing having someone holding onto the bottom of their ladder so they don't fall off while cleaning the gutters over their new house where they live either lonely and alone, or with people who are not their people and who might be dangerous to them in some way or other or even in most ways.
TL;DR: Watch them betray you, then watch them need you.
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