Happy New Year! It’s great to be back with Eyematter after a little break. This week I’ve been thinking about grief and the ways that we protect ourselves from those feelings that are just too difficult to face. Namely, we develop defence mechanisms. It’s a perfectly normal human behaviour and it’s not new; Sigmund Freud was writing about the phenomenon over 100 years ago. However, maybe there are some ways you feel and behave around your sight loss that you hadn’t realised were defence mechanisms, and you’d like to understand it better. Read on!
Perhaps the most common defence mechanism, especially with any kind of grief, is denial. How many times have you said ‘I’m fine’ when that’s not really true? When things are bad, it might feel easier to bury your head in the sand and hope the problem goes away. We’re all guilty of wishful or ‘magical’ thinking at times. Now, it’s important to say that defence mechanisms aren’t inherently bad. In fact they can be really helpful – for a short time, anyway. But if denial is preventing you from asking for help, or from being honest with the people who really care about you, maybe it’s time to address it.
A couple of other common ways of wearing the defence mechanism armour are using projection and / or displacement. Projection is when you don’t recognise a problem in yourself but are quick to point it out in others. You might challenge them on their negativity, for example, as that feels easier than dealing with your own. With displacement, the difficult feeling (commonly anger) can’t be taken out on the real object of the feeling, so you redirect or displace it onto someone or something else.
Put simply:
Denial = I’m fine
Projection = I’m fine. You don’t seem fine.
Displacement = I’m fine about my sight loss, but I’m really angry with work / the TV remote / the dog.
In our most recent zoom, Eyematter members were, as always, really generous in sharing their experiences. Most people could relate to denial in particular, especially in the context of adjusting to sight loss. Often with loved ones there is a difficulty in admitting to a new vulnerability, especially if you have always been the leader or the strong one. We discussed how that crucial role you have in the family is actually still there; maybe you now just need help with one or two specific things. In addition, being a natural people pleaser can lead to a tendency to minimise your difficulties, in order not to inconvenience or upset those around you. In reality, the people who really care probably want to hear and want to help.
One example of a healthy defence mechanism is sublimation. This is when someone takes their difficult feelings and instead of burying them or directing them onto someone else, turns them into something positive. Often it involves creativity or helping others. This can range from a grieving person starting a charity for those in a similar situation, to someone coming out of a bad relationship and writing a book about it, or it might simply be helping yourself feel better by baking bread or going for a walk.
If denial, or another less than healthy defence mechanism, has become a habit for you, it’s important to try to form new habits. The first step is the awareness of what your brain is doing when it goes down these defensive paths. Be compassionate with your brain; it’s trying to help! Then take a deep breath, say ‘not today’, and offer it a different direction.
Until next time, good luck forging new paths, and take care, JW