Denial

The other day I was reading a blog post written by the great writer Steven Pressfield- writes brilliant historical fiction. It was about the "all is lost" moment in films. Rather than me trying to explain what its all about it would be better to read the post. The long and the short of it is that point of realisation when a character knows he or she is beaten. That moment the reality of it all hits them. That moment where denial turns to inevitable acceptance.

I say inevitable but is it. Could someone continue to live in denial forever more? Could I? Am I in denial? Well it would seem so. Never thought of myself as being in denial and yet over these past 4 years writing on this blog I have spoke of my inability to accept. The opposite of accepting is denial. If you are not accepting you are in denial. Don't know what that never occurred to me before. It doesn't change anything really, or does it?

To be fair when talking of my inability in to accept it has been in relation to anxiety and panic symptoms. Inability to accept the state of irrational fear needed to break that cycle of fear. But on reading that post I see this is also the case in my life. I am in denial. Always have been always have been. I cannot accept who I am, who I have become. And this as much as anything is a big source of anxiety.

I should have realised this before. Doing CBT there is something called the downward arrow technique which is used to find root fears. Basically must anxious thoughts are surface level thoughts. You are in a shop or somewhere, you feel panic and you think: I must get out of here. Escape thought, not the root fear. And via a series of questions we get down to the root fear. This is nearly always fear of consequence. In this case it might be embarrassment. Why do you need to escape? Because I will collapse and shake and be incapacitated. Why would that be so bad (bearing in mind panic can do you no physical harm and must pass)? I would look like a fool, everyone would be looking. Embarrassment, humiliation. The root fear.

And when I took my thoughts and analysed them I found most of my root fears were based around the same thing- embarrassment. I have become so self conscious around others that it borders on paranoia. When I am out I am judging what others are thinking. When I feel panic I feel I must flee not because I will be safe but because no one will see me panicking at home. When I have visitors it is this fear of panicking in front of others that has me in panic with others. Lots of other scenarios with all the same root fear.

You see I have never in my life until this started considered myself weak and I shun this weak self. It disgusts me to be so weak. I like under the pressure of my own making trying to hide all these new vulnerabilities. I don't want anyone to see my fragility. I don't want to be that person. And so I am in denial. And I stay in denial. I see though now that until I learn to accept this is how I am now then I will stay stuck. In theory I see that but in practice changing 30 years of conditioning is not easy. Its almost impossible. It would be changing who 'I' still am despite how my body has changed. And it is also because of this that I go through periods of frustration running into brick walls until I am spent in a desperate attempt to drag this weak fragile shell up to speed with where my mind set is. But at some point I am going to have some common ground. If I cannot accept I cannot continue to live in denial and so must find amicable compromise to move forward.