Not me!

Nothing all that bad happened to me.

I don’t remember anything bad happening.

Problems happen to everyone.

Every kid has bad things happen.  Its just part of growing up.

Denial……If you don’t believe it happened then it didn’t happen, right?

Wrong…..your body remembers.  Your subconscious remembers.  Your nightmare remembers.  Denying anything is wrong only prolongs when you can change.  Unfortunately, I had to hit rock bottom before accepting I need to talk to someone.  Then it was marriage counseling because I was just fine.  In the counselors office, I didn’t say a thing about my childhood.  I was concerned about the problems I was having in my marriage.  If my husband would just do X – Y – Z then we would be fine.  I was so far down the river denial, I had gone down shit creek without a paddle.  Hardest thing for me was to accept that anything bad happened.  I didn’t want to be messed up.  I didn’t want the nightmares to be real.  I was just over imaginative, right?  Wrong.  Coming to terms that my nightmares were my reality was one of the toughest things I ever did.  Bottom line – you can not change your life until you recognize something is wrong.  I needed….that’s right….needed to say out loud, “My life is a mess, please, help me.”  Until I was willing to say this, NOTHING could change.  It didn’t work to say, “Well a few bad things happen, but it was no big deal.”  That is called minimization.  Usually a repeat of what an abuser says to manipulate the victim to not recognize how badly they are being treated.  In the movie the Matrix stopping the denial is taking the Red Pill.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill  It is getting out of the LaLa land of all is well.  Taking a hard look at your own reality, tearing away the masks, ripping down the facade, or uncomfortably known as Facing Your Truth.  Not everyone develops PTSD when trauma happens.  Not everyone denies their truth.  Not everyone experiences vicious nightmares or debilitating flash backs.  In fact, scientists aren’t sure why one person gets PTSD and someone else doesn’t.  In my opinion, that is a non-issue.  You can’t help yourself to manage PTSD until you are willing to admit you have a problem.  I had to pull my canoe out of the river denial to get myself turned around ready to learn how to live.

“There is no point in using the word ‘impossible’ to describe something that has clearly happened.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

Other sources….I try to share other opinions to give a broader look at each area:

Denial

“Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/ss/defensemech_3.htm

http://counsellingresource.com/features/2008/10/08/denial-as-defense-mechanism/

“How ’bout a shot of truth in that denial cocktail.”
― Jennifer Salaiz

Minimization

http://psychologydictionary.org/minimization/

http://counsellingresource.com/features/2009/02/23/minimization-manipulation-tactic/