xtcian

I sure hope so; I'm trying to do it to myself every day.

I am with Steph! I am a work in progress, even with my meds. Sounds corny, but each Sunday at Mass, I start my prayer with, "Please God, help me be a better person, mother and wife."

Are you there God, It's me, Laurie!

I think most people are capable of change, but only the few that also have the will to change will actually do so.

I have to believe that people can change for the better. Of course, I also believe people can change for the worse, but generally I am pretty, often annoyingly, positive about human nature. Or else I would go insane.

I agree with Emma. It is all about having the will to change.

Aside from chemical imbalances, I believe a lot of issues stem from early childhood through your teenage years. Having a strong family life is paramount to avoiding many social problems. The best thing we can do for our kids is be good parents. The rest should take care of itself.

I don't know. There's damage and there's damage; and then there's my own personal taste in other people's damage.

There are people who are churchgoing, taxpaying, honest, sincere people, who beat their kids and parade around abortion clinics with posters of aborted fetuses.

There are also sketchy, druggy, morally challanged people that don't have a bad bone in their bodies. They may be selfish, dishonest, and messed up, but they have a redeeming sweetness and humility.

Everyone acts out their own drama on the way to dying. Redemption happens to the lucky ones. Some seem to be on a greased rail to hell, and most of us are muddling around in the grey area between.

But as the bible says, love abides. You have to protect yourself from harm at the hands of the damaged, but you can also change their lives with your care and love. And coincidentally, showing that love for others is perhaps the only way to truly redeem your own life.

Sadly, I have come to believe in my 55 years that some people simply lack the ability and/or the will to change for the better. Some people feed off their misery and anger and enjoy sucking other people into their slough of despond. Whether they were born hard-wired for this tendency or acquired it via environmental factors doesn't seem to matter to the outcome. I have seen miserable people live and die miserable. And I have seen sweet and optimistic people go through horrific circumstances and remain true to their innate disposition.

That being said (enough Eeyore for a bright sunny morning!), I have seen some people truly change themselves at critical junctures in their lives... a few of them in my own family. Motivation and something I would call "character" appear to be involved.

PS to John Schultz (above): You are right that a positive family environment in one's early years is a major factor in determining later outlook and optimism. But I caution anyone who thinks that a "perfect" family cannot produce grotesque variations on human nature that this is a fallacy.

I'm sure all of us have known wonderful parents who produce well-adjusted, happy children, and then maybe another child who is just, well, miserable, the square peg of the family... afflicted with a personal pathology (but not necessarily a true mental illness or disorder) that brings frustration and unhappiness to those who care for him or her. I have known lovely folks who have bankrupted themselves trying to "fix" these family anomalies via therapy, special schooling, tough-love, rehab, etc. ... and, alas, IME their success rate is at best 50/50.

There are no guarantees in life, no matter our best intentions and preparations. Everyone contemplating parenthood should acknowledge this truth and be prepared for disappointment as well as happy endings. Jeez, it sounds like I'm having a bad day, and I'm really not! Just feeling like the Old Griot. 8-)

LFMD- My 10 year old beagle tore her ACL this summer and we did the surgery. She has never been happier and moves better than she did before the surgery. Her recovery was very easy too and I wasn't as restrictive as I was supposed to be. She spent about a week hanging out in our laundry room to keep her quiet and then she slowly got more "house and outside" time. We had the surgery option and the wait it out option and our vet said we made the right choice and I agree. Good luck! Yea beagles

SLS and everybody: thanks for the advise re: the ACL beagle situation. I am leaning toward the surgery. Big Bad Jack is getting Xrays today to see how extensive the damage is. You guys made me feel better -- the vet had me so worked up that I cried all night, thinking about my poor little lame beagle. Thanks for the support!

I'm a firm believer in the power of choice, and with few exceptions (the seriously mentally ill, who may lack the capacity to choose anything) believe that if one chooses to be good, and their daily actions/interactions reflect that choice, then they are. Unfortunately, it would seem that 'good' doesn't always equal 'happy', but I think it's a pretty solid foundation to start from.

Interesting that this question comes up today; I met a woman on Sunday who caused me to ponder precisely the same concept. She is a surgeon who is so specialized that she is the only doctor in the Chicago area who does what she does. She has absolutely no tact or sense of social decorum. Upon learning that I am from North Carolina (this fact was revealed as I was being introduced to her, so keep in mind that the following is the first thing she ever said to me), she said "I fucking hate North Carolina. The whole state." Later on in our conversation, she said "I hate everything" and, when asked by the party's host if she would like to see a photograph of his 16-month-old godson, she answered "no." This woman is 36. I see no chance that her personality will change one iota. Nor do I see any chance that she would want to change in any way. Which I find puzzling, because I cannot fathom anyone reacting to her in a positive way in any setting. Meeting her upset me profoundly. I'm not sure why, because I guess she's content to be the way she is, but the experience eroded my faith in humanity a little bit.

I'm a big believer in the complex interaction between nature and nurture. Definitely, given the right circumstances and the right basic mental/emotional makeup, people can change for the better.

But I'd say changing for the better is less likely than staying the same for the overwhelming (99+%) majority of people. That's what I've seen so far in my life anyway, both with myself and others.

I would love to believe that can people can change, that they can somehow alter their true nature. People get really good at hiding it,but change it no. I saw a good friend destroy himself, and even after countless interventions and good intentions and whatever else he eventually killed himself. He had everything going but little going on because in his own words he was disconnected and defective. No amount of drugs prescription or otherwise could change that about him. It was innate to who he was. Sorry but I just haven't seen it yet, and I don't expect to anytime soon.

People can absolutely change, and change occurs quite easily. A small kindness and honest love can totally change a person, and the slightest abuse and mildest injury can change a person.

The truth is that we are all making decisions every single second about who and what we are. When we make a choice that follows in the footsteps of other choices we've made in the past, it's just path of least resistance reaction. It takes very little to do something weird, and you can just keep doing that weird thing as long as you want to.

ditto kent. i'm not convinced there really is any normal.

i guess you could call the people under the bell curve normal, assuming you could actually graph a bell curve of people's personalities.

but each person is such a mixed up collection of personality traits that even a person who is morally sound in one way might be morally corrupt in some other way. so they might fall into the "average" category, but would they really be "normal"?

but about the people changing question, i think yes, people can change if they are open to change and have new and different experiences, not by sheer will alone.

Did anybody here take Bernadette Gray-Little's Abnormal Psych class at UNC? She is now a Vice Chancellor by the way. Anyway, that was one of my favorite classes because it sometimes lead to debates about this issue. There is a theory that people with personality disorders don't change over time without help from psychiatrists and/or psychologists.
This link suggests otherwise...
http://www.webmd.com/content/article/48/39198.htm
Personally I think that people with true mental illness can improve with medicines etc. but I think many folks with personality issues don't see there issues as a "problem" per se and unless it is bothering them (and many times it is not) there is no incentive to change. I can make a depressed narcissist less depressed with celexa, etc. but they will still be a narcissist.
Eric - sounds like you met a winner. I believe the narcissitic personality disorder is very well represented among surgeons!

Has anyone seen the movie, "The Last Supper?" It kind of addresses this topic. A group of Iowa grad students debate whether if you had Hitler sitting at your table before the Holocaust and knew what was eventually going to happen, would you act and kill him? So they decide to invite really hardcore rightwing type people, try to change their views, and if not, they kill them. I think that captures it, though its been over 10 years since I've seen it. Courtney B Vance, Cameron Diaz, Annabeth Gish and lots more. Loved the movie, all the characters go on this downward spiral. Highly recommend.

Good God, Eric. It sounds like that woman needs a big injection of a dose of North Carolina Southern hospitality.

Hi, I read this blog a lot but have never posted.

I had to write today because I just wrote about the topic of this CODE WORD on my own blog! First of all, I'm sick of people with nasty personalities becuase I whole-heartedly believe if they cared to change it, they most certainly could. You can tell the difference between a person who is struggling with life-problems or sickness and someone who just doesn't care about others' feelings. If you care enough to change something about yourself, you most certainly can. The thing is, most of us just don't really want to change.