Denial

Beyond books, Internet, newspaper articles and personal contacts with innumerable organizations, one of the sources that I have been using as research for my next book is simply the participation in chats of diverse online communities. When I launch a discussion topic according to the subject that I have been studying, I get the chance to know hundreds of opinions at once.

However what has been catching my attention lately is the way how human beings react when they must face a specific truth that does not please them, whatever it may be. As an example, the love for a country that a person never visited. She or he grows up reading fairy tales about this country, heroic stories packed with courage and bravery, where every single person is perfect and astonishing landscapes complete the scenery. When the truth lies on historical facts, on testimony of normal people who had suffered more that they could bare, it seems to me that all that has no more validity, simply because the factor denial hinders that the blinded person sees the truth.

The blinded ones do not see the truth not because they aren’t capable, but because they prefer to keep on believing that this perfect place exists, giving them a reason to dream. Finally on a beautiful day, the blinded person could be boarding the airplane in charge of bringing them to the country of their dreams, but all of a sudden, they decide not to go from fear of facing the truth. Oh, it is so good to believe in a dream, isn’t it? No, not always.

Denial has an extremely present role in our lives. There are dozens of examples when the brain recalls to its old friend to deal with daily events, what many perceive as self-protection, that invisible armor that we wear from time to time.

My parents aren’t my heroes any longer as they used to be in my childhood? Are they nothing more than man and woman of blood and flesh? I do not believe.
Celebrity X died in a tragic accident. This is not possible. She was pretty much alive just yesterday!

A bomb blew up in the hotel where a relative was vacationing. Ah! This must be photo-montage and a stupid joke placed at first at YouTube by a crazy sick person.

You have won in the lottery! – says the email heading. Non sense! This is just another spam mail.

The girl is sexually abused by the stepfather and by the uncle, but nobody believes, saying that children’s and teenager’s imagination is extremely fertile.

The wife decides to leave the bastard husband after twenty years of union without an university diploma in the pocket, without references nor professional experience. Ah! She will be back in two days begging for pardon – says the jerk husband. But after eight months, the woman announces that she is working and living in a relationship.

One deeply religious person reeds on every single newspaper that the bishop so and so have managed to steal millions of dollars from the church that should be helping poor children, but the believer keeps on feeding them with money. Do we call such action from the church brainwash?

I believe that to deny different situations by reflex might be something natural, but what we cannot do is to try to cover the sun with a bolter, specially when the subject requires our lucidity and even a certain coldness of point of view, because no matter how hard the emotions are essential in our lives, they could easily block the great truths.

Luciana B. Veit

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