Cake
I haven’t posted in a while. That could mean one of two things: either things have been fine and I haven’t really felt an acute need to share emotionally intense thoughts or experiences or things haven’t really been fine and I’ve been trying (with all my might) to avoid confronting difficult feelings by detaching from all things HIBM, thereby making it difficult to reflect honestly and openly with myself about how it’s affecting me (let alone share it publicly). I wish I could tell you it was the former. In fact, until this past week, I think I convinced myself it was. Denial is such an incredibly powerful defense mechanism. It allows us to avoid, to suppress, to pretend. Its sole purpose is to decrease one’s level of anxiety. It helps us guard against feeling vulnerable and scared. But a lot of emotional energy is invested in trying to not let those difficult feelings in. And that is why it’s not always the healthiest nor most sustainable method of coping. Because there’s only so long one can hold out in the fight against one’s reality. The energy required is too great. It always seems to win. And when it does, because there is so much that had been building up, the defeat is that much more painful and draining.
