Perhaps There's No Denying It: We're Wired For Denial. Wait.... That Doesn't Make Sense???

How's that for a "catchy" title that just grabs you? Of course, if we are made for denial then it only stands to reason that we will probably end up denying that we actually are. The denial of our states of denial.

So what lead to this stunning revelation? Not that it is actually stunning, or a revelation, at all. So many have commented on the seemingly all-encompassing nature of denial, from Freud to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And if you have ever been married and asked your spouse "What's wrong?" and heard the terse reply, "Nothing," then you, too, know all too well just how prevalent denial is ... and can be.

Isn't it interesting how we assume we can avoid certain facts---like the fact that something is clearly bothering us---by wishing it away. If we just don't admit it then it won't exist. Meanwhile, someone who knows us well from years of engagement with us know without a doubt that something is bothering us. Apparently a something that is actually nothing.

Or is it? I have been a Father for just over 6 years now and I would like to think by this point I know when my son is tired. I even ask him if he is on occasion. "No I'm not!" is often the response I receive from him. Followed by him zonking off within 30 seconds of him denying the fact that he was tired. Yeah, he was not tired at all. It happened and came over him just like that. 

So where does this built-in predilection for denial come in? How do we come upon it? Is a lot of the self-help and contemporary spiritual literature perhaps indebted to this built-in predilection for denial---i.e., so many ways of saying we are not tired when we are, that we are not sad, that nothing is bothering us when clearly this is not the case?

It seems to me that while we can fight off sleep for a little while through our tenacious denial of an encroaching reality eventually that reality wins out. Eventually we fall asleep. Eventually we end up at the marriage counselour's office!

"What's wrong, Honey?"

"Nothing, dammit. Would you leave me alone. I told you nothing is bothering me. Now please, for the love of God, don't ask me again."

So much for NOT being bothered by anything and NOT being tired, eh? Denial might win a battle or two but it has always already lost the War. And I suspect knowing this won't change you or I from denying our tiredness, our turmoil, our trials and tribulations. It's probably a given that having this instinctive capacity for denial means that we will deny that we do.

"I'm ok. Really. Nothing is bothering me. I swear."