Hope and Denial

"Denial is not a river in Egypt" - Anonymous on stocktwits.

Lately I have wondered about these two: Hope and Denial.
I had a patient at the clinic I volunteer at a few years ago, she was much older. I've done multiple pregnancy tests and had never had one turn out positive till that day. Unsure if I'd done something wrong, I repeated it. Then I turned to her and asked her if she thought she was pregnant. Her response was "I hope not." I went to the Medical director and relayed the info to her. Her response was "Hope is a very poor form of birth control." However she went on to say, this might be a good thing for her. Lady was closer to 50. She was uninsured hence her presence at this clinic which is the best clinic I've ever been at. Much better service that I got from other places as an insured person. Anyway, the director pointed out she'll now qualify for state care for a few years with the baby among other things. I doubt the lady really wanted that.

Anyway, in regards to a situation I'd dealing with, I've had to ask myself how much longer will I put up with hell till I say enough? I took someone in taking care of them, hoping that living with me would help the situation, they might revert to who they were and function. The sad truth is that nothing has changed in that arena. I acually think it's either the same or it has worsened. What has also worsened here is me - my health! about 5 months into this, I said, this is not working...I saw it wasn't working. I wanted to deal with the situation as fast as I could. Problem is I was indecisive, controlled by fear, the unknown and the voice of people telling me this is what you're supposed to do. In short, I did not think and put my foot down on a firm decision. It's cost me a lot 2.5years later.

But over the entire time, there have been many, many, MANY times where I've said, this is it, I need to fold and yet, I pray and hope that things might change. That if I try harder, my efforts would show something. The other part is failure. Not having failed at anything, I look and see that I've not made any progress with this, besides better physical health, but nothing on the mental part and in comes the third reason: fearing the eyes of man more than the eyes of God. I know better but sometimes I unconsciously give in. But it's what people would say, that I took a bad situation to help and couldn't effect any significant change. So I hold on, working hard, to my detriment, and hoping that things would change.

Is this hope or denial? Is there a line between the two?  Denial is knowing something for what it is and failing to acknowledge it for what it is. Kinda like the ostrich in the african desert, it sees the car coming and puts it's head in the sand thinking it's not there. Hope is also knowing something for what it is and expecting something else. Kinda like the ostrich in the sand, same situation. I just looked up the definition of hope in Webster online: to want something to happen or be true and think that it could happen or be true" . Dictionary.com defines denial as "Denial definition, an assertion that something said, believed, alleged, etc., is false" I was close. So whether it's putting your head in the sand telling yourself a car isn't coming at you at full speed or telling yourself by putting your head in the sand the car is not there and you won't be hit, the underlying action is the same in both cases - we ignore the problem for what it is.

So back to square one? Is hope and denial really different? are they different shades of blue? Or are they one and the same with just different names. Someone might think, 'wait, you just gave two different definitions there, how can you ask if they're the same." Well, with hope, we want something to be true, it's not true but we want it to be so. In denial it's not true and we say it is true. In both cases, they are not true. No son verdades! If you look at the ostrich though, they're really the same. But inherently, I think they are different with a fine line between.

I'll end here and continue some other time.