We’re all masters of denial when facing painful truths in our lives

By David McElroy · December 8, 2017

I’m a master of denial. For one reason or another, I’ve become accustomed to disappointments over the last decade or so. Maybe longer. Denial has become my way of dealing with things I didn’t think I could control.

I was reminded of that again Friday evening when I unintentionally recorded some video of myself from the side. My MacBook was recording and Lucy wanted to jump into my lap for attention. I turned to let her jump up while she happily licked my face. I thought the video of her might be cute. But then I looked at it.

I know I need to shed some weight right now, but I walk around in denial about it most of the time. I’m about 25 pounds less than the worst I’d let myself get — maybe 35 pounds now that I think about it — but I still need to get rid of about 80 pounds of excess fat.

When I looked at that video of Lucy and me, every one of those 80 pounds seemed to be visible — and every one of them seemed to be taunting me.

There was a time when my reaction to such a realization was to scream at myself. On the inside, at least. But I’ve realized that’s counterproductive. Self-loathing only makes the problem worse.

The frustrating thing about denial is that it all stems from the fear of not being good enough and the terror that someone won’t love us if we can’t fix a problem. This quickly becomes counterproductive because the denial that allows us to avoid the fear also makes it easier to pretend the problem doesn’t exist — which makes it easier to allow the problem to continue.

People who don’t deal with a weight issue assume that the problem is about food. It’s not.

If you have an issue with eating too much and becoming overweight, the food is merely a delivery mechanism for the self-soothing “drug” you’re using to take the place of whatever you need to fill your unfilled emotional needs. It’s not rocket science once you finally understand that, but until you get it — and especially if this isn’t one of your issues — you focus on plan after plan to force yourself to eat differently.

I know the things I need and I know from experience which changes in my life change the way I eat. You would think knowing that would be enough to change my behavior, but it doesn’t work that way.

Here’s the weird thing.

I seem to be most aware of this problem — the most able to see through my fog of denial — when I’m poised at a watershed moment in my life. Those are the moments when you can clearly see two very different paths and you know that one simple decision will set in motion a chain of events that will leave you in one of two entirely different places. (To oversimplify it, the term comes from the point in terrain where the water on land flows one way here and in an entirely different direction starting a few inches away.)

When I’m at my most unhealthy, I can’t even look at the things about which I’m in denial. But when I’m at one of those moments when things could go one of two (or more) different ways, I start seeing clearly which things will change depending on which way I go. In a way that’s hard to explain, I’m at one of those moments lately.

I turn to denial when things hurt me the most. It’s easy to face reality about things that don’t hurt. But some things take a long time to accept, because they cut to the core of our emotional needs.

It hurts to accept that someone you want to love will never change and become emotionally healthy enough to be in your life.

It hurts to accept that someone you love will never love you enough to choose you.

It hurts to accept that you will never be good enough or successful enough or talented enough for everyone to love you.

It hurts to accept that a relationship will never been what you wanted it to be — and others will see you as a failure when you do something about it.

It hurts to accept that you will never be exactly what you hoped to become — that you will never become good enough to win the love of the people you don’t even realizing you’re still trying to win.

The list could go on. The specifics differ for all of us — and how we handle them differs in just as many ways.

Some people turn to alcohol and other recreational drugs. Some people turn to hedonistic forms of sex. Others turn to gambling or a thousand other things. Some people become addicted to making other people believe they’re successful. I turn to the drug called sugar.

The last time I thought I’d found love — about three years ago — I suddenly quit eating badly and I quickly started shedding excess weight. When that ended, the craving returned and the problem returned. Since then, there have been short times when I’ve been able to keep it under control for short periods of time through sheer willpower, but that’s something that will never last.

The only thing that really changes things for me is having the love and emotional security to begin making changes in my life that I know I need to make.

It’s not difficult to know what to do. The process isn’t a secret. It doesn’t require a special diet. But everything — for me, at least — hinges on the elusive elixir called love.

At this particular watershed moment, I could go one of several different directions. One thing that keeps appealing to me is to just delete every public presence I have in the world and to move somewhere far away without explaining where I’m going or why. Another direction is to stay where I am and live a more conventional life long enough to become wealthy — and then decide where to go. There are others. I don’t know what all my options are, but I know something has to change.

When I’m in denial, I allow things to drag along without change. When I allow myself glimpses of the realities I deny, I know that I have to make massive change. That’s why denial is so dangerous to me.

There’s a part of me that likes denial. I can pretend I’m going to have who and what I need. I can pretend that people love me and understand me. I can pretend all sorts of things.

But denial keeps me from changing reality. It’s not healthy. It leads to continued stagnation. It leads to even more hurt when the inevitable tortured hopes end up shattered.

I can’t promise myself that I’ll end the denial right now. I don’t know how to force it. I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work. I just know that I have to step away from it completely if I’m ever to have any of the things I need — and it’s in these moments of painful reality that I have some chance of changing things that need to be changed.

The idea of doing that is scary, though, because it means giving up on people and plans that are still painfully alive and very real in my heart.

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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