Denial

You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.”                                                                           John 8:32

I was reading a book about football recently, and the topic of CTE’s came up. CTE stands for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. This is a type of injury that is all-too common for football players, especially professional football players. A recent study of autopsies performed on deceased professional football players indicated that 25% of the players studied had signs of CTE.

That is a shocking number. CTE’s have been associated with erratic behavior, depression, violence and suicidal tendencies. Former professional football players have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Dosease, and early onset dementia in a much higher percentage than the general population. In short, it seems that the odds of serious brain injury are wildly escalated for former professional football players.

This made me think of the process of denial. Essentially, denial works in us to make us think, “yes, it can happen, but it won’t happen to me”. The same principal holds for smokers. For many decades, people knew that smoking was associated with lung cancer, heart disease, and a host of other chronic degenerative diseases. Yet, smokers, addicted to nicotine, rationalized their behavior in a similar way. They would say things like, “I don’t smoke as much as some people, so I’m OK”; or “yes there is a risk, but I can avoid it”. Some might simply say things like, “Well, you have to die of something…”

We all use denial at times, which is a way of protecting us from fearful things in our life. The underlying defense seems to boil down to, “If I don’t think about it, it will go away”. This is akin to little children who may believe that if they cover their eyes, they can become invisible.

This is not an indictment of people, it is simply an understanding that we all have some defense postures that are not logical, but are somehow comforting. We all fall into this thinking at times in various ways. My point here is that looking seriously at our denial type thinking is important. We need to face truths that may be uncomfortable, but in the long run, hard as it is, it can prolong our life.  

Prayer: Lord, help us to look clearly at our lives to be at our best, Amen.