A Thick Layer Of Denial: How To View The Real World & Cope With It
A Thick Layer Of Denial
Once you understand denial and all the forms it takes in people you will see it everywhere you go.
See the psychologist with many letters behind his name? How does that help him prop up his self-esteem? Why was he so determined to educate himself? What is he trying to prove, and to whom?
And what about our own denial of our lives? Are we so ignorant that we cannot see the changes we are doing to our planet, or are some of us making too many excuses to ourselves for our continual over indulgence in resource hungry habits such as heavy consumerism?Denial is there to protect us, but we as human beings use denial to blank out that which we can not deal with, things in our present, or in our past that we can not revisit because of the pain it can create, as painful today as it was originally.
But Denial holds us back from embracing the reality of a situation if it stands in front of us, and hinders our ability to respond to the challenges productively.
We risk making things harder for ourselves by denying the situation we are in.
I saw interesting examples of denial a few winter’s ago. One afternoon as snow begun to come down in the local town myself and my colleagues decided it may be best to head off home early to avoid any bad driving conditions.
As I drove I noticed I was resisting the realisation that it might take me more than a little longer to get home this afternoon. The snow had settled, cars were already finding it hard to get grip. I had 30 miles to go and was worried about who could look after my children if I didn’t get home in time.
I saw a man driving the other way in a car waving his arm to everyone to turn around. ‘No, I thought, this can not be, he must be a little too excited, no one else is waving their arms around. So I continued on my journey a while longer more and more desperately fighting the logic of what I saw and that I should look now for an alternative rather than plough on regardless.
Of course, half an hour later I found out he was right, there was no way I was going to get to the main road home. I turned around yet continued with my ‘optimistic outlook’ covering of denial of what was really happening out there, heavy snow?.. How could this be? Why are all these cars abandoned? .
“You must turn around” I said to a Volvo driver, “you can’t get through”. His response from his two-wheel drive estate was, “I have to get through”. Later I saw a lady on an iced hill, finding it hard to get her tyres to grip. She insisted she needed to carry on.
We all HAD to get home, to the family, to warmth and hot food. What would happen to us here? It seemed to frighten us all. What were we really frightened of?
We were not asking ourselves this but rather letting our anxiety take control and insisting, perhaps by taking unreasonable risks, to push ahead, regardless. It was ridiculous, we were all slaves to our anxiety, I saw very little logical & calm thinking.
Everyone was desperate to get home, almost child like, running to Mum and Dad.
My mind was using denial to alter the severity of what could be happening, “It can’t last” I thought. The snow will thaw soon, and we will all get home. There was no way I could accept not getting home.
As much as I was aware that this feeling, I was too busy trying to communicate to the school and locals in my village to find out who could take my children in. My anxiety had found a weak place to feed.
My children, alone & abandoned? I had to get to them.A school bus driver, insistent on trying to drive up an icy hill. Perhaps the thought of being stuck with 50 or more school children in the snow was too much for him so he pushed on regardless of other more safe options.
So why? Why do we deny ourselves the more realistic truth?
Why are something’s too hard for us to cope with? Why do we blank the possibility from our minds that in fact, things could be harder for us than we would like?
We protect ourselves from that which is hard for us to cope with. If it were suggested to me I would only get home by 1am the next morning I would not have wanted to believe it (yet that is what actually happened.)
Throughout life we are faced with things that happen that are good and things that happen that are bad. Our response to both are very different. “Good” things make us happy, ‘bad’ things make us anxious, and sad. If we were able to accept that bad is as much part of life as is the ‘good’, and maybe perhaps we should accept that ‘bad’ is ‘dark’, and ‘good’ is ‘light’, then maybe we have a way to better survive and cope with what ever comes our way.
Perhaps we should not see ‘dark’ as a completely negative unproductive experience full of pain and experiences that need to be hidden and not thought about.
The experience of a mid life crisis, the loss of a marriage and career and all that may happen because of this testing time in our lives may actually be, ultimately, for the best. A year after I my wife left to live with another man I was asked what was the year like for me. Fortunately, I was able to say, honestly, ‘great’ I would never have expected I would say that when the darkness surrounded me earlier in the year.
When you are in the thick of the issues, feeling overwhelmed by it all, it’s not easy to have perspective and tell yourself everything will be all right. However, I advise you here to have faith in life, to have faith that lighter days will come and that the dark days you are in may bring you to a better place in time.
So, don’t deny what is happening to you, take some time out to sit and thing where do you want to go from here, how are you going to get there?
And lastly, what are you really afraid of?
Guy.
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Filed under: Mid-Life Crisis
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