People often come for counselling because of legal or family pressure. Either they don’t think they have a problem or it is someone else’s fault.
As long as people live in denial, nothing can improve their lives. A person won’t face a problem in life if he persuades himself it isn’t there.
Denial is the surest, quickest way to fail at anything in life. Denial is refusing to look at what needs to be looked at. Denial can persist for years. Denying past hurts may avoid having to deal with them now. But the more pain, hurt and anger are repressed, the more the emotion builds up and eats away at a person.
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Domestic violence and alcohol abuse are common areas of denial. Others see a person’s drinking problem. Many tell a person that they have one. But the person’s image of himself is so fragile and insecure, he cannot admit he has a problem. What happens? He puts himself and his family through hell for years. Finally something happens that he can’t deny.
Too many people need to hit the ground in life hard enough to send a signal from their lower anatomy up to their brain and wake them up to the fact that something is wrong. By then they may have lost a relationship, a job or be in trouble with the law. Yet even then, some people don’t wake up.
There is no cure for denial.
Others can confront the person. The law can confront him. He may end up in jail. Until someone is willing to look honestly at himself in a mirror and face his real self, he will remain in denial.
Why do people wait until their friends end up with serious problems before they confront them? Why do we wait until someone ruins his career or kills someone in an accident?
It seems that we often let other people make their own mistakes, not wanting to interfere in their lives.
Perhaps these people will keep denying their problems if we confront them, but every time you confront someone with reality, you may weaken their denial. And if someone is confronted consistently enough by all those around them, perhaps there will be fewer tragic outcomes.
Peter Griffiths is a mental health counsellor based in Prince Albert, Sask. His columns are intended as general advice only. His website is www3.sk.sympatico.ca/petecope.
