Allow me to ask you a question. Have you ever done something and then denied it? Maybe you denied it for so long that you even started to believe it yourself. After you deny something for awhile you get comfortable in it. You just settle right down in your pig pen and start to roll around in the mud. Strange how that mud keeps you warm in the winter and cool in the summer, isn’t it? Guess what though, that mud stinks! Whether or not anyone else smells it, the denial you allow yourself to roll around in is rancid.
The definition of the word DENIAL is : a psychological defense mechanism in which confrontation with a personal problem or with reality is avoided by denying the existence of the problem or reality.
When we are in denial we turn our feelings off, we begin to focus so much energy on hiding our problem that we don’t have energy to do anything else. We worry so much that someone is going to find out that we have skeletons in our closet that we can’t live a normal life. We are so busy covering up our tracks that we lose all concept of truth. Receipts go into trash cans, text messages get deleted before you get home, fast food wrappers get tossed onto the side of the road, you start eating peppermints thinking you are covering up the smell of alcohol on your breath, you are wearing long sleeves to cover your quickly thinning arms, the list could go on and on.
Last year in March I lost a baby to a miscarriage. I shut down completely. Those who knew me best realized I was broken, those who knew me just in passing only saw the false face I wore. Instead of dealing with the pain I was feeling by talking to someone or going to The Lord in prayer, I turned to food.
Now maybe you are thinking big deal, she ate something, but trust me it wasn’t that simple. You see, in a matter of three months I packed on a total of 40 pounds.Yes, I said 40 pounds!! That’s what eating a box of nutty bars a day will do for you. I hid it well, I talked about it to a few people I trusted, but they never saw me binge eat. That was a private moment I had in my car, driving down side roads, taking the long way home, anything I could do to keep it secret, but I was drained! Keeping an addiction or a habit a secret is a stressful thing, it causes anxiety, depression, and constant worry. Thankfully though, there is a way to come out of that denial and into the light. You see, denial allows us to continue to do whatever it is we know we should stop. We can tell ourselves that no one knows, that we aren’t hurting anyone, but the truth of the matter is even if no one else is suffering from our denial, WE ARE!
I like to compare denial to a splinter. Have you ever had a splinter in your finger? The longer it is in there the worse it hurts. Your finger may start to swell up, it may get red and irritated, infection may begin to puff up under the skin, maybe it will even throb when you try to sleep. How do you fix it? You have to get it out right? So you build your courage up stick a needle in it, give it a squeeze and after that initial moment of OUCH you find relief.
Recovery is the same thing! The first step in recovery for any hurt, habit, or hangup is admitting that we have a splinter! Even if we only admit it to ourselves, we need to realize that the ugly truth is always better than a beautiful lie.
In my life, those moments of pain and realization have been bittersweet. The pain is always going to be bitter, but it only lasts a moment, and then the healing process can begin.
And believe me, my friends, healing is sweet.
John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.