The Power and Pitfalls of Denial

Denial. The internal refutation of bad news that we do not want to acknowledge because the truth is painful. We all use it at times to protect us from news and information about the world that we are not yet ready to handle. Sometimes we do not have the resources we need to deal with bad news. This inability leads us to denial. Contrary to common belief , denial can be a positive thing , a survival tool for people who are facing such tragedy that , if they did not have this tool of denial at their disposal they would not be able to survive. Victims of narcissistic abuse at the hands of close family members who have no options and cannot leave often use denial to survive in such inhumane conditions. This might seem strange to many people, how can denial , the very refuting of life and truth , ever be positive and useful? This sentiment is often expressed by people who have not been through the torment of severe and evil abuse on a daily basis. The Internet abounds with articles on how terrible denial is , and how people who end up in denial suffer other adverse effects such as mental illness. This is also very true. When we suppress or look away from pain and re frame the things that are causing us pain in a false way , it does not help in growth. This can be useful for a person who still has the power and mental strength to lead their lives,to eliminate the negative and move forward in a positive sense. However for people who have no option, this makes total sense. Imagine this situation : A woman in war torn and Taliban led Afghanistan. She has no rights. This is not a place where people have rights and are living because they want to actualize themselves.This is a war zone , both physically and mentally. The woman in a Taliban household has no rights. The man can beat her at will , force her to do what he wants. She cannot even walk out of the house without a male relative, forget about going outside and earning a living. She would be beheaded just for speaking to an unrelated male. Imagine the situation of a woman living in such conditions. If she acknowledges to herself, I have no rights , my husband is a murderer , and can murder me at any time. He does not care about anything but himself. I must leave here immediately. Where will she go? Her parents will be killed by the Taliban if she dared go there. In order to survive and live in this torment , she uses denial. I have a good husband he takes care of me. He is feeding me and giving me a home , what more could I ask for? Many people in this world do not even have anything to eat? Think about the situation of this woman , does she have any other survival tool other than denial? It is the only way she can survive in the most inhumane of conditions. In this sense it is a positive thing to use. It allows her to breathe and be alive and maintain her mental state from deteriorating to an extent that she cannot do normal chores and take care of herself.There are other situations where denial can be extremely negative and it is here that most people who are not under any sort of extreme situation like the woman above use it as a crutch to avoid looking at reality because it is simply too painful. We avoid looking at reality sometimes because we are just too lazy. Once we openly acknowledge the truth we need to work on changing whatever the situation is and we are just too lazy to do that. Denial can also happen when there is something unpleasant in us that we have to face and when we just do not want to know this unpleasant fact about us. This can lead to many people making their lives much worse than they actually are. Dangerous examples of this include people who are on the verge of becoming full-blown alcoholics deny their addiction because that would mean they have to give up the one substance that is helping them to cope with the unbearable pain in their lives. However this is a dangerous denial. This can lead to a life situation that is worse than the current one. It is situations like these where denial is very harmful to our life and health. Of all denials , the worst ones that healthy people in “normal” situations , I am excluding trauma survivors and people in extreme situations , is the denial of death. We ,as a society have become so obsessed with youth and health. Even on television it is rare to see old people. Old people and death is relegated to dark corners of the society which no one faces unlessthey have to . Caleb Wilde , a funeral director , in his book “Confessions of a funeral director”, mentions that our denial of death, in our society has made for people who are not open and who cannot bear to me in the midst of other people’s pain. And when tragedy strikes and someone they love dies ( which is inevitable) , they are at a complete loss at how to behave. Many people do not know how to live, because they have not accepted the fact completely that they are going to die one day. Death can be a great tutor on how to
live.

This quote from the Dhammapada highlights this :

“Some do not understand that we must die
Those who do end all their quarrels”

In his Pulitzer prize winning book “ The Denial of Death” , Ernest Becker makes an impassioned plea, for us to changeas a society and start taking death as a part of life. Many people fear death more than anything in this world. His book provides solace and meaning to many people who are so afraid of death , that they refuse to acknowledge that it will happen to them and also to the people that they love the most. He acknowledges the fear and paradox of being alive achieving all these amazing things and then dying to become food for the worms. Seems to be that there is no meaning to anything we do , if in the end we just have to die. However, by acknowledging that one day everything is going to end will help you to focus on whatever it is that is most important for you in your life. Denying death , is like denying life. Many people go through life in a haze and stamping out all awareness of anything painful including death. Painful emotions are there for our reason . They have a certain function. We do not want to feel them because they are painful. There is a lot of empathy for people who feel physical pain as we can see the damage that it causes . However , we cannot say the same for psychological pain , that is hidden within our psyche, and is not obvious to others around us. It is important to work through and acknowledge these feelings to make the necessary changes that we need to make in our lives. Suppressing them or denying them will not make these feelings go away. Shopping will only distract you from the pain you felt at your divorce for a few moments and then days ? And then what ?Working through the painful feelings and realizing that they are not as scary as we might feel them to be gives a huge sense of relief and also a new sense of courage to take risks in life again.Without this life cannot move on , and you will end up feeling “stuck”.As Pema Chodron says , the only way to full experience joy and happiness in our lives is to also allow all the negative emotions in. Give them a seat at the table. Try to understand the message they bring and change your life accordingly. At this stage , I would like you to look deep inside yourself , and ask yourself : What have you been running away from your whole life? Denying the painful answer to that question is also denying yourself the opportunity to grow.

Sources:

Wilde, C. (2018). Confessions of a funeral director: how death saved my life. New York, NY: HarperOne.

Chödrön Pema. (2017). When things fall apart: heart advice for difficult times. London: Thorsons Classics.

Becker, E. (1973). The denial of death . New York: Free. 

Bohn, L. (2018, December 8). Why Afghanistan Is Still the Worst Place to Be a Woman. Retrieved from https://time.com/5472411/afghanistan-women-justice-war/.

Dhammapada  . (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.intro.budd.html.