DENIAL:

~

I've used denial many times. It has been a defense, a survival
device, a coping behavior, and, at times, almost my undoing. It has
been both a friend and an enemy.

When I was a child, I used denial to protect myself and my family.
Denial got me safely through many traumatic situations, when I had
no other resources for survival.

The negative aspect of using denial was that I lost touch with myself
and my feelings. I became able to participate in harmful situations
without even knowing I was hurting.

There was so much denial from my past that had the blanket been
entirely ripped from me, I would have died from the shock of
exposure.

When the winds of change blow through, upsetting a familiar
structure and preparing me for the new, I pick up my blanket and
hide, for a while. Sometimes, when someone I love has a problem, I
hide under the blanket, momentarily. Memories emerge of things
denied, memories that need to be remembered, felt, and accepted
so I can continue to become healed.

Then something happens, and I see that I am moving forward. The
experience was necessary, connected, not at all a mistake, but an
important part of healing.

It isn't my job to run around ripping people's blankets off or
shaming others for using the blanket. Shaming makes them colder,
makes them wrap themselves more tightly in the blanket. Yanking
their blanket away is dangerous. They could die of exposure, the
same way I could have.

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