February 6, 2009
Denial — Does it help? Or does it hurt?
To any dissociative trauma survivor weighing heavy in denial….
.
Denial….
SO important for your years of survival….
SO very very crucial for maintaining your education, functionality, employment…
Denial….
important, so very powerful…
covers up the amnesia
What time loss? Has anyone lost time?
Denial…
covers up the pain
covers up the horror
covers up the hopelessness….
And yet denial,
as helpful and comforting as it was for so so so so so many years….
it keeps you stuck in those years… not knowing… not changing…
and yet, still at enormous risk for being hurt….
over and over and over again…
And the finding out what is on the other side of the denial…
well, that is so hugely painful…
terrifying…
horrifying….
embarrassing…
humiliating….
usually proving exactly why you wanted that denial there in the first place.
And yet, if not knowing means you continue to be hurt, then is denial hurting more than helping?
Or what if not knowing means that you stay caught in a world where you are hurting others, then how is THAT helping you? Or them?
What if keeping your denial and not knowing means you have to stay split and even amnesiac in order to handle the different extremes in your life — where is the real peace of mind?
If you can’t stay present to see what your own self is doing, how is denial helpful?
If something is going on to THAT degree now while you are an adult, you really do need to know about it. Knowing is the first step of doing something about it.
Yes, it might be huge.
If denial has been there from day one… and you happen to be 20-30-40-50 years old… then just how MUCH has happened that you don’t know about? How much have you blocked? And when did you stop blocking whatever needed to be blocked?
What if you know nothing, due to the denial. That is like knowing 0-1%.
AND what if you have to learn at least 25% of the information in order to understand an inkling of what all has been going on in your life…
And what if you have to learn at least 50% of the information to start realizing that you might have some reality connection to it…
And what if you have to learn 60% of the information in order to make some system headway?
And what if you have to know 70% before you can take action about it on your own?
And what if you have to know 80% of the information before you feel like you are making genuine consistent headway?
Do you have any idea how MUCH information that is that has to surface from behind those darn denial walls?
So of course, you get caught and tangled in learning lots, and yet, initially not being able to do much about it. It’s all part of the process… to eventually learn how to do something about it. Just the knowing in and of itself is only one step of the healing process.
And then there is the system work, the sorting out the who’s and why’s your inside parts would be doing such different things from each other. Understanding the who’s and why’s of someone in your system has complete willingness to do something you find abhorrent…. How do you handle THAT?
It’s hard to know WHY that one over there would really really be willing to participate in such horrifying activities…. and NOW what? What do you do with a part that really appears to “like it” over there?
It takes a lot of work to get through denial. And for your life to truly be your own, you have to know everything that happened in your life.
I’m not talking about remembering every minute of time. At the moment, I’m not writing much about sorting through what others do to you….
Right now, I’m thinking more about what you do to you….
I mean … for your life to be yours… you need to know what you and your body and your mind is doing… basically at all times…
and to not ever not know what you did during your day (or night)
How can you ever be safe if you don’t know what you did or didn’t do?
These are some of my rambling thoughts about denial….
What are your thoughts?
.
___________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
