Walk On Podcast Episode 73 : 2022 : Accepting Where We Are
Looking around at the state of the world, listening to the activists fighting for the future, for the survival of the most vulnerable in the present—seeing the parallels in the handling of covid (or the refusal to handle, more accurately) by the ruling class and the ever-increasing presence of the fallout of climate change has inspired me to really consider the pervasiveness of denial.
I have this theory that everything stems from generational trauma, which stems from systemic oppression from capitalism (or the institutions of the past that weren’t called that, but resembled the class-race-gender-sexuality-and-ability-based discriminatory system we live under today). Scarcity, struggle, oppression, suppression, the real trickle-down economics that manifests in interpersonal abuse—a feeling of desperation in the need for some control in some area of one’s life. Think about it. Patriarchy has given men power over women but insists that men be breadwinners at any cost. Historically in war times, the men went away and came home traumatized. Though they have held more systemic power than women, working-class men still suffer from the decisions made for them by ruling-class men. Race and sexuality contribute to being squished harder and up against more by the systems-that-be. That is not even to mention the patriarchally imposed rule/belief/misconception that real men don’t have feelings, which leads to—you guessed it—denial. If we don’t feel our feelings, they burst out in unexpected and inappropriate ways. Commence self-medication. Commence tyrannical control over one’s household and family. Commence emotional avoidance and unavailability. We’re just talking in binary and heterosexual terms here for simplicity of the discussion at hand. Nuclear family bliss*
*hell lol
Mothers not getting their emotional needs met in their marital lives, having lived through their own parents’ manifestations of this model in their childhoods, did what they saw done. They enmeshed and abused their children, exerted control where they could. How did the children cope? Avoidance, dissociation, running away, eating disorders, acting out, bullying one another, etc etc etc. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Whenever a member of the family stepped out from the cycle, realized something was wrong and had the absolute audacity to tell the truth and heal, what happened? They were gaslit, smeared, discouraged, ostracized, shamed.
If we take this cookie-cutter experience and blow it up to the macrocosmic and look at society, the model is very much the same. The government does something undeniably evil, barely justified by some kind of propaganda-peddled lie, paints anyone who disagrees with the choice being forced on them as crazy or unintelligent or weak, and the populace splits into opposing ideological factions drowning each other in the hopes that they will be able to attain or maintain some kind of power-over (with the most marginalized just trying to survive), all while the people with the real power do whatever the fuck they want.
Much of the working class is in denial that the ruling class is abusing them. Scroll through any comments section and you will see people with no capital, no real chance of ever even coming close to ruling class status, defending billionaires, defending government choices made from the philosophy of property-over-people. Denial. People who vote for things like fracking and against climate-conscious legislation are literally called climate deniers. Denial. The fact that we are in the age of perpetual pandemics, climate collapse, and the worldwide power of the institution of America is very clearly hanging on by a thread and yet no policies reflect these realities? Denial. The fact that most of the country is displeased with the leadership that is supposed to represent us and yet they tell us that if we aren’t happy we should just vote about it, even though they give us no good options to choose from? Denial. Sending children and teachers and workers into life-threatening working and learning environments because “the economy” when trillions of dollars are spent on the military and billionaires don’t pay the appropriate amount in taxes? Denial. People thinking their weddings or vacations or girls’ nights or dinners in a restaurant or ability to get away from their kids which they chose to bring into the world is more important than collective safety? Denial and selfishness. But it all stems back to that quest for some kind of control in one’s life. Or at least the illusion of it.
Subconsciously, I think there is an understanding that on the other side of denial is a tidal wave of feeling. Bargaining, Anger, Depression—a whole ass fuck ton of unfelt, repressed, avoided baggage that hasn’t been properly dealt with. This is understandably scary and understandably overwhelming. But ignoring the problem has done nothing for us—except to cause us to hurt others the way we’ve been hurt, to perpetuate the cycles of generational (and systemic) trauma.
Denial is the first stage of grief and some people stay there forever--suspended in animation, never being able to see past their own pain, acting out of that wounded space, all while having no idea where it's all stemming from. As individuals, as family units, as communities, as a country, and as a species, we have been suffering from collective denial about the state of things. Maybe it's time to start accepting where we are. The only way out is through. Listen here.
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