# When People Change For The Worse



## Stars (Jul 23, 2009)

Ever experienced a situation where a completely normal person has an event happen in their life that twists their personality around in very negative ways. I have. 

I met my best friend's mother in the summer of 2004. For the first 4 1/2 years I knew her, if you asked me "is she a rational, sane, responsible person with alot of common sense?" I would've said yes. During this 4 1/2 years, she divorced her husband, my friend's father, but I still would've described her positively. Then she started dating someone else. Someone who we discovered has quite a history of harsh behavior. She changed rapidly. She practically forced my friend and his brother out of the house, holds favors over their heads all the time, acts nonsensical, and behaves in a generally vindictive manner, making my friend's life much more difficult than it should be. I've never seen someone drop the ball so quickly, going from a rational, sane, responsible person with alot of common sense to someone who is exactly the opposite. 

Here's another example: one of my friends in high school (who I have known since elementary school but didn't get close to until much later) has had a reputation of being the nerdiest kid in the city, a reputation he's proud of. He won a national-level spelling bee in eigth grade, and our high school ran out of math classes for him to take if that tells you anything. He joined up with with an LGBT group and a feminist group at his University (though he himself is straight). All of the sudden his focus of attention narrows to largely just those issues and the ones that inherently accompany them. He has the zeal of a 1960s protester when it comes to gender & sexuality issues, much of it unwarranted. He acts like he sees male chauvinist pigs everywhere he goes. When I asked him about this, he said "I just wasn't aware of it before". I consider myself a pretty socially aware person and I've never encountered an example of sexism in my life. He's exaggerating things. His fiancee is also part of these groups and I think she may have convinced him to join. I'm scared of what would happen if I told her I disagreed with some of her views. But that's not the point. The point is: it's a lot more awkward and unpleasant to be around him than it used to be, even though I still care alot about him. 

My questions are:

-why do you think some people have these abrupt and ugly changes in behavior when someone else influences them? 
-Why isn't it more a more gradual and reasonable transition? 
-How can people just shut out the truth during these moments? 
-And finally, what are the chances they'll go back to being how they used to be?


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## Kevinaswell (May 6, 2009)

Well.

He's right.

There IS sexism and chauvinistic pigs EVERYWHERE.

There is bullshit EVERYWHERE.

Like society is pretty fucked up, morally and ethically. And you really don't gotta look too hard to find it.

It could just be that college has opened his eyes to the more delicate details of the passions you listed, which has given him an increasing amount of reasons to dwell on them?

It's true, it's not something that should be talked about a shit ton and obsessed over, I completely agree. But one thing college does for sure is tell you how much everyone has no idea what's going on. Especially if he's taking sociology classes as I expect considering his interests.


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## Ninja (Jun 28, 2009)

I see a few possible influences. Group them or see them alone. One is that these people are very impressionable. Just because one is a good mother, responsible and other forms of good in terms of parental conduct, and the other is a math whiz, doesn't mean they are strong in their beliefs, and not apt to be shifted around mentally by other people. Now apparently both of them were converted to other ways of life, so they are highly impressionable, a fact if we see it from this perspective. 

Another view of this is that both people weren't really into their actions during the time you thought you knew them. You did know them of course, but now you know them better. You judged them by what you knew of them, but not that there behavior has changed your view of them has changed as well.. to something akin of shifters. I think they felt obligated by someone, or someones to do what they were doing. They were convinced that they should be doing that, but once they were exposed to a different way they preferred the new alternative. Your math friend was use to math and wore it out, and when one becomes blinded by anything, including school, one can become a fool to the rest of the world. And as a sheltered christian girl, in a sheltered christian school, attracted to the bones, but bound so tight by rules, she jumped aboard, when all alone with the tool.


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## Psilo (Apr 29, 2009)

The first story I think has to do that when an identity, say one of a wife or mother and in relation to the family, is shattered, the person must rebuild themselves. That doesn't mean the pieces will reassemble in the same shape they were before for better or worse. Immediate influences in that vulnerable time have a hand in being a mold to form to. 

The second, I agree with Kevin. It sounds as if the person had something click in their head about the issue and has made it a priority to do everything to see it fixed.



> -Why isn't it more a more gradual and reasonable transition?


Trauma is neither gradual nor reasonable, so is the reaction. Or in the second story, I could see how it could be more gradual and reasonable than it seems on the outside. If they were thoughts that he felt strongly about, or maybe some that he repressed for being silly, it could be that he needed external justification before he came out about his passion. IDK.


> -How can people just shut out the truth during these moments?


Are they?



> -And finally, what are the chances they'll go back to being how they used to be?


Should they?


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## Jack Rabid (Aug 6, 2009)

Stars said:


> My questions are:
> 
> -why do you think some people have these abrupt and ugly changes in behavior when someone else influences them?
> -Why isn't it more a more gradual and reasonable transition?
> ...


1- It's usually a case of self inflicted trauma. The truth about one self or others can be an horrific shock..
It's easier to deny reality than to face it.. BUT we know deep inside what reality_ really_ is.. This almost always causes inner conflict.. And a self conflicted person can lose themselves as their identity crumbles before them.

2- I think it might depend on how much distractions a person can have.. or how many other pillars of identity they have.. If they have a few,and one crumbles, the results would be much more apparent and much more sooner.

3- They don't shut it out.. they struggle with it, and denial is the best weapon .

4- Possibly.. but you can't ever be who you were.. you can only be who you are.. If you can become honest with yourself and grow as a result.. then you will have changed from that person you were.
It might look a lot like the person of old..But it is no longer the same person..

When a tree grows new leaves in the spring.. They might grow from the same spots as last year.. and once in full bloom the tree might look like it does every summer.. But the leaves are new.. the branches slightly longer.. the roots a little deeper..


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## Lepthe (Oct 26, 2009)

> I consider myself a pretty socially aware person and I've never encountered an example of sexism in my life.


don't you think that is just a little odd?


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## Pac-Man (Nov 21, 2009)

Lepthe said:


> don't you think that is just a little odd?


Maybe Lepthe indulges in sexism to the extent of being oblivious to its presence.  It's 'ordinary'.


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## Lepthe (Oct 26, 2009)

EarlGray said:


> Maybe Lepthe indulges in sexism to the extent of being oblivious to its presence.  It's 'ordinary'.



i'm not catching what you are throwing, earlgray. how would my surprise over someone never seeing or noticing a single incident of sexism in their entire life (or my suggestion that its unusual NOT to notice) lead you to say that I myself am oblivious to it, or that I indulge in it?


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## AlijahEatsBabies (Aug 2, 2011)

Honestlly..sadly i completely understand where you're coming from because , I, myself have always been a person who rapidly changes with my surroundings and/or people. Either from those i find rather intriguing to look up too or simply have better behaviors in which i wish i was naturally like. BUT that's only my predicament, the other reason i would see OTHERS change so rashly is because their minds are easily changeable to thinks that they find intriguing themselves. Maybe that poison that turns things into trends and such that completely takes them over and changes who they are. fuckk, i wish i even understood myself even more. 

All i can say is. I'm personally working on my own predicament.


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## Voodo Chile (Jul 6, 2011)

when they grow up


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## strawberryLola (Sep 19, 2010)

People change for various reasons. Sometimes, it's the denial that holds us back. In the case of the divorced person, it could be abuse that's caused her to act the way she does, and her anger towards her kids may also stem from other factors that are not apparent or openly discussed (covert family secrets, skeletons, etc.) 

Changing for the worse can also be very subjective, because sometimes, as humans, it's really the low points that teach us the hardest lessons. As bystanders the one thing that helps is to be there. 

People's lives are so intricate that it's really hard to say black and white what they should be doing, because that only makes them feel worse about themselves. Life's a journey, and sometimes, those paths that we take won't always make sense to most people. It's a process people sometimes have to go through in order to make sense of life for themselves. Sometimes, they know the truth, but would rather experience what they need to know to really know it.


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