PART 2: DENIAL AND HOW IT BITES
Initially: Denial is a coping mechanism, a natural response to death and trauma. It helps to gain a sense of equilibrium, to do life as (quote) “normal”. The underlying pain may be numbed through self-medication and other destructive choices.
Denial feels like the SAFEST way to navigate back into life, to pretend all that just happened didn’t really happen. However, it is not safe, healthy, or helpful to continue believing this. Denial is not necessarily purposeful but initially helps us cope with the trauma.
Denial is also the first stage of GRIEF. To bury it purposely or subconsciously.
Moms, dads, and grandparents can get stuck in this stage for years or decades. The secret is very isolating. There are ongoing multiple factors to denial.
What are they in denial about?
They participated in taking the LIFE of their own child. “How can I wrap my head around that?” The shame is too much. They must keep it a secret at all costs. When churches do talk about it, it’s often only in terms of the numbers of babies being murdered and how we must make abortion illegal. “This makes me a murderer. I will certainly never admit that to anyone!”
They are in denial about their own confused feelings. It’s a safe and legal procedure and women’s healthcare. Millions of women have done this and no one on a large scale is talking about it being traumatic. If it were such a bad thing, everyone would be talking about it and no one else would do it. So, their feelings must not be normal. They don’t want to feel abnormal so they pretend they’re okay, that these things don’t bother them.
They are in denial that any other CHRISTIAN would have an abortion because no one talks about it at church.
They are in denial of their SIN.
They deny their worthiness of love. No one will love or respect me anymore if they find out what I’ve done.
Their life has been turned upside down and they need HEALING. They don’t realize that admission of the sin will begin to turn their life back right-side-up as in James 3:16. Their need for healing is stunted by continued denial. Again, they don’t want to feel abnormal and pretend they are okay. There may be a vague sense that something is not okay, but they cannot connect their trauma symptoms to their abortion.
Someone may be in denial over parts of their abortion experience but not OTHERS.
Confession would blow up denial, so they must remain silent.
Let’s talk about how denial bites.
Emotions and behavior are hidden behind façade of health – isolated, guilty, shameful, dirty, damaged, lack of trust.
They may become controlling to compensate for lack of control.
They may become clinically depressed, sleep too much, not sleep, cry often, have nightmares.
Feel suicidal or homicidal, question their gender, break down on anniversaries, feel numb, become apathetic.
They may feel dead inside and unredeemable
While denial might help us get through the initial crisis, continued denial becomes BONDAGE and thwarts our healing. As long as someone remains in denial, they will never significantly move forward in their healing. Their emotional growth is stunted. The father of lies plants one deception after another to keep them silent.
You can’t be in right RELATIONSHIP with God or others while harboring unconfessed sin. You must pretend to have it all together around others, especially other Christians.
Let me tell you my stump in the driveway story. I have this stupid tree trunk in my driveway. I pretend it’s not reality. Sometimes I drive over the stump and gut or destroy my vehicle. So I’m careful to drive around it.
No one else has a stump in their driveway, only me. So I’m ashamed and do my best to appear fine.
Periodically I forget it’s there and damage my car with it. When I take it for repairs I can’t admit cause, so I state different reason for the damage. I must be more careful to avoid that stump in the future …I mean, what stump? As long as I deny it – I can’t deal WITH it properly. I stumble on it and others are also injured by it.
Denial doesn’t mean we avoid experiencing the RESULTS of trauma, loss, and shame. Not knowing what to do with them, we subconsciously do things, choose things, that make us feel better about ourselves or numb the pain or make us look better to others.
We may choose things that sound GOOD to numb our wounds. Like become a star volunteer, the hardest worker, the most successful businessperson, the most conscientious parent, most faithful churchgoer, the best athlete, the most organized person, most dependable person, the person who never “needs” a break, etc.
We may choose things that are HARMFUL to justify their pain. Like develop a chemical dependency, inflict verbal/physical/emotional abuse on others, Or engage in immoral relationships and then experience a subsequent untimely pregnancy. Or perhaps inflict self-harm, fail at relationships, self-sabotage, etc.
Whichever route we go, underneath remains a growing ANGER and all sorts of out-of-control emotions and consequences – rage even, mostly directed at self, but also taken out on others.
As our reading material suggests, the myriad of emotional effects are extensive!
Ongoing denial of trauma and loss never makes anything better.
The stump is still there and I’m worse off than ever.
Shame keeps us in hiding and causes us to do more SHAMEFUL things, because, well, we’re already so shameful. It increases and continues denial. It is a mask of pride. This is why we need to talk about abortion trauma, about the loss and the shame. Jesus does not want even one of His children to live in this bondage. Denial works great until we are triggered out of it in ways we may not realize. A picture of an unborn baby. A picture of an aborted baby. A bumper sticker. A memory of a horrifying part of their experience. Even this course. When something triggers a person out of denial it can be devastating without someone there to share the burden.
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