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.
The first image that comes to mind is that of a dog. We’ve probably all seen pictures of abandonded dogs. I had one rescue who had been found abandoned on a street in Texas. He was pretty old but we’re not sure how old, and he was potty trained. Cooper was a little larger than your average Lhasa Apso and was sweet and playful. He did well with our other senior dog but became the best dog when he was the only dog. Not sure why anyone would have abandoned him, I believe our love helped him forget.
Abandonment at it’s core, hurts our ability to trust another person. In milder cases, it can be a tool that helps an individual to be more choosy in who they trust and invest their time and emotion into. The dangerous extremes are when someone refuses to bond with another person ever again, or even worse, becomes so clingy they perpetuate the cycle.
Scripture teaches that love never fails or love conquers all depending on the translation (1 Cor 13). 1 Peter 4:8 states: “Above all, maintain an intense love for each other, since love covers a multitude of sins.” Woah. Love covering sin is having an attitude of forgiveness. Love in action forgives sin, especially in a relationship with another person. It not mean avoiding any acknowledgement of sin, not confronting sin, or allowing sinful acts to continue. If we truly love someone and value them as a person made in the image of God, we should confront sin.
Apathy, in the sense of detachment, might be necessary for emotional survival in the case of narcissitic/verbal/emotional/phyisical/financial abuse like I mentioned above. In this case it is a healthy way to protect oneself from someone who does not have our best interests at heart. This might end in cutting off a friendship, blocking or restricting someone on social media, or not sharing your life with that person if they are not “safe” for you. Not answering the phone or a text. When someone has abused or in other ways broken trust, detatchment may be the healthiest thing to do. As long as you can do that without harboring emotions of resentment or hatred toward that person. Let them go and let God deal with them.