Denial - Recognizing The Signs

Denial, is a common and normal the response we have when our adrenal system is triggered, and we become aware that we might be in danger. Two 19^th Century Scholars, William James and Carl Lange, working independently came to similar conclusions about how our fear system operates – this is now referred to as the James-Lange theory. Most people naturally think that the order of events when scared is as follows: You see a bear, you become afraid, and because of the fear for your safety you run. Both James and Lange postulated that this wasn’t in fact the order of events and what really happens is as follows: You see a bear, you start to run and because you are running you recognize/understand that you are afraid. In effect what they are suggesting is that it is due to a change in your emotional state that you recognize you are in danger, not because you first consciously identify the threat.

If the danger is immediate, such as being charged by a bear or someone trying to stab us, we will not have time to “consciously” respond to the threat and will work on instinct. However if we have time to identify a threat, one of the most common responses is to deny it. If you’ve ever been walking and felt there was someone walking behind you, and then you identify footsteps, chances are you’ll tell yourself that you’re just imagining that someone is following you, and that you shouldn’t be so stupid. Sometimes it can be hard to recognize that you are in such a state, and it is often easier to spot the signals that tell you, you are in denial.

The first step when you enter a state of denial is to rationalize your state. If you hear footsteps that are gaining speed, and coming up behind you, rather than turn and confront the potential danger advancing towards you, you may try and convince yourself that the person behind you is just in a hurry (which could be the case however their movement was similar enough to someone’s who does want to hurt you that your fear system alerted you to the danger). You may add to the argument, that the time is around 6 PM and they are just in a hurry to get home from work etc. In this process you will start to minimize the potential risk to yourself – convincing yourself that you are not in danger. When you make a dynamic risk assessment of a situation there are only two outcomes, it’s either a high risk situation or one that contains unknown risks – there is no such thing as a low risk situation.

Trying to minimize risk, and reduce the risk to yourself should only go to confirm to yourself that the danger is large and real – else why would you try and discount it? If you have to rationalize a situation to the point where you are minimizing the risk you are in a state of denial, and you should act. If it is someone rapidly approaching you from behind and there is little or no time/space to disengage or put some natural barrier, such as a parked car between you and the person behind you, you should turn and confront. The situation is either a high risk one or one containing unknown risks; by turning and confronting you can gain more information to make a better assessment and prediction of what is likely to happen e.g. is it someone chasing you because you dropped your wallet and they want to give it back, or is it someone running at you with half a house brick raised over their head ready to hit you with it?

People often minimize risks when they are dealing with aggressively verbal people. If the question, “he surely wouldn’t hit me, would he?” ever enters your head when you are involved in a verbal altercation, understand why it does i.e. because you subconsciously are thinking that they may. When you ask these type of questions you are effectively making predictions. Don’t minimize the question by telling yourself, “No, of course he wouldn’t hit me”, as more than likely that’s what he is about to do. Trying to rationalize a dangerous situation is comforting, as it lets us off the hook for having to deal with it, and we can simply hope by ignoring it that it will go away. If we keep ignoring our fear system and getting away with this course of action we’ll soon detune it and will stop being alerted to potential dangers.