Illusions

[cjsmith]

Me: My feet hurt.
Somebody Else: It might go away. Any day now it could vanish just the way it came.

That still makes me angry, but y'know what? I can also see the flip side to it, a little bit.

Yes, it would still be mindbogglingly stupid for me to plan my life around the hope that my feet will suddenly heal. Therein lies a recipe for putting myself "on hold" until my grave, waiting until I win the (medical) lottery instead of living now.

Yes, it's still mindbogglingly insensitive of Somebody Else to pretend that this is a temporary problem and thus hugely, quantitatively and qualitatively, easier to deal with than what I am actually facing.

Yes, I still feel like I'm not heard.

Yes, I still feel like I'm being called a liar, and yes, I still hate being called a liar.

But y'know what? Somebody Else might really kinda need their illusions. Denial can be a gift. I can choose to give the gift of not trying to burst their bubble.

The day will come when I'm sufficiently less angry that I can give that gift.

Comments

[sharya.livejournal.com]

I think you probably hit the nail right on the head there. Not knowing to whom you are referring, Somebody Else really might need the illusions. When I worked in the rehab centre, there were an amazing number of people that lived in this world of "but maybe" and "what if". Any normal person could tell that "maybe" and "what if" were a long shot akin to winning the lottery, but these people had so little in the way of coping skills, that this faint hope was what got them through the day.

It seriously complicated their rehab, let me tell you!

But yes, you said it right. It's more a statement of their ability to handle things than it's a statement about their opinion of you.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Denial's got a bad rap, considering how useful it is sometimes. Maybe it's a crutch, but then again you won't see me disdaining a crutch if I break my ankle!

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

Someone needing to have illusions about their own pain? Sure, that I understand. But why would they need to have those illusions about SOMEONE ELSE'S pain? That just seems weird to me.

[sharya.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Haven't you ever seen a spouse ever be in denial over their spouse's condition? Or other family member? It's very common.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

What sharya said, and also some people have a desperate deep-seated need to see the universe as a Nice Place. It's almost sad.

[airporter.livejournal.com]

Someone so good-natured and innocent that the thought of another's pain and hopelessness about same sends them into a dizzying spiral of questioning that they lack the skills to break or adjust to maybe?

While I've only met one person who was truly that innocent, I think many of us get caught in this kind of situation occasionally. We don't know how to deal, so we deny.