Denial

Denial and disconnection are both very similar, they both come from a place of not wanting to know what’s going on because we don’t know what to do about it. Or we don’t want to feel it because it’s too painful, and we don’t know what to do with the pain, or we are afraid of the pain. In this post I’ll process denial and then we’ll move on to disconnection in the next one.

When someone is in denial, everything is fine, nothing is wrong, they don’t know how something affects them. There is no emotional connection with whatever is happening or has happened. Their default answer to the situation in their life is “It’s not that bad.”

Denial can come from a place of comparison. I’m fairly certain you’ve been told at least once in your life to stop feeling sorry for yourself because you’re not as bad off as so and so. I don’t think I was in denial about my growing up years, but the comparison example can still illustrate how I minimized my pain. I would say things like, I’m not starving on the streets in the third world, having to sell my body for food. Or, at least my dad isn’t an alcoholic and drinks away what little money we have. Those kinds of reasonings. It’s the idea that I should get over it because it’s not as bad as someone else. I should be fine.

That will always be true. There will always be someone worse off than me. And there is a place for practicing gratitude. But comparing pain will not make me self-aware. Not being able to say, ‘my pain was so bad’ is a way of invalidating my pain.

I specifically remember how when I was with my siblings, there used to be almost a competition of who of us had had it the hardest. It’s so sad, looking back, that we all felt like we somehow had to be the one with the worst story because that would somehow validate it. The truth is we all had a crappy story, the pain was real for all of us, and giving each other the impression that theirs wasn’t as painful as mine was just making the invalidation worse. When feelings are not validated, then what is there to work on?

Abi shared how hard it was to pop her denial bubble. She mentioned there were several people trying to make her aware of it and she would keep saying, “No, it was fine, it wasn’t that bad”. But as Justin shared, he would say, “if everything was fine, then why are you having so much trouble with your emotions?” It’s a good tell that there is denial, if everything is supposedly fine, but the prover is saying something else. But denial keeps one trapped.

Here are a few more tells:

If I can’t look at something that is painful, I am in denial.

For instance, there are a lot of people who prefer denial to a diagnosis. In Christian circles it’s sometimes the act of not going to the doctor and claiming to believe God for health. But that is denial. Getting a diagnosis doesn’t mean you’ve given up faith in God. You need to be able to look at the problem. Faith is looking at the problem and not putting your faith in it. Or in other words, faith is seeing a big problem but believing in a bigger and better God.

When we pop the denial bubble, we can begin to be honest. We can look at what works and what doesn’t, what we can do to resolve the situation healthfully. None of that can happen if we don’t acknowledge that a problem exists.

If a person just wants to have fun and keeps planning the next adventure before the last one is finished, that person may be dealing with denial.

One last comment about denial. When I’m in denial I’m actually denying myself the ability to be seen, known, heard, understood, and connected, and I deny it to those in relationship with me. If I deny a problem is there, and it is a problem that also affects my family members, but I say it doesn’t exist, I don’t allow talking about it, I don’t deal with it, now everyone else in the family is suffering from that denial. I’m thinking of families where a family member died, and one person says not to talk about the dead person. It’s denying everyone else the process of grieving that loss, unless there is someone else they can talk to about it. It’s very destructive to families and relationships.

Before I introduce the homework, I just want to mention that I am not a huge fan of personality tests. I think all to often personality traits that show up in tests tempt the test taker to make excuses or let the results define them. Please take the test with this in mind.

For homework to this post, I am including a couple of links to the enneagram test. There is a long test that costs money, which you can take if you like. 

But here is a free one that also gives a fairly good assessment. I did several free tests. While my wing changed sometimes, the main number was consistently a one.

I found this site helpful in relating to the results. It gives some helpful descriptions of what the number means in real life. 

The enneagram is presented as a personality test. Some say it is a great tool for self-awareness, because it clues me in to become self-aware. It helps me know what I’m naturally prone to, and how it can be challenging, and how it can be helpful in life. I am hoping my entire family will take this test, so I can read the descriptions and find out how to maybe better understand them. Honestly, I still feel conflicted about it. But there are so many people talking about it and referring to themselves about what number they are, that it is helpful just from a general education point of view to know a little bit about it, even though I have not done much with it myself after taking the test.

I encourage you to take the test and get familiar with the descriptions. It’s kind of fun too. Then come tell me in the comments what the test thinks you are, and if that surprised you. As I said already, I’m supposedly a one. It surprised me some. I have been told I was a perfectionist before, but having grown up in a family full of perfectionists, all more than me, I was labeled the slob of the family and by comparison didn’t think I qualified as a perfectionist. The truth is, I recognize myself in many of the other ones as well. But I guess this one had the most hits. I’m not sure what to do with it beyond this. I’ll let you know if I find out.

Happy test taking!