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Denial Our Old Friend
Overcoming a natural response to DID
Everyone has something they are in denial about. We deny death because if we dwelt on our eventual mortality, we couldn’t live happy lives. We deny losing a loved one will ever happen, even in the face of them getting older.
This short article will tackle denial, how it affects people with dissociative identity disorder, and how to overcome it.
What is Denial?
People have many different definitions of what denial is to them. However, the American Psychological Association (APA) gives this definition:
“a defense mechanism in which unpleasant thoughts, feelings, wishes, or events are ignored or excluded from conscious awareness. It may take such forms as a refusal to acknowledge the reality of a terminal illness, a financial problem, an addiction, or a partner’s infidelity. Denial is an unconscious process that resolves emotional conflict or reduces anxiety.1”
People living with DID are very prone to feelings of denial. We deny our past because who would want to claim what happened to us? Most of all, we deny our diagnosis, believing we are liars or desperate for attention.
Our go-to defense mechanism of dissociation is closely related to denial. We are triggered into remembering and reliving an…
