How Do You Confront Denial?

Confronting denial in yourself is hard, and the moment you need it most tends to be the moment you least want to face it. Think about the thing you keep pushing aside while the fallout piles up. Maybe chances to fix a problem came and went, you let them pass, and now the regret sits there alongside the problem itself.

From there you have a choice. You can mourn what you've lost, or might still lose, and stay put. Or you can crack open the door to something unfamiliar. Life keeps moving through stages that arrive and then end. Babies grow up. Bodies wear down, sometimes from age, sometimes from an accident, sometimes from the sheer wear of how a person has lived, and for a few people that wearing down shows up early. People exit too, through death or through arguments or simply because they've chosen a direction that no longer fits yours.

And unless you've become a hermit, new people keep arriving to take their place. The question is how you meet them. Do you make room for someone you barely know, or resent having to bother with a stranger who stands where someone familiar and easy used to be? A smooth, uneventful stretch of years has its downside: it leaves you unready for the day life finally throws you.

When something new shows up at your door, what comes out of your mouth first? "I can't"? "I won't do that"?

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• Why Does The Victim Often Have More Trouble than the Offender?