Theology | Can a Narcissist Be Healed?

 

Can a Narcissist Be Healed?

©2022 by Vernon Miles Kerr and VernonMilesKerr.com

 

Can a narcissist be healed? Could Donald J. Trump ever become normal, in this life? It doesn’t seem like it. But, I can tell you, from my own life, that it is possible.

Like Trump, my earliest years were spent in a pleasant but unhealthy environment of constant praise and positive re-enforcement by a mom, a grandma and a harem of neighborhood teen-aged girls.

It was mid-World War II, and — after my traveling around the country in-utero and out, while Mom followed my Regular-Army staff sergeant father from base to base, while he trained draftees — she came back to Alabama to live with her mom, while Pop accompanied his last group of trainees to Europe.

Mom’s brothers, and all the neighborhood men under 40 were gone too. Boyfriend-less as a result, a gaggle of bored girls would surround my playpen out in the yard, eager to relieve the stress of waiting and wondering. Compounding this situation, was my reportedly starting to talk at 7 months. The girls quickly had me singing the Trolley Song from Meet Me in Saint Louis: “Ding, ding, ding goes da twahwee.” (They also taught me some salty language, much to the chagrin of my mother, during a trip up an elevator in downtown Birmingham.)

So, I was a little neighborhood star, and, right then and there, came to relish the spotlight, eager to come up with something that would delight my audience. This carried through to childhood and the teen years: class clown, being sent to the principal for wise-cracks in class, being in school talent shows, class plays. The little star. (eye-roll) In a word — egotist.

What is “ego”? Well, in Greek it’s the first person singular, “I”. The big “I”, that’s it.

In my opinion, ego is a singular focus on self, an unhealthy one, possibly “learned” behavior, as in my case, and that of Trump.

What has “cured” me? (Again, in my opinion) it is my gradual exposure to God, who is without “ego.” I say “gradual” because it started (miraculously) in that error-filled, Bible-thumping, cultish, now defunct, Worldwide Church of God, from 1973 to 1998. I now criticize the Bible as being “mostly the work of man,” but somehow there seems to be enough of God’s inspiration, still in there, to affect one’s thinking and one’s heart. I’m sure that this is true for the Quran, the I-Ching, the Hindu Veda and other inspired works of man.

This crack-in-the-dyke of my former egotistical agnosticism has been recently widened by my present “Cancer Odyssey” and the—still unresolved—issue of a possible early death. The more I pray, the more my ego seems to be diluted by God’s spirit. His spirit (which we all have a little bit of) is the antidote for ego.

Could a being composed of God’s spirit, an”angel,” have ego? The thought seems ridiculous. That’s why the idea of an evil spirit, a “Lucifer,” aka, Satan, is so clearly a human-devised addition to scripture. We call God “Holy” because He is without ego. He is outwardly oriented, not inwardly, He is all “giving” and zero “taking.”

Can Trump ever become other than a narcissist? Given the right set of bumps and bruises, the kind that drive one to utter despair, Trump could have his mind opened and begin the process of losing “ego.”

VMK