Why Some People Never Change

Jerry was attending a therapist. Returning from his visit he made the following statement;

"I go with friends to the playground. To 'fix' them, I sit on the bench. They are playing basketball. They are having fun. They don't notice me."

Those to whom he spoke were ecstatic. Jerry had finally realised something any one who knew him was aware.

Hearing him articulate that fact was, for them, a breakthrough. They expected Jerry to become a 'new person' now that he grasped the defective reasoning which had tainted his life.

It didn't take long to appreciate Jerry merely repeated what he had been told. What came out of his mouth did not in any way touch his twisted mind. He remained exactly as he had been; one who tried to 'fix' others by denying himself.

Jerry could say the words, but they didn't impinge on his personality. He repeated what his therapist had provoked as if reciting a poem in a foreign language he did not speak.

His 'revealation' was to fool those around him into thinking he had some kind of 'breakthrough'.

Jerry felt triumphant in fooling his audience. It was as if he'd won an award.

This is because Jerry, as many persons who suffer from mental problems, believes he doesn't have a problem. Believes he is smarter, better at manipulation than those around him. He is full unaware thatother people know he has a problem.

This is the center point.

There are people who have developed an inability to alter their world view. No matter what they experience, no matter how it is defined, no matter how they reiterate, their internal mental disability prevents change.

There are those who, when certainties are shattered, reboot, so as to reestablish those 'certainties'.

Psycho-therapy doesn't go beyond their mouths.

Harriet suffered from false memory syndrome. She 'remembered' things that never happened.

This is not recalling wearing a green dress when she wore gold, this is recalling something that never happened. This is remembering an event that could be legally or medically proven to have never happened.

When confronted with facts, irrefutable facts, which destroyed her memory Harriet went into pause. Then she rebooted, repeating the same fantasies she had before the proof they were fantasies was revealed.

As a person who suffers mental illness, she can never accept facts that contradict her fantasies.

There is no medication, no therapy which can confront her fantasies. Harriet will continue until death grasping her fantasies, regardless of the proof that they are fantasies.

Therapists will not admit their failure in dealing with a person like Harriet. Some may keep trying, and perhaps help her to live beyond the fantasies, but never dislodge them.

People like Jerry believes in his omnipotence. Although of below average intelligence he assumes his brilliance. Failures are blamed on everyone else.

Certain of his rightness he can never deviate from it. No matter what he is told, no matter what he experiences, he will hold to the chains of his Super Ego.

That everyone around Jerry sees through him as cellophane, is beyond his comprehension. His attempts to 'play' people becomes a game in which others play him, and he does not realise it.

That his circle continues to get smaller, as he has to work harder to deceive, does not in any way effect his world view.

That he could verbalise the key error of his concepts does not mean he can internalise them.

To change one needs to make an attempt. To see the errors, and not find easy excuses or twisted explanations, but to accept the reality.

Nick is a perfect example.

He has been married three times. Each wife left him because of his abuse. Nick refuses to believe he is abusive. He will say that his wife (one, two or three) forced him to beat her, deserved it.

He will never admit he is an abusive despicable person who has no friends, who has no family, because no one wants to associate with him.

In his late sixties, Nick will repeat the same lies he told himself at twenty, despite the proof that what he tells himself are lies.

Simply put, if each time you do something you fail, if you are normal you will examine why you fail, not create fantasies to explain your failure.as a success.