611 Quotes About Denial

On top of the abuse and neglect, denial heaps more hurt upon the child by requiring the child to alienate herself from reality and her own experience. In troubled families, abuse and neglect are permitted; it's the talking about them that is forbidden.

He knew perfectly well (even if he wasn’t inclined to admit it) that the material body had a spiritual aspect. He knew that “spirit,” however explained, was real, because of his own undeniable experiences—which, though he might suppress them, he couldn’t altogether erase from memory.

For a long while, I pretended not to know that even though I had only one life, I was spending it inside a lonely marriage. When the knowing threatened to rise, I’d shove it back down. There was no point admitting I knew what I knew, because I would never do what the knowing would require me to do.

The only place where the sun doesn’t come up is in the middle of an attitude that says it won’t come up. But even there it comes up. It’s just that we refused to look up.

Sometimes I think it’s less about being found and more about being willing to be found.

To deny the battle is unwise. To believe that I can fight it without God is insane. To actually do so is suicidal. No wonder so many of us walk around looking like death warmed over.

Our feelings, then, insist on recognition even though, in our accounts, we can dissemble endlessly. Although we can fake our experience through the way we describe it, and even if we can blind ourselves to its significance, we cannot fake the experience itself.

We're all drowning, but don't say it out loud.

The government’s blatant denial of my disability benefits was a declaration of war on my family.