wondering2
The Force is Strong With This One
Hi,
I have posted in this forum once before (actually it was 6 posts over 2 days). The main reason that originally led me to write to this forum is because it was one of the first places where I started reading about psychopathy. This was during a phase where I was trying to figure out what is wrong with close family members, and a natural stage of reading about psychopathy (apparently everyone who first read's Dr. Hare's studies on Psychopathy, who discovers that psychopaths exist, who discovers not everyone is wired the same way that they are, and who starts getting the first understandings around human psychology and physiology, does the same).
I was very keen to figure out about this because I was surrounded by family members (mother, father) who have neurological disorders, the most serious for me being that they were both in serious denial for at least 15 years. I had picked it up since I was just 18, and it has just been -impossible- to speak about it.
What is denial? It is people not accepting that things are simply not as they make them out to be. It is a "defense mechanism" according to Freud's theory, although I am not aware if this concept is still accepted today since Freud's theories have been rejected in the more later years. A special case of denial is for people with a mental disorder who are not even aware of it, and this condition is called anosognosia.
In this particular story, I grew up with a mother who had schizophrenia for the last 25 years but she did not want to accept it - this is anosognosia. A father who did not want to admit it or speak about it, let alone take responsibilitiy for his own actions in general. The father has been in serious denial of anything that he just wouldn't deal with. The father suffers from narcissistic personality disorder, never went to the doctor about it, creates blames to others for everything, doesn't take responsibility for his actions, has issues with his anger, lies, thinks he decides for others and on subjects which he doesn't even know about, thinks others owe to speak to him first, plays the "poor guy" to everyone, and most disturbingly constantly hides everything that is happening as if they didn't to the point where it is impossible to have any conversation with him as the conversation has no factual or logical basis. Denial is a classic characteristic of narcissists. Moreover, he has now developed Alzheimer's, but as he says "he is fine, he only has Alzheimer's, we shouldn't worry about him, it is nothing". So, well, I thought, "Oh great, and I thought something serious was wrong, like having Alzheimer's or something and being out of touch with reality. Ok, in that case I am not 'worried'".
I have known the above for years, however every time I think about them they still cause me anger. The reason is that the facts alone - such as that the mother or the father suffer from an actual ilness - is already something to feel bad about. However, we couldn't even get to THAT stage for years since they wouldn't accept it. Instead we would have to argue even about this fact and be blamed for it for years. These people didn't want us to even "know" the truth. Up to this stage someone would think "hm, ok, 2 people with mental disorders who don't admit it, somewhat common".
Well first, just getting to figure out what is wrong with each of these 2 people - given the fact that:
- they don't talk about it
- particularly the father would immediately blames and crazymakes others when spoken about it
- he won't go to the doctor
- both will use any kind of control they have, including financial control, creating a smear campaign to the rest of the social circle against us and so on.
It is easy when I lay it out in 2 words, but really hard to get there, it has been a multi-year long process just to name the beast.
But the worst problem is that even when you "name" the problem, you realise that the denial is not only there. Denial is a phenomenon which had taken over the whole family circle. In other words, it was impossible for the wider family circle (uncles, aunts, cousins, and even further) to accept the above happenings. It was also impossible for my social circle of friends to understand it either. If I would describe situations, conversations, communication with these people to any close relatives or friends who were around at the time, they would simply not understand it or deny it. They thuoght it was some kind of personal argument, and there would be excuses such as "everyone argues", "why are you getting involved with this" or simply they wouldn't accept that anything is wrong. Frankly, it was wrong, it was unfixable, and it was not possible to avoid it. I wasn't the one getting involved, I was the one on the receptive side of denial seeing causing problems in every day life, and I was receiving the endless extents of them confirming it.
Basically, the more isolated problem within the family was part of a case of mass denial within the wider social circle. The family could not admit their own problems because they suffered from them. The other people could not admit these problems because a) they had no experience with mental illnesses b) they were having a hard time believing the very simple explanation c) some of them actually had psychological disturbances of their won and living in similar denials (one was an alcoholic, the other a narcissist themselves and so on) d) most denied their own problems as well.
Even further, speaking to a "mental health professional" (from the ones available) led to them focusing on how we feel, and making us feel like we are ill for worrying about this. Basically, it wasn't possible to speak to anyone. We simply had to read about schizophrenia and narcissistic disorder on books and websites, live it every day, but not be able to speak about it to anyone around. It left a feeling like being some sort of "mad genius" for spotting such phenomena. Putting it all together now it seems that it is simply an ability I had more than the particular people I was surrounded from. After joining a support group of people who have relatives with mental disorders, I discovered that actually the phenomenon of this denial is actually much more common.
Why is denial an important issue? Well, if you cannot even identify a problem, how on earth can you solve it. And the fact is people in denial do not solve their problems. They simply suddenly stumble upon a huge failure that crushes them - like lose all their social circle, get fired, go bankrupt, get some other life-threatening illness harder to deny - and then realise that something is wrong.
You can see them progressively roll downhill day after day wondering "you can't still not have seen it yet". Guess what... They have not seen it yet, and they won't. But you know the destination of these peope.
I have posted in this forum once before (actually it was 6 posts over 2 days). The main reason that originally led me to write to this forum is because it was one of the first places where I started reading about psychopathy. This was during a phase where I was trying to figure out what is wrong with close family members, and a natural stage of reading about psychopathy (apparently everyone who first read's Dr. Hare's studies on Psychopathy, who discovers that psychopaths exist, who discovers not everyone is wired the same way that they are, and who starts getting the first understandings around human psychology and physiology, does the same).
I was very keen to figure out about this because I was surrounded by family members (mother, father) who have neurological disorders, the most serious for me being that they were both in serious denial for at least 15 years. I had picked it up since I was just 18, and it has just been -impossible- to speak about it.
What is denial? It is people not accepting that things are simply not as they make them out to be. It is a "defense mechanism" according to Freud's theory, although I am not aware if this concept is still accepted today since Freud's theories have been rejected in the more later years. A special case of denial is for people with a mental disorder who are not even aware of it, and this condition is called anosognosia.
In this particular story, I grew up with a mother who had schizophrenia for the last 25 years but she did not want to accept it - this is anosognosia. A father who did not want to admit it or speak about it, let alone take responsibilitiy for his own actions in general. The father has been in serious denial of anything that he just wouldn't deal with. The father suffers from narcissistic personality disorder, never went to the doctor about it, creates blames to others for everything, doesn't take responsibility for his actions, has issues with his anger, lies, thinks he decides for others and on subjects which he doesn't even know about, thinks others owe to speak to him first, plays the "poor guy" to everyone, and most disturbingly constantly hides everything that is happening as if they didn't to the point where it is impossible to have any conversation with him as the conversation has no factual or logical basis. Denial is a classic characteristic of narcissists. Moreover, he has now developed Alzheimer's, but as he says "he is fine, he only has Alzheimer's, we shouldn't worry about him, it is nothing". So, well, I thought, "Oh great, and I thought something serious was wrong, like having Alzheimer's or something and being out of touch with reality. Ok, in that case I am not 'worried'".
I have known the above for years, however every time I think about them they still cause me anger. The reason is that the facts alone - such as that the mother or the father suffer from an actual ilness - is already something to feel bad about. However, we couldn't even get to THAT stage for years since they wouldn't accept it. Instead we would have to argue even about this fact and be blamed for it for years. These people didn't want us to even "know" the truth. Up to this stage someone would think "hm, ok, 2 people with mental disorders who don't admit it, somewhat common".
Well first, just getting to figure out what is wrong with each of these 2 people - given the fact that:
- they don't talk about it
- particularly the father would immediately blames and crazymakes others when spoken about it
- he won't go to the doctor
- both will use any kind of control they have, including financial control, creating a smear campaign to the rest of the social circle against us and so on.
It is easy when I lay it out in 2 words, but really hard to get there, it has been a multi-year long process just to name the beast.
But the worst problem is that even when you "name" the problem, you realise that the denial is not only there. Denial is a phenomenon which had taken over the whole family circle. In other words, it was impossible for the wider family circle (uncles, aunts, cousins, and even further) to accept the above happenings. It was also impossible for my social circle of friends to understand it either. If I would describe situations, conversations, communication with these people to any close relatives or friends who were around at the time, they would simply not understand it or deny it. They thuoght it was some kind of personal argument, and there would be excuses such as "everyone argues", "why are you getting involved with this" or simply they wouldn't accept that anything is wrong. Frankly, it was wrong, it was unfixable, and it was not possible to avoid it. I wasn't the one getting involved, I was the one on the receptive side of denial seeing causing problems in every day life, and I was receiving the endless extents of them confirming it.
Basically, the more isolated problem within the family was part of a case of mass denial within the wider social circle. The family could not admit their own problems because they suffered from them. The other people could not admit these problems because a) they had no experience with mental illnesses b) they were having a hard time believing the very simple explanation c) some of them actually had psychological disturbances of their won and living in similar denials (one was an alcoholic, the other a narcissist themselves and so on) d) most denied their own problems as well.
Even further, speaking to a "mental health professional" (from the ones available) led to them focusing on how we feel, and making us feel like we are ill for worrying about this. Basically, it wasn't possible to speak to anyone. We simply had to read about schizophrenia and narcissistic disorder on books and websites, live it every day, but not be able to speak about it to anyone around. It left a feeling like being some sort of "mad genius" for spotting such phenomena. Putting it all together now it seems that it is simply an ability I had more than the particular people I was surrounded from. After joining a support group of people who have relatives with mental disorders, I discovered that actually the phenomenon of this denial is actually much more common.
Why is denial an important issue? Well, if you cannot even identify a problem, how on earth can you solve it. And the fact is people in denial do not solve their problems. They simply suddenly stumble upon a huge failure that crushes them - like lose all their social circle, get fired, go bankrupt, get some other life-threatening illness harder to deny - and then realise that something is wrong.
You can see them progressively roll downhill day after day wondering "you can't still not have seen it yet". Guess what... They have not seen it yet, and they won't. But you know the destination of these peope.
