What Did Your "denial" Look Like And How Did You Overcome It?

[Abstract]

Just interested to see others stories with this. Both with PTSD or trauma. I am also wondering a little if those a bit more prone to dissociative symptoms have more tenacious problems with denial.

Did you just have it for a while or was it hard to get past? What did you think or not think was happening? Any hints and tips to get past it? Thanks!

 

[franciemarnie]

Do you mean denial of having PTSD or experiencing trauma? If so, I was first told by a T that I had experienced trauma in 1985 when I was in my 20's. I thought that was absurd and kept the family line of me just being a perverse ungrateful daughter who'd had a perfect life for a good while still. Although I wouldn't have been in therapy if I didn't know something was amiss.

I accepted having PTSD four years ago. Really knowing it to be true in my soul. So it took me over 20 years. For those years inbetween I just figured I had a chemical imbalance and soldiered on in my mostly numb or fight or flight way.

It was like going into dissociative mode was unreal. Since I wasn't aware of it happening, it contributed to my continuing unawares of having PTSD.

 

[Abstract]

Thanks FrancieMarnie,

I meant both I guess. Or either should I say. So your acceptance just happened rather than you finding a way to get past it?

Thanks for sharing! Glad you are getting proper help now.

I thought that was absurd and kept the family line of me just being a perverse ungrateful daughter who'd had a perfect life for a good while still.

That's sad.

 

[franciemarnie]

I think in those years of unconscious denial, something was afoot down under. Something never could accept truly the party line of my family. It was like living in a totalitarian society and even though I left that "country" I internalized and perpetuated the position but all around me people were living free and I was in chains and the dichotomy was ever felt down under. I didn't consciously grapple with the trauma for 20 some years. Then all at once it seemed, at the end of therapy, I understood. Then there was no denial because I knew it was true.

I really need more help now. I have thought so much about therapy again since your thread re: online vs face to face. I want to get another T since mine had a nervous breakdown or something. He really turned into a terrifying hostile SOB at the rnd that I know something huge happened to change him.

Could I ask are you experiencing denial that trauma happened and that you have PTSD? Do you sometimes know and sometimes doubt?

 

[Hashi]

EDIT: This ended up much too long so I've taken some stuff out. I think I'm confusing dissociation and denial anyway. It's still long but there you go.
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Linking denial and dissociation is interesting. I can see a close connection.

I've dissociated a lot and I've had a lot of denial, thinking that my childhood situation wasn't unusual etc.

I've had years of amnesia. Although I think that's classed as dissociation, I think denial was what supported it. Sorry, I'm hopeless at terminology so maybe I've got the terms all wrong. What I mean is, for example, after the adult trauma I had no idea anything had happened. Other people could see my injuries and I couldn't. When I looked at myself, I looked perfectly normal. My brain edited out what everyone else could see. When I was forced to see, I was amazed but then I immediately squashed my own amazement and came up with explanations.

With other things, when anything broke through the denial I thought I was lying about anything having happened. This is hard to look at because of how harsh I was with myself when I wasn't lying after all.

In terms of acceptance, it has taken almost four years of processing and therapy to fully accept. I went in and out of believing and not believing. The balance of that gradually shifted from mostly not believing to mostly believing. Always very back and forth. Along the way, I started thinking that I was genuine but it still wasn't true, because I was delusional. My therapist told me so emphatically that I wasn't delusional that I actually believed her, though.

The more work I've done on coping, being stronger, safety, psychic protection etc, the more I've been able to let go of the denial.

I'm lucky in that I had a lot of "evidence" for things that had happened. I'd always remembered weird experiences. Now I realised that they were explained by the trauma memories I was now recovering.

Other evidence was physical injuries, and although I'd come up with my own explanations for them, now I saw how they fit the memories I got.

I had evidence from old dream diaries and from seeing a somatic therapist. But I suppose those probably don't apply to many people.

An overriding piece of evidence for me was how I felt and what I understood. However much I disbelieved, I knew that I wouldn't be shaking and nauseous talking about something in therapy if it wasn't true. I knew I couldn't post in online forums about how something felt if I didn't know how it felt. I knew I wasn't making up the reactions. PTSD symptoms helped me in that way too - I knew the symptoms were real.

 

[Hashi]

Oh, posting this I see it's crazy long. I've been journalling, really. Oh dear. :oops:

 

[Meadowsweet]

I deny by minimising it to something trivial.

But dissociation makes it easier. Firstly there are parts missing of nearly all my trauma memories because I dissociate during trauma. So that can make it all seem a bit unreal. But also, my intellectual memory and emotional memory of trauma are seperate. So sometimes, I can speak about trauma and it is like I'm telling the story about somebody else.

So it all makes the memories seem unreal, which makes denial easier.

 

[Abstract]

I didn't see it Hashi but put it back in! Please. It's fine and all valued.

Thank you Fanciemarnie, Hashi and Meadowsweet. I shall come back and answer properly.

 

[Abstract]

Denial definition just in case anyone is interested!

Denial is probably one of the best known defense mechanisms, used often to describe situations in which people seem unable to face reality or admit an obvious truth (i.e. "He's in denial."). Denial is an outright refusal to admit or recognize that something has occurred or is currently occurring. Drug addicts or alcoholics often deny that they have a problem, while victims of traumatic events may deny that the event ever occurred.

Denial functions to protect the ego from things that the individual cannot cope with. While this may save us from anxiety or pain, denial also requires a substantial investment of energy. Because of this, other defences are also used to keep these unacceptable feelings from consciousness.

Not sure where the overlap between dissociation and denial is or not. For me and my stuff it seems hard to separate them sometimes.

 

[ashdawn8287]

I always have known something was wrong. I don't think I told my psychiatrists the truth. I could tolerate it but the only thing I couldn't tolerate was the depression/anxiety.

So I got misdiagnosed. I didn't think what I went through was a big deal because their are straving kids around the world. That is the simplest way I can word it.

It got to a point where I was highly unfunctional and out of control. It took on the shape of many different forms. It puzzled me.

So after my overdose which I felt Ihad to do in order wake myself up from this zombie like state with absolutely no control over anything mentally, emotionally, and physically. Alcohol and benzos distracted me. I wanted an escape so desperately but no matter what I did, I was trapped in thus cycle.

After acknowledging and hearing a diagnoses, it clicked. It was horrific. It was scary. Realizing its a must to take cake of being responsible for my own body, mind, and spirit, it wakes u up and you can finally see the person you really are. As much as a pain this is, its also a blessing in disguise.

 

[therisa]

Not sure, if I am answering your question, Abstract, as I experienced abuse, whether emotional or physical, for most of my life. In fact, not until December 2007 (my first psychological assessment, although I had two assessments for learning disabilities), did I even considered myself, to be suffering from PTSD, when a psychiatrist diagnosed with PTSD, severe depression, agoraphobia, justified paranoia and a few other anxiety related issues. And yet, I had been experiencing emotional and auditory flashbacks, without realizing it, since a child. Like my transsexual nature, I hid my trauma, behind mental walls that have been collapsing, over a period of time, which started with my accidental outing to my mom, on Canada Day (July 1st) 2006, and finished, August 14, 2007, when I had a very severe panic attack.

Guess, my multiple attempts to take my own life, should have clued me, to something was seriously wrong, with me, mentally, but I kept this hidden, from everyone, including my family, only told them, about these moments of crisis, in January 2011, after a lifetime of silence. But, this wasn’t something that we talked about, during the 1980s. Suffering in silence, as I walked my solitude way.

 

[Hashi]

I didn't see it Hashi but put it back in!

Thanks, but it was just me thinking stuff through before my therapy session - it was helpful to me but no-one needs to read that!

Denial functions to protect the ego from things that the individual cannot cope with.

Is the difference between consciousness and ego? Dissociation keeps things away from your consciousness altogether (up to and including amnesia or having different identities which each have a different consciousness). With denial you're conscious of it but you give it a different meaning - it wasn't important, it isn't a problem, you're in control of it etc?

So in my example, amnesia was dissociation (didn't know anything had happened), not seeing my injuries was dissociation (consciousness of anything having happened still completely blocked) and then when I was forced to see them but made up excuses for them, that was denial (I became conscious of them but wouldn't give them their full/real meaning)?

Similarly with my childhood. Some of it I didn't remember (dissociation). Some of it I remembered but didn't see it for what it was, thinking I was unlucky but it was within the ordinary range of experience (denial).