Blissful Denials or Uncomfortable Truths

Facing uncomfortable truths can be a daunting task for any human being. In my maturation I have had to deal with the emotional challenge of accepting varying degrees of bad news along my life’s journey. As I have gotten older, I have found because of continued practice, and that ultimately the sky has not fallen, that I can ultimately deal with any bad news no matter how painful. So what is it there about issues that affect our health, relationships, perceptions, and stories we create about institutions of government, religion, parenting, business, and personal relationships that can sometimes put us into a fearful tail spin of denial? We become personally invested in our stories and myths that we sometimes create about family, friends, and government. So why do we construct these fictitious stories initially? When obvious facts countermand the validity of our mythological constructs we become fearful, and this reaction serves to repudiate our own sense of personal judgment and self esteem. Denial is a blatant lie due to omission or commission. The problem with a major lie is that one has to construct more lies to cover up the initial lie of denial. The following is a definition of denial from various dictionaries: (1) An unconscious defense mechanism characterized by refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings. (2) Refusal or restriction of something requested, claimed, or needed, often causing physical or emotional deficiency. (3) An unconscious defense mechanism in which emotional conflict and anxiety are avoided by refusal to acknowledge those thoughts, feelings, desires, impulses, or facts that are consciously intolerable. So lets examine some of the operative words in the above definition. Unconscious defense mechanism as defined by psychologists is as follows: Because of anxiety provoking demands created by the id, superego and reality, the ego has developed a number of defense mechanisms to cope with anxiety. Although we may knowingly use these mechanisms, in many cases these defenses work unconsciously to distort reality. For example, if we are faced with a particularly unpleasant task of accepting a painful reality, our mind may choose to construct a myth in order to avoid the dreaded acceptance of the truth. In addition to reality avoidance, other defense mechanisms include rationalization, denial, repression, projection, rejection and reaction formation. Another term that is used to describe denial behavior is called cognitive dissonance. Wikipedia’s definition: Cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions) simultaneously. In a state of dissonance, people may feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment. The theory of cognitive dissonance in social psychology proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by altering existing cognitions or adding new ones to create consistency. While all defense mechanisms can be unhealthy, they can also be adaptive and allow us to function normally. The greatest problems arise when defense mechanisms are overused in order to avoid dealing with problems. Researchers have described a wide variety of different defense mechanisms. Sigmund Freud's daughter, Anna Freud described ten different defense mechanisms used by the ego. The other operative word refusal is a verb or adverb that connotes personal choice. The term refusal skill is used as an adverb. Unfortunately the choice to refuse is not always a consciously rational mind function, but one that is triggered by fear and the ego, with little input from empirical or factual sources. Many times the person who carries out their irrational refusal process will purposely choose pieces of information that will support the person’s irrational argument to remain in and support their denial. A specific case in point is of a brother of a friend who died about 6 months ago from terminal cancer. The brother had serious physical signs appearing on his body of painful bulging in the groin area. He refused to take off a few hours from work, using his employee medical insurance to have a free examination. His excuse was that he could not afford to take time off from work. From what I knew about this person was that he had a child like view of the world and therefore constructed his story so that he would not have to face the painful fact that he may have a serious hernia or cancerous tumor. He finally went to the doctor after it was too late. He was diagnosed with stage four cancer that spread through many organs of his body. He was given a prognosis of 6 months to live. In addition he refused to use cannabis to relieve pain and nausea for fear of becoming addicted. There are other cases of personal relationships where one person does not want to hear about their spouse or partner being unfaithful. Even more painful situations are where a mother does not want to hear about a family member, primarily a husband or father physically and sexually abusing a child. The topic that seems to bring major denial by some people is “9/11”. Fortunately more people, due to their intellectual curiosity and just plain intuitive sense are strongly questioning the government’s Official Report and poorly concocted story about 9/11. There still remain many people, who have an emotional block, primarily those who have served in the military and government intelligence, those that were faithful Bush loyalists, those that label themselves traditional “Love it or leave it” patriots, and those that do not want to embrace the fact that they live in a country where there are certain criminal elements that would intentionally harm them for power and profit. On the other hand there are over 2,000 architects, engineers, scientists, military, security, and legal professionals who strongly question the Official Story and support a new independent investigation. When I have mentioned that I believe that the US government was complicit in 9/11 some people cannot accept the painful reality. I am careful to note their uncomfortable resistive body language and their sometimes use of pejorative phrases such as “Conspiracy Theorist”, “Crazy Nut Job”, “America Hater”, etc. I hear, “I refuse to discuss it”, “Just don’t go there”, or “Where do you get these crazy ideas”? These people who are fearful of having their story of “America the Compassionate Perfect Superior Country” challenged will close down their intellectual curiosity and critical thinking for fear of learning the truth. Another fear is that if the truth is uncovered that America will be so severely harmed that it will be destroyed as a country and cease to exist. These are merely fearful personal projections that are not based in supportable fact. If one is so interested in knowing the truth then why would they so reactively resist hearing information, watching documentaries, or doing their own investigative reading? I hope that the denial characteristics of those people who I have cited above will use this message as a bell weather sign to examine why they are in such fear. “Knowledge is power”, so therefore please let your intellectual curiosity catapult you into becoming a more powerful human being. Denial perpetuates the repeating and tolerance of destructive behavior by individuals and nations states. The first step in the Twelve Step program is for the addict to come out of denial and say I am an alcoholic or drug addict. A major step to world peace is for all Americans to admit that some of my countries leaders are immoral and must be held accountable for their criminal behavior, no matter what the cost. I would like to believe that most people understand why denial can be such a destructive behavior, that may result not only in their own harm and death, but more importantly in the cases of government sponsored “False Flag” events and deceit by high level criminal elements in our government, we will continue to have costly, wasteful, and immoral wars. Lobby for a new independent investigation of 9/11 at the local, state, and international level the federal government is not capable of honestly investigating itself.