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Denial



The Merriam -Webster Dictionary defines denial from a psychological point of view as “a defense mechanism in which confrontation with a personal problem or with reality is avoided by denying the existence of the problem or reality”. I inhale, squint my eyes and hold my breath after reading this as if preparing for someone to rip a bandaid off of a wound. The definition just doesn’t capture the experience.

Being in denial is like being under the influence of black magic. You are blind to the thing whatever the thing is. There is no conscious act of avoiding or denying anything. I denied leaving the wall heater on in the bathroom when questioned by my mom despite knowing full well that I had done just that. Certainly I was avoiding confrontation with my mother’s dismay, the truth of my absent mindedness and the fear that my misdeed would cause me to lose my mother’s affection but make no mistake about it. My denial was a lie.

What I am talking about here, is quite another type of denial, one in which there is no awareness of the truth because the truth has been hidden from you. My denial of being a lesbian from the backseat of the car was not a lie as far as I knew. The perpetrator of the lie was the alien in my head pulling the levers lowering and removing the scrim between what is known and what is not. At that moment I was in the dark, under a spell. I imagine this alien to be an over-excitable grandmother who fears the sky is falling but doesn’t want you to know about it because she wants you to just be happy. Really, she wants to keep all the worry to herself because she likes being the martyr and she likes to be in charge. She’s a codependent! Grandma loves sorting through the thoughts and feelings, deciding which ones get to pass through to the side of the known and which ones she is going to nip in the bud and keep in their place in a locked cell on the dark side of the mind.

The thing is, the truth wants to be known. It takes every opportunity afforded to jump and dance and rattle its cage to get your attention. This results in a nagging anxiety, the kind that makes your stomach ache and makes you irritable. It doesn’t want to let up until you acknowledge it but ye ole grandma has her way of distracting you with thoughts like. Oh it’s nothing. You probably ate too many raisins is all. Oh look at that pretty purse. Wouldn’t that look nice with that dress you got last week? Grandma is a powerful force.

Then there are the times when you are confronted with the truth by an external source. In this case, the truth’s sting of humiliation acts as a bookmark forcing you to recall the memory time and again. It nags at you to question - Why? Why? Why?

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