Jax got a lot of his coping mechanisms and ideology from Caine. Caine is the one in power in the circus, the only one that doesn't seem to be suffering, how does he do this (from Jax's perspective)? By treating the players as something other than human, for Caine this is because he fundamentally does not understand what is like to be human. Jax however, understands it too much, so while everyone else is having a hard time and trying to deal with being a human in the circus, Jax chooses not to deal with it. To pretend that he's no longer human and more like Caine than like the others. This goes hand in hand with him stepping on others to keep himself in control. Caine doesn't seem to care when he gets criticism, he doesn't even listen, so neither does Jax, it's all part of the role he plays. Their angry and annoyed reaction shows him that it's working.
Caine and Jax share a lot of similar experiences, Caine desperately wants to be understood, wants to have friends, connection, purpose, validation but he doesn't know how to get it. Jax wants the same thing, yet the fear of not getting it stops him from actually connecting with people, that they'll use anything against him, this only spirals with the worse things he does, he uses the dissociative coping to deal with having done genuinely terrible things.
So as things get more Real, he starts panicking, he can't deal with others laughing at him and being the but of the joke because he loses control, it gives room to judgment, (ep Untitled, when he has to wear a maid outfit), he can't be close with Pomni because that would mean showing her his vulnerabilities (ep they all get guns), he can't leave the circus because that would mean everything he's done inside the circus mattered and was real, all the horrible things he's done to everyone and himself actually matter, plus he cant deal with going back to whatever he was avoiding in the real world (ep beach episode), he can't take accountability for his actions because that would make it real (start of ep hjsakldfhl), when kinger starts explaining how he made Caine, Jax's baseline for his coping falls away, Caine is turning on him, torturing him and using everything he knows about Jax against him.
This is also why I think Jax is going to abstract next episode. Everything he has to hold onto his sanity as well as dealing with all the shit he's been through and done to others is falling apart and catching up on him. And without Caine to show that his coping mechanism works, as it stops working, he's all alone in his guilt and reality finally catching up on him.
