“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
Soren Kierkagaard
What is denial?
Of course I had to look it up.
Denial.
-disavowal: a statement saying that something is not true or not correct
-refusal to allow somebody something: a refusal to grant something desired or believed to be a right
– refusal to acknowledge existence of something: a refusal to believe in something or admit that something exists
The refusal to acknowledge existence of something: refusal to believe something or admit that something exists.
I am wondering the difference between women who stand by an alcoholic husband compared to one who stands by a husband who is accused of being a pedophile.
What seems to be easier to see is the alcoholic, for he comes home with the evidence written all over him, he smells like a drunk, walks like a drunk yet that woman is not condemned for standing by him. Why? Why is this one ok?
Now in the case of a woman whose husband is accused of being a pedophile, the only evidence is the child. What did the child say? More often than not, the man isn’t found with his pants down by his ankles, so the woman then has to believe the child over the man. And the child has to be the one to speak up, to bring up this bit of information.
The man himself takes great care in covering up his evidence, he is actually a smooth operator, a con artist, a master manipulator, and we expect the woman to scout this out.
When he comes home you do not see his evidence.
Instead you have to find his evidence on the children within range of him.
People look at him and instead they need to look for evidence among the children.
The question comes to me, more often than not, “where was your mother in all of this, what did she know, or how could she not know.”
Now I am not defending her, but instead trying to sort out how it is that grown ladies seem to act so “stupid” it seems when it comes to the man they love.
I am not certain what happened with my mother, it could have been a combination of many things. One that she never experienced him as a pedophile, she never was a victim of him. Second she never caught him in action. Third, she had to believe a small child speaking. Her day-to-day evidence didn’t support the allegations.
When I suggested to her, that she danced with a monster whether she knew it or not, her comment was, “I don’t dance”.
She couldn’t see him as a monster. Yet in my case my body knew he was. So I had evidence of this in my body.
Do you have any idea of what the cost is to seeing someone different? Do you know what it takes to replace a rosy picture with a nasty one? Do you know what will be expected of you if you ‘change’ your mind?
I do.
My whole world flipped around, all my family lay in a discarded mess off to one side.
What you are asking of these women is huge.
I have no experience of living under the influence of a woman whose husband is an alcoholic, but I can tell you what happens to grow up in a family of a woman who couldn’t change her mind.
Somehow I think that in the ‘old days’ it was admirable to stand by your man, and in fact doesn’t the traditional wedding vows claim, “in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad…” so a woman is made to be better if they stick around even when times get rough.
What I am now beginning to understand it is much more admirable to step out, to walk away, to stop being victimized by someone who is lost behind a disease, to divorce your mind from the rosy image.
What is the difference between my mother not being able to see her husband in a bad light, and a mother who refuses to see her child addicted to drugs? They both want to keep the innocent image, to not have to deal, to not change their minds.
What is it that keeps us so mentally dysfunctional when it comes to those we love? What has us blinded so that we can’t picture them in another light?
Is it more about us than it is even about that other person? Was my mother’s story and self more at risk than anything else? What was she to lose?
What was the cost inside of her? What would she be required to feel? What pain would she have to endure?
To live painless is to not deal, not see, not be aware of what is wrong, instead work like hell to make what is not working work.
Become very good at putting on a social face of normal, while underneath the truths get pushed to the back and out of the day to day running of life.
Is that denial in its application? Isn’t that what it means “The refusal to acknowledge existence of something: refusal to believe something or admit that something exists.”
It almost seems like such a gentle word, “she was in denial” like she was lying on the couch. Yet that one little word allowed a man to continue on doing what he did, continue to be a monster in our presents, because she failed to acknowledge the existence of a monster, she refused to believe.
Each monster needs a woman in denial to operate.
Each addict needs a woman to co-operate to work.
The application of not seeing works to the benefit of the disease, to the benefit of the addiction, to the detriment of the children in the house, even to the person locked behind the addiction.
You are not helping your loved one by blinking this away; instead you are helping the disease.
Imagine the shock and horror each ‘caring and loving’ mother/wife would be in, if they knew that by not seeing the disease they were actually abusing the child/husband and loving the disease.
Who could know that your love slips onto the disease!
Just by denying the disease doesn’t make it disappear, even if you want to hold on to the image of pureness, the disease lays over the top.
My mother’s biggest crime was not seeing him as a monster, period.
She failed to acknowledge its existence.
How many ladies are out there that fail to acknowledge the existence of alcoholism, or drug abuse, they simply want to retain the innocent image.
That is their crime, or fault, they are incapable of seeing something change for the worse, to crumble and fall, they fail to see the pain in another to see one they love in a different light.
My mother isn’t that unusual. I am witnessing the application of denial and it comes in all shapes and sizes, it doesn’t discriminate, it is an equal opportunity for all.
Denial is the legacy my mother gave us, and oddly enough my father told his truth. He was the monster; she just could not see it. He walked, talked, and breathed who he was. He did is part well.
Who is more authentic in their case?
I can see why each of my parents did what they did.
My father was abused as a child and he went forth and replicated what he felt love was.
My mother was abused a child and she went forth and replicated what love was.
Both were the perfect match to undo this wrong.
Neither one could begin to unhinge the wrong.
All it takes is one person to see.
One person to stop this pretend dance, one person to acknowledge the existence of what is.
It takes just one.
To me they failed to see their life lesson, they failed to heal their childhood wounds. They became ‘adult children’ of abuse; they literally failed to right a wrong that was done to them!
The legacy of denial, the legacy of abuse, maybe the legacy of denying abuse exists.
All it takes for evil to win, is for us to look the other way.
I M Perfect lady 