Someone cancels at the last minute, and we tell ourselves we didn’t want to go anyway. We cook a special dinner, and when they don’t show up, we excuse it by saying they’re busy at work. Someone’s drinking spoils another family gathering, and by morning we have an explanation for why this time was unusual.
We can be remarkably generous with explanations and excuses when we’re afraid of what people might think. Or what we might have to admit to ourselves.
Perhaps we’d have to admit how lonely we are, how hurt we felt, or how embarrassed we feel about what happened. Perhaps we’d have to face a disagreement we’ve been avoiding. Underneath it all may be a fear that is harder to say aloud: if we stop making allowances, ask for more, or let someone see how much we need them, they’ll reject us.
That fear reaches well beyond anyone’s drinking. It can follow us into a friendship, a marriage, a meeting, or a room full of people we want to like us. The stories we tell often begin as a way to hide the truth from others. We want to look like we’ve got it together because we’re afraid to admit we’re struggling on the inside.
The explanations we need to believe
“They’ve been under a lot of pressure” may be true. But that pressure might be the consequences of their drinking. We say it to hide our disappointment. We dismiss the situation with a simple phrase that means we don’t have to explain our own experience.
Seeing things as they really are can be painful. We may have spent years believing things would settle down once work improved, the children were older, or the drinking stopped. There’s comfort in having a reason to wait. It postpones the question of what we would do if things stayed as they are.
Minimization, rationalization, and justification are the tools of denial. They help us avoid seeing the truth, telling the truth, or accepting the truth. Their language is familiar enough to pass unnoticed, especially when we’re the ones speaking.
