I’m originally from the South, and a phrase you will often hear there about a person is, “Bless his heart.” Though it can convey compassion, most of the time it means, “He is just not getting it.” There is some reality he is not understanding or responding to.
And that, unfortunately, describes the chronic, which is a type of person who can be a significant nutrient drain on you. If you find you innocently keep pouring and pouring into someone, with no observable improvement over time, you may be investing in a chronic.
A chronic is best defined as an individual with four traits.
1. Ongoing struggles. The person is continually having some combination of problems with career, finances, marriage, family, parenting, emotional well-being, and physical health. These can continue for decades or sometimes resolve for a season and then recur again and again.
2. Little insight regarding their part. Chronics can hear advice from their friends over and over, but when it comes to understanding what part they played to get themselves into the situation, they blank out. They may be mystified, they may be upset with God, or they may see themselves as continually mistreated by others, but in any case there is little self-introspection.
3. Dysfunctional behavior patterns. It should be no surprise that chronics continue making the same mistakes and have little interest in insight. They have what is called a flat learning curve. It’s a little like a three-year-old at dinner who throws her veggies across the room and gets a time-out from Mom. But when she is returned to the table, she throws them again. In her head, there is no connection between sowing and reaping.
4. Harmless in intent but harmful in impact. Chronics can be very kind and likeable people. They aren’t malicious in their hearts. But, unfortunately, the effects of their choices on others can be seriously damaging: broken marriages, job failures, bankruptcy, struggling friendships, alienated kids. I have had lots of chronic friends (and I’m sure I went through my own chronic phase). I just have learned how to manage these relationships the right way.
Chronics and care individuals are similar in that they have significant ongoing struggles. However, a care individual is responsive to what she is given and takes responsibility for it, using the help and resources to change and grow. The chronic is somewhat of a black hole, with no change in sight.
A client of mine, Melissa, wanted to discuss her relationship with a friend, Andrea, about whom she was troubled. Melissa said, “Andrea is really struggling, and I want to know if I’m helping her in the right way.” She told me that Andrea was a single mom who was having difficulties in several arenas. Her kids were constantly in trouble and acting out. She couldn’t keep a steady job. She was depressed a great deal of the time.
“She does seem to have some significant problems,” I said. “How long have these been going on? Six months? A year?”
Melissa said, “Nine years.”
“That’s a very long time. I respect your perseverance with Andrea. And it does take a long time to work out serious problems. Okay, what do you do to help her?”
“I meet with her for lunch once a week. I just listen to her, support her, give her advice, pray for her, that sort of thing.”
“Those are good things,” I said. “The real question here is, what does the growth curve look like for these last nine years?”
Melissa is a businessperson, and she understood quickly what I was asking. “Except for the fact that she trusts me and knows I care, it’s a flat line.”
“So the kids are still out of control, the job issues are not improving, and her emotional state isn’t better?”
“Yes,” she said. “I try to get her to go to a good church, see counselors, get an executive coach, and I even offered to pay for some of it. But she is always too busy with other things.”
“And does she call you at night with emergencies and crises?”
“How did you know?”
“That’s how it tends to work. Had you told me that over the last nine years, Andrea was doing significantly better, year after year, in parenting, career, and emotional health, I would have said things are going well. None of us have a problem-free life. But success in growth is that every year, we have different problems that arise from our higher-level positions and abilities. It’s not like the movie Groundhog Day; we aren’t stuck in the same repetitive struggles. The problems are different and based on successes.
“For example, with a reasonable growth curve, the kids aren’t out of control but have some grade problems at school. She has kept a job for a few years, not a few months. It’s not the perfect job, but it’s in the good-enough range. And she is getting support from a healthy church and is regularly improving with a therapist. So though she still needs healing, her depression is not as severe as it was.”
“So am I a failure as a friend?” Melissa asked.
“No, you’re a very caring friend,” I said. “You just have not been aware of how Andrea’s mind works. She does not learn from experience; she keeps trying the same things over and over again, expecting a different result. And that is the definition of insanity. So she’s a bit crazy in that regard. I also think that she doesn’t use the relational nutrients you provide for her, at least not in a helpful way. A helpful way would be that when you listen to her and support her, she feels strengthened to persevere in difficult decisions, and when you give her advice, she writes down what you say. By the way, Melissa, how often in nine years have you seen her write down your advice?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.”
“Right. You are a very successful executive. I have seen people follow you around in your company, writing down what you are saying. But with Andrea, instead of taking notes on her cell phone, going home, and doing what you have suggested, she probably nods and says thank you and that’s it.
“Unfortunately, you function as her antidepressant. You are warm, you care, and you listen. So she basically takes in the relational nutrient of containment, over and over, dumping her problems onto you. Then she leaves feeling loved and supported, and it lasts for a few hours. But she has not metabolized anything you gave her, using it to think or behave differently. She didn’t burn up the fuel. So nothing changes.”
Melissa was thoughtful. “Okay, the lights are coming on. So what is my part in this, and how can I help her in a more effective way?”
“Your part is that you didn’t have the 411 on handling people who are chronics. You innocently thought and hoped that your care and advice would work, because that works with lots of people, yourself included. And you let it go on far too long before considering another route. You were just in what is called a defensive hope mode, waiting for things to get better based on hope and not based on reality.”
Melissa nodded, taking it all in.
“I suggest this if you want to be a better friend to Andrea: The next time you guys get together, apologize that you haven’t been helping her the way you think you should, and say you want to change things up a bit to make the relationship work better. This means that when you two meet and you give her advice, you want her to interact with you on the advice and work with you on whether she really thinks it will help and if there is a way she can tweak it to fit her better. Make her a partner in her own growth, not just a taker. Then ask her to write down what specifically she will do to make the changes, and by when. Tell her you’ll text her on the due date to see how it went and that you will be praying for her success.”
Melissa added an “Uh-huh” and jotted a note.
“Then see what happens in the next few meetings,” I said. “If she is getting things done and matters are gradually improving, keep going. If she is not following up and has lots of excuses, you may need to tell her that if she can’t do what she has committed to do for her growth, you may need to meet less frequently, because it feels like the time is not helpful. You love her and will keep praying for her, but the face-to-face may decrease with no action steps on her part.”
Melissa said, “She will be devastated if I do that. She has no other friends.”
“We don’t want to devastate anyone, but there is a reason she has no other friends. What if she’s burned through everyone else because of her stance toward responsibility? Isn’t it a favor to her to empower and respect her enough to give her a few chances to change how she does life?”
Melissa had hired and fired enough people in her career to understand this. It wasn’t about becoming performance based instead of giving unconditional love. Melissa loved Andrea unconditionally and had proven it. And if she had to meet with Andrea only once every two months, that would also be unconditional love. No matter what would happen, she was not judging or condemning Andrea, nor was she saying that Andrea had to perform for love. She was saying, however, that Andrea had to perform for time. We are called to love people, pray for them, and be for them. But if people want our time, they need to be shouldering some of the burden, owning their lives, unless they are in the hospital, in hospice care, in a crisis, or barely surviving.
The narrative ended well, actually. Andrea was hurt but did agree to Melissa’s terms. She knew Melissa’s advice was good for her, and she was able to feel not only the antidepressant effects of the conversations but also the challenge aspects. Over time, as Andrea began making the right changes, Melissa was able to meet with her less frequently, which was okay with Andrea. She now had other sources of nutrients and was more independent and autonomous.
Look at a chronic as being the foolish person in Proverbs.
• “The waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them” (1:32).
• “The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice” (12:15).
• “A discerning person keeps wisdom in view, but a fool’s eyes wander to the ends of the earth” (17:24).
• “Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions” (18:2).
• “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly” (26:11).
• “Stone is heavy and sand a burden, but a fool’s provocation is heavier than both” (27:3).
We must never judge those with chronic tendencies. We all have our own inner chronic. Just realize that there is a definable and demonstrable pattern in the chronic, in that they are constantly struggling in major ways, have little interest in understanding their part, and have a flat learning curve.
Some chronics do change, as in Andrea’s situation. And that is what we all hope for. Some take a very long time to change. And, unfortunately, some never change.
But your responsibility is to be in charge of how you are investing your time, energy, and resources. What I have found, especially in high-performing people, is that they are so optimistic, caring, and hopeful that sometimes they pour enormous amounts of themselves over years into people who have chosen not to burn the fuel and make improvements. So just ask yourself whether your nutrients are healing and changing things or you are a perpetual source of comfort to someone who will come to you again and again because you are caring but has no thought of using what you provide to help themselves.
Use the five-question matrix in the care chapter to determine whether you are supporting or enabling a person. The same principles apply to this category. Most of the time, when my clients use the information in this chapter, they begin to do some helpful pruning in their relationships and invest in better ways.