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what it is like to be in denial.
Dec. 11th, 2003 10:51 pmi'm in denial.
sometimes i take those little quizzes out on the web. "what type of personality disorder do you have?" invariably i come back co-dependant (another journal entry for another time, i think,) and "in denial."
not that it is a bad thing. life is pretty good when you are in denial. not much bothers you. something bad happens, and right away your mind shuttles along and tries to build a little wall around it. never happened. lost your job? a little distraction will help, read a book... cook a big meal, draw a picture, and it never happened. bush elected president? a few games of pac-man, and "dubya" ain't nuthin but an initial.
my denial is the source of most of my troubles. i will resist attempting something i am afraid of doing, and after a bit, unless i am reminded, the thing i was putting off slips completely from my mind. i'm not talking a normal kind of mind slipping, did i turn off the coffeepot? it is completely forgotten. what is a coffeepot? at least until i am reminded by someone in authority about that coffeepot, and then there is that forehead slapping moment. "coffeepot!" and yet two minutes later... "coffeepot? i was distracted by that shiny bottlecap... you were saying?" that's the other thing, my denial allows me to craftily change the subject... i have collected a huge inventory of trivia, that i unconsciously use to create strings of association that drag converstion AWAY from unpleasant circumstances. "Did you look for work today?" "I did, I revised my resume for bout an hour and then i tried to fill out this website application, and boy, it took like an hour! they used this stupid java dropdown that kept spawning flyout menus that would go off the page, like the one that was on the UW website, you know i should get out those old scans of my work from the uw and put them on a new site." one of these things is rejection for me. fear of rejection will keep me from applying for a job. if i DO apply, i go to the interview, and i even think i do well, but my denial will allow me to forget to update my resume for say, ... a year.
sometimes though, something happens that is pretty bad. something irreversable, something that was better off NOT to have happened, and i can't get it behind a wall. At least not for very long. try and read a book and for a while i can escape, but after a bit the thing intrudes, comes crashing back in. And that is the way it happens too, there is a huge bang and this problem resurfaces, with all its implications. It causes me to re-experience the initial trauma with all its intensity, because my mind is geared so completely to erase these incidents. i will get sudden attacks of shock, adreneline, etc, well after an event has passed.
sometimes i take those little quizzes out on the web. "what type of personality disorder do you have?" invariably i come back co-dependant (another journal entry for another time, i think,) and "in denial."
not that it is a bad thing. life is pretty good when you are in denial. not much bothers you. something bad happens, and right away your mind shuttles along and tries to build a little wall around it. never happened. lost your job? a little distraction will help, read a book... cook a big meal, draw a picture, and it never happened. bush elected president? a few games of pac-man, and "dubya" ain't nuthin but an initial.
my denial is the source of most of my troubles. i will resist attempting something i am afraid of doing, and after a bit, unless i am reminded, the thing i was putting off slips completely from my mind. i'm not talking a normal kind of mind slipping, did i turn off the coffeepot? it is completely forgotten. what is a coffeepot? at least until i am reminded by someone in authority about that coffeepot, and then there is that forehead slapping moment. "coffeepot!" and yet two minutes later... "coffeepot? i was distracted by that shiny bottlecap... you were saying?" that's the other thing, my denial allows me to craftily change the subject... i have collected a huge inventory of trivia, that i unconsciously use to create strings of association that drag converstion AWAY from unpleasant circumstances. "Did you look for work today?" "I did, I revised my resume for bout an hour and then i tried to fill out this website application, and boy, it took like an hour! they used this stupid java dropdown that kept spawning flyout menus that would go off the page, like the one that was on the UW website, you know i should get out those old scans of my work from the uw and put them on a new site." one of these things is rejection for me. fear of rejection will keep me from applying for a job. if i DO apply, i go to the interview, and i even think i do well, but my denial will allow me to forget to update my resume for say, ... a year.
sometimes though, something happens that is pretty bad. something irreversable, something that was better off NOT to have happened, and i can't get it behind a wall. At least not for very long. try and read a book and for a while i can escape, but after a bit the thing intrudes, comes crashing back in. And that is the way it happens too, there is a huge bang and this problem resurfaces, with all its implications. It causes me to re-experience the initial trauma with all its intensity, because my mind is geared so completely to erase these incidents. i will get sudden attacks of shock, adreneline, etc, well after an event has passed.
