Author Confessions: Can People Change? Part II
If you haven’t read last week’s post, you might want to do that before you read this one.
What about other aspects of personality? Can people change if they have a personalitly disorder? How about narcissism? When I first began to understand this personality disorder it seemed like this was something people can’t control about themselves. Yet one author speaks about those who are abusive in this way as being very aware and calculating? Can they change? Can someone who gaslights as easily as drinking their morning cup of coffee, suddenly stop?
Modern psychology would say no, but some would say that with long-term counseling a person could change their behavior even if the core issues are not erased. As a Christian though, I hope that God could change anyone. God doesn’t force people to change and sometimes even trauma for someone with a personalitiy disorder, will only cause them to dig in deeper or amplify their grandiosity or paranoia.
We live in a world impacted by sin. We all have sinful tendencies and our physical bodies, even our genetics is touched by this as well as our family dynamics, and the events that impact us as we grow up.
Can God save someone like this? I would love to think it could be true. God can use anyone for His purposes and glory whether they bend their knee to Him or not. (Pharoah in Egypt is an example).
I’m not writing this to point fingers, or to call anyone irredeemable or conversely to say we need to have compassion and not enforce consequences on those who commit sin, whether big or small. All sin has consequences but obviously some are more far reaching than others and God, realizing this, gave us laws that are written on our hearts, to follow.
How does this impact writing? Some characters, usually not the main ones in a story, might not change from their dysfunctional behaviors. A good author shows the main characters maturing as the story progresses, as cirumstances challenge long-held beliefs, or challenges cause them to learn a new way to deal with life. They may discover something new about faith, or about God and His character, that modifies their goals and behavior.
I learned early on when I was counseling, that people who came to their appointments and talked about their issues, were more likely to grow. Those who cancelled or just didn’t show up–didn’t. I prefered to work with those who were motivated to engage in the work. Did that mean all of them grew? No. One day a client didn’t show and was unreachable. She had killed herself. Nothing in our times together or in recent historical notes ever indicated any suicidal ideation or plan. We had to dig back through years of notes to discover it had been an issue long ago. This person went through the motions but the realilty is, as she began to feel better, she had the energy to act on those long buried desires. At her funeral, someone read from a journal I had asked her to keep. A journal of all she was grateful for.
It was a gut punch. Something designed to help her reframe her life and find hope and meaning in the midst of chronic mental illness, did just the opposite. Her journal, however, gave her family a sense of peace. Had she really changed? Not at the core of who she was, but on the surface she did. It was all a smokescreen. Some people can be great at pretending.
And that’s the challenge in real life, isn’t it? Is the change real? Can it be trusted? And to what degree does a person in a relationship with someone who has been engaging in some sinful practice, learn to trust that the change is real? Whether it is pornography, adultery, gambling, alcoholism, lying, emotional/verbal/physical abuse or neglect, when does someone trust that a person truly has changed? And does trust mean that the relationship can be maintained or is distance required?
Can people change? Stay tuned as I’ll explore this further next week.