Life on Wheels (37 page)

When reality is too hard to bear all at once, the mind protects itself by using defense mechanisms, one of which is denial. In the short term, denial can help you get through difficult situations. Denial buys you time to gradually come to terms with what has happened. It gives you some control over the pace of psychological adjustment. A new disability is so powerful an experience that people just can’t take it all in right away. Denial is one of our miraculous, self-adjusting “design features.”

There are a number of ways in which denial can manifest itself. A person might:

Forget what the doctor has said about his condition

Discount the facts of her medical status

Suppress grieving emotions, keeping up a happy countenance, despite his true feelings

Grant the facts about her condition but resist the idea that her life will need to change

According to psychologist Ann Marie Fleming:

Denial gets to be a problem when it continues well past the initial shock of a crisis and is so pervasive it keeps you from acting in your own best interest. For instance, someone in denial:

Might not take recommended medication or participate fully in a treatment or rehab program

Might not arrange for needed support at home, thereby risking injury

Might not make necessary home-access adjustments, risking injury

Might not speak honestly to family and friends so that they can know what support is needed

Might be careless about health maintenance, for example, not responding to early signs of a pressure sore or infection

Staying stuck in denial about your condition can also drive you to overachieve, unnecessarily trying to prove that you aren’t disabled. That can be a great waste of energy and put your health at risk. As a result, denying the needs of your disability costs you freedom and independence. The more you realistically meet the needs of your disability, the more your options actually increase.

If others—medical professionals, family, friends—tell you that you’re in denial, it’s worth asking yourself if they might be right and to what degree it might be limiting you. But no one else can know what you are experiencing, and you have to find your way the best you can. Psychologist Carol Gill has respect for the help denial can offer individuals:

There are many, many ways one can place blame for having a disability— whether on themselves or on others. Perhaps you were injured because of a poor decision on your part—be it climbing up a tree or driving when you were tired or under the influence. Or maybe another person was driving the car or was unnecessarily rough as an opponent in a football game. Maybe you blame God. Clearly this paragraph could go on for a very long time, which means that you face a compelling temptation to place blame.

Blaming implies a sense of injustice, and, often, what comes along with that is anger, or even a desire for revenge. This is a common feature of people with a violently acquired injury, particularly those who come from a culture that involves guns or knives and the imperative to defend yourself and those to whom you consider yourself devoted.

For those with a childhood disability, the blame could be directed at a parent simply for being the carrier of a gene or for having been irresponsible during the pregnancy. A pregnant woman who drinks or takes drugs indeed puts the fetus at risk.

Blame is also easily directed at one’s self, for having damaged your own body—and life—in which case punishment is an equally possible option. You don’t have to go far to injure the blamed party when it’s you.

Or it might simply be that you blame the circumstances that led to your disability. Ultimately it comes down to a question of whether you were in control of the events surrounding your disability. Now the question is whether you are in control of your response to it. Clinical psychologist Michael Yapko writes: