Denial and Other Escapes Part I

The Boil-Down: The first clinical use of the term denial is credited to Sigmund Freud, in describing the way a person disavows an unpalatable reality in favor of one that is less painful and therefore more acceptable. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross expanded on the concept in her book On Death and Dying, in which she articulated the stages of grief. This multi-part blog entry examines denial and other methods the human mind uses to avoid attachment grief--any loss that challenges the ways we relate to ourselves or to important others in our lives, especially from childhood.

The Details: Anyone familiar with a substance abuse "intervention" recognizes one of the ways it might turn out. The family confronts the drinker or user: "Roger, we've been worried about your habit for some time now..." Roger might reason: "I don't have a problem!"--and back up his assertion by saying he hasn't used in a while, or that he's getting a job, or by offering to go to a "meeting." However, the family knows he was arrested for his habit two weeks ago, he has borrowed thousands of dollars from his uncle without repaying any of it, and over the weekend his mother found him passed out on the front step of her house (where he lives at age 37), and had to drag him in from the rain, remove his wet clothes, and make up excuses for him to his employer the next day. If Roger is himself convinced that he does not have a problem in spite of the evidence, then it can be said that Roger is experiencing denial. (When people with secrets are caught and they say they aren't doing what they're accused of, but they know their deceptive words aren't true and that they're trying to trick others in order to save themselves, that kind of "denial" is lying; it's not the defense mechanism denial.)

Denial can be represented by a simple cognition. Although it's probably "subconscious" or "pre-conscious," when put into words it can be expressed as "not me." "That sort of thing does not happen to me, does not happen in my life." "Not in my family (my neighborhood, my church, my political party, etc.)." Social groups and institutions readily triangulate situations to protect their own. In some cases, those in denial are in fear of being "exiled from the village," which long ago would have meant certain peril. In other cases, denial protects a person from grief they irrationally fear would be destructive to their fragile sense of self.

Back when the man was simply known as rich and famous, many people publicly professed to be good friends with Jeffrey Epstein, even though he was rumored to be trafficking and exploiting underage girls. After he was arrested, jailed and charged for the final time, the same people spoke very differently, as though they'd never been associated with Jeffrey Epstein. When it was announced that Epstein had been found dead in his cell, the public finally seemed to accept readily enough that he may have been up to something sinister--and that he had taken his own life. People want these kinds of stories to be over quickly, at least in their minds. It would be hard enough to think about the long road to recovery for the surprising number of survivors whom Epstein had abused. Could the world be so evil and corrupt that powerful guilty people made sure Jeffrey Epstein was murdered in his cell to prevent him from dropping the names of his patrons and what they did on his island? Nobody wanted to peel that layer of the onion. When that unthinkable aspect of the story surfaced, people gladly accepted the relief that it was "fake news" or a "debunked rumor." Why did the public finally accept that a wealthy, debonair, broadly popular figure may have been trafficking minors on a grand scale? The stance taken by politicians, mainstream press, and law enforcement instantly legitimizes a story. So why did the public not believe Epstein was murdered, or at least insist the police and press pursue the story to a reasonable investigatory conclusion? A) Because the aforementioned institutions did not legitimize the story. B) Because Epstein's likely patrons were extremely powerful figures. C) Because people don't want to think about the possibility of such realities, especially the implications of such realities. D) And anyway, people tend not to care whether a discredited celebrity turned sex offender is murdered.

Children are especially inclined to protect their perpetrators via denial, particularly if their perpetrators are primary attachment figures. The locus of control shift is a special use of denial, in which a child sacrifices her own ego in order to override "fight/flight" to remain attached to someone who is (some degree of) unsafe--because her developing brain requires attachment in order to survive and grow. It would be overwhelming for her to admit that Dad doesn't love her "right" because Dad only cares about Dad, and there's nothing a little girl can do to change that; such a reality holds no hope, and promises pain over and over again--pain over which the child has no control. In situations like this, the child's mind sacrifices the ego in exchange for mythical hope. "Bad dads don't happen in my world, not in my house. My dad treats me that way because I am bad. That's how bad little girls get treated. All I have to do is stop being bad and my dad will finally love me right." The child is not thought to voluntarily construct this kind of denial, and like other kinds of denial she may not even be consciously aware of it, but she will carry this conviction (and all its deleterious side effects) into adulthood if her attachment figures don't make changes to help her heal.

Within the PVR triangle (described in a previous entry), denial is often strongest within the absent rescuer. Why is denial toxic? Because it is so busy protecting the denier, it generates its own narcissistic gravity, thereby failing to meet the protection needs of growing children, and demanding that all other system members make inequitable, costly sacrifices for the benefit of the narcissist. What goes hand in hand with a sociopathic or incestuously narcissistic parent, is a coparent who is too wounded and depressed, too fearful and fragile of ego to be willing to know what's really going on; they really don't want to know, don't want to think about it. This is one structural parental template in the lives of children who are beaten, raped or "molested," and sex-trafficked by outsiders or by the parents themselves.

Whether the perp has convinced himself his secrets are harmless, or whether he realizes and enjoys the ways his abuses cause victims pain, narcissistic gravity will (through coercion, other conditioning, or groupthink) occasion enablers to explain the problem away, thereby whitewashing the perp and his actions. Such enablers are the absent rescuers on the PVR triangle, and their efforts help perps propel narcissistic gravity. This absence of rescuing is best accomplished with the aid of other techniques, particularly blame-shifting. In families, usually (but far from always) this job starts with the victim's mother, as male parent figures are some of the most common perps the world over--due to patriarchal power, trauma-pedigreed families, and the global tendency for boys to be raised disconnected from emotions. When toxic habits are suspected without any red-handed evidence or "smoking gun," the false security in the absent rescuer's mind has not been adequately breached, and so suspicion can be explained away as a misunderstanding--the perp was merely "misunderstood" either by those suspecting the perp, or the child victim. "He was just giving her a bath" or "he just likes to wrestle and tickle." When a secret is exposed with irrefutable evidence, the main absent rescuer will be in sudden acute crisis, her wall of denial beginning to crumble, giving her glimpses of the guilt and shame of failure that awaits--something she feels her infantile ego would not be able to withstand. This often begins when a child victim comes forward to disclose her abuse. The mother who can no longer explain away her co-dependent's actions, or why she didn't protect the victim, commonly resorts to scapegoating. She calls the victim messenger a willing victim or even a seductive whore, or tells family members her daughter is making up lies to destroy the family. The absent rescuer's defense mechanism shifts from "it didn't happen" to "if it happened, it must be someone else's fault--not mine, and not my codependent's."

However, narcissistic gravity is not required to activate denial. In the complete absence of triangulation, denial is an innate protective function of the human mind. When at age twenty-three I learned that a good friend and classmate had died in a St. Louis hospital, I drove around aimlessly all night listening to music, reminiscing and crying. However, as the funeral approached, I noticed something creeping into my thoughts. "There's no way Scott can be dead. In fact, I'll bet that if I just drive over to his house, he'll come striding out the front door to greet me." This idea felt so true that it seemed impossible to refute. Walking over to his casket and looking down at his closed eyes was the only thing powerful enough to snap me out of the dream. I placed my senior class key necklace next to him in the casket (he had once lost his) and walked away with a most unpleasant reality in full focus. (It is evident that some part of my mind knew all along that my friend had actually died, otherwise I would not have brought the memento for his casket.) In the years that followed, even when I had dream after dream that Scott was alive, I always woke knowing that he was not. My denial had been permanently broken.

The main disadvantage of denial is its existence as a temporary defense mechanism with harmful effects in the long-term. It stunts the grief process in a way that is destructive to the self and to others around the denier. Recovery from traumatic wounds and unhealthy habitual behavior is not possible until we let go of denial, accepting a reality that places accountability on those who abused power in our lives and reverses the locus of control shift. When that happens, the recovering survivor will experience emotional congruence to words like these: "I am not a bad girl--I never was; the reason Dad did those things to me was because he didn't love me right. He never really loved anybody but himself." Breaking denial by letting go of self-blame is a significant step toward completion of the grief process and an end to traumatic pain.

What You Can Do: When you detect something like denial in your own life, you can step away from others who might be keeping you "on the PVR triangle," talk alone with a clear-headed trusted person, and bravely and purposefully face the painful reality that you hope isn't true. At that point, you are on your way to resolving the grief of an important loss in your life. You can also promise yourself that when someone approaches you suggesting that you may be in denial about something, you will give their words serious consideration. And when you hear an institution or other group of people dismissing something as false when there's evidence it could be true, weigh out whether groupthink may be generating collective denial. These are all steps on a path to mental and emotional wellness.

*The concept of denial and other concepts to follow will be used in the Eyes Wide Open project to help the reader to identify the impact of previously "invisible" forces upon individuals and groups, see past related human tactics, and gain a more effective understanding of events in the family, the government and other institutions, in the media and in politics.