The Great Scam
The Great Scam
© Michele Toomey, PhD
What a scam. Self-denial and the self-deception it requires are supposed to make life easier and safer than confrontation and accountability and the courage they demand. The protection of hiding from reality appears innocent enough.
Maybe it will go away if we pretend it's not real.
Maybe it will change if we just wait it out while denying its presence.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Doing life passively waiting for "maybe" to become a reality is to abandon ourselves to chance, to others, and to self-deception. That is hardly a formula for a sense of well- being. Rather, self-denial feeds on fear, anger, and self-doubt. It reguires self-deception, manipulation, and flat out lying.
The result is anxiety, depression, alienation and oppression. We become a distortion of ourselves in this process, and our integrity is compromised as we become mired in our own lies. We lose touch with the truth. Rather than being protected, we are at great risk.
We are not capable of intimacy and we have lost our integrity.
We have definitely been scammed.