“DENIAL”
Being accused of being in denial isn’t really anything to argue about. It’s one of those terms that the lay person takes and uses to psychobabble, I think.
People who are in denial, and there are varying degrees of it, usually IT’S OBVIOUS that there’s a problem. They’re using (not really the right word, it’s more unconscious than that) this defense as a way to maintain some sense of sanity.
Here I’m speaking of clinical denial (which is actually not a disorder, rather a functional system taken to extreme).
Denial and all other defense mechanisms are a functional part of what gets us through the day without becoming paralyzed with our emotions.
WE ARE ALL IN DENIAL.
Illustrative example: driving. We all drive, we know logically that there looms the very real possibility of death, serious injury, maybe large monetary expense, trauma, every time we do it. We see evidence of this daily on the highway, or on the news, we know people who have been so harmed, many of us have even been harmed by this. The evidence of the dangerous nature of this activity is there daily. Yet we do it.
I know of a grade school teacher who’d point at kids and say “You’ve got ancestors.”... just to creep them out. Kids not knowing what ancestors are would think it was some sort of disease or lice or something.
I think accusing people of being in denial just for sport is the same sort of thing.
Thanks...It’s been entertaining. :-)