Rather than facing the facts a person can go into a comfortable denial that soothes the lies that they prefer to believe rather than facing the truth that they are afraid of.
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Symptoms
After the initial shock has worn off, the next stage is usually one of classic denial, where they pretend that the news has not been given. They effectively close their eyes to any evidence and pretend that nothing has happened.
Typically, they will continue their life as if nothing has happened. In the workplace, they will carry on doing their job even if that job is no longer required.
A classic behavior here is a ‘flight into health’, where previously-perceived problems are suddenly seen as having miraculously fixed themselves.
Treatment:
You can move a person out of denial by deliberately provoking them to anger. Hold up the future (sympathetically) so they cannot avoid or deny it. Tell them that it is not fair. Show anger yourself (thus legitimizing that they get angry).
– Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.
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People can discover that they were seduced, fooled and used. A reaction can be denial. No one wants to know that they were fooled, used, and seduced into doing a serious wrong. So upon the realization that they were used they jump into denial mode, climb back into their comfort zone and pretend that nothing happened and get on with life as usual, maybe even allowing themselves to be abused.
The serious problem with this is that the guilty person/people get away with what they did and then they go ahead and do it to more people in the future.
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I remember a family that did a bad thing years ago and trying to explain it to someone who knew them, and there was nothing but complete denial and claims that the family in question were “Pillars of society”.
In one of Susan Forwards books, she mentions a religious church leader who had been sexually abusing his daughter for years. When the daughter told her therapist what had happened the congregation and his wife went into immediate denial and backed him up totally.
They supported him, while the daughter, who was his victim for years of sexual abuse was shunned, accused of lying etc.
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If we really want a decent world we need to get real and see things as they really are. We must stop telling lies to ourselves, get all the facts from all parties involved and with the truth the real victim and the real abuser are known.
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All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
Monday, 20 August 2018, 5:34:50 PM.