Fine by me, but you're living in denial and suppressing rage! ~ Sanford in Clerks

I cut off the end of the quote due to the swears. :)

So I just wrote about my own denial. But what about that of others?

Assuming I'm in a place to pass judgment on others (which I am not), I'd say I know a lot of people who are in denial about something. And it becomes hard when you think you can clearly see something and the other person can't. Or perhaps it's really that they can clearly see it and it scares them so much that they'll just act like they can't. Did that make any sense?

Here's an example. My father is a type II diabetic and was diagnosed a few years ago. He's a good 50 pounds overweight, maybe more. He's also a lifelong smoker, has high cholesterol and high blood pressure, and has never exercised for any significant length of time. This worries me a lot, because he's relatively young and I fear that these things will end up shortening his life. He has this idea, though, that his diet is just great now. I have not yet asked him why he thinks that eating well without exercising will help him, or why he is still complaining about his weight if he's doing so well with his food. Because that would be, well rude, to say the least. Of course, he also has this very annoying tendency to get sort of superior when he believes he is dieting well or whatever. That makes it more tempting to call him on it.

My parents came to my house for lunch awhile back. They brought the meat, I had the sides, which included potatoes, a vegetable, and some whole-wheat rolls. My father said out loud, "I'm just going to eat the meat and the vegetable. I don't need potatoes or bread. I'm not going to eat them." I mentioned that the rolls were whole wheat so at least they were a healthier choice than the usual white ones that we buy, but he said, "No, I don't need the carbs, period, they're bad for me." Okay, whatever, doesn't matter to me. The tone implied that we were basically bad for eating the bread and potatoes. I took some of everything but the roll (soft bread = potential stuckness) and we sat down to eat. About halfway through the meal, my father got up from the table, went over to the counter where the food was sitting and quietly got a roll. Nobody said anything like, "Hey, I thought you said you weren't eating those."

After we finished eating and were cleaning up, I saw him standing near the potatoes and eating them straight from the container. Again, I didn't call him on it.

This is pretty typical behavior for him. Anytime there's a dessert, like at birthdays, he always says he just wants a small piece and makes a big show of how he's being so disciplined and virtuous by just eating a little bit -- obviously the rest of us are slavish pigs. However, he will also hover over the box afterward picking at the cake or whatever, basically eating more than enough to make up for the small piece. Food eating while standing with your back turned doesn't count, right?

His denial is really one of the worst things, in my opinion, because it involves being supercilious. Obviously I worry about his health but I would never say anything to him about what he's eating. That is his choice to make. It's really, really tempting to, though, due to his attitude. He has to draw huge attention to what he's not eating, as if by announcing it, that negates the fact that he ends up eating it later. I wonder if someday I'll say, just eat what you want and own it. You're not impressing anybody with your proclamations and you're not hurting anybody but yourself anyway.

There's a particular diet that he's done off and on for years. When he's on it, he manages to work some discussion of it into almost every conversation. It's such a great diet, it makes so much sense, it works so well. Everybody should do it. So many people have lost weight on it, it's been around for years, et cetera. I won't bother to give the name of the diet because you could say that about just about any diet or diet program out there. Anyway, he's basically a walking infomercial for this diet the whole time. I personally think that his diet is silly, but I don't say anything. If pressed I'll say, "I prefer to do things a different way" and leave it at that. But because this isn't a diet that you can sustain, he eventually drops off before he loses more than 10 pounds or so. Of course, then you never hear a word about this formerly-fantastic diet. Anyway, can you imagine how much I bite my tongue when I really want to say, "So, what about that diet?" If it's so damn great, then why haven't you had the result that you wanted?

Didn't I mention that my parents didn't have good coping skills? :)

But I never say any of those things that I want to say. I know that's just my father's way of dealing with his frustration over his health. We all have our ways. The way I currently choose to deal with mine isn't better than anybody else's way. I'm just glad that included not telling the whole world about it, because I don't need that kind of pressure!