People Share 50 Of The Clearest Cases Of "Living In Denial" That They've Witnessed

Denial is incredibly useful. So the clearest case I’ve seen is me and my husband all of 2022. Melanoma went to stage four. Somehow, he had no pain and felt fine until the last week of his life. We had a great time together. He didn’t want anyone to know he was sick until he felt sick and he didn’t feel sick until his last week of life so nobody knew. He went back up north that summer for a few weeks to hang out with his brother and his friends and go see his mom and had truly a great time. We did a trip to Mexico, and two months later he was dead. But my goal that year was to feed him everything he liked as much as possible, and make him laugh. It was successful. Thank you, denial, for making his last year special.

My dad doesn’t want a hearing aid because he thinks it will make him look old. I tried to tell him that what makes him look really old is mishearing things all the time, but he didn’t hear me.

My brother is married for the fourth time, my mother blames all his ex-wives. I keep pointing out her son is the common link to all the divorces.

"nobody wants to work" when rent has doubled in ten years but wages have barely risen

Me, thinking I'll get in better shape and lose some weight while doing literally nothing to make it happen 🙃

Buddy keeps complaining that 'normal' guys won't respond to him on dating apps and keeps getting hit on by 'creepy old dudes.' Uh, you're nearly 60, and those are age-appropriate matches. 🫤

I am a teacher- I have so many parents in denial about their children’s grades or behavior. I once had a kid headbutt me and break my nose bc he couldn’t go to recess right then and there, “but he’s an angel at home!” (Where he’s only ever playing on a tablet)
I also have one parent in particular who has 4 children, and ALL of them have behavior problems, to the point of multiple suspensions or being made to move schools or teachers. and I have to wonder: after 4 children with issues…is it not possible YOU might be part of the problem??

My sister wears flannel shirts and has really short hair and drives a Subaru and wears a battleaxe necklace and has a pile of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Editions and a lesbian pride flag in her room and my mom still hasn't figured out she's gay

My step-dad's coworker got three different vasectomies. His wife kept getting pregnant each time, and he insisted the doctor had somehow botched the procedure. After the third vasectomy, she turned up pregnant again, and the doctor told him, "There's nothing left of your vas deferens. Have you considered she may be cheating on you?"

Im in a medical stats program.

This statistic for a population in mississipi was depressing.

85% of target group lives on a household income $35,000 or less per year.

85% of same target group thinks that medical funding for the poor doesnt do any good and shouldnt be wasted on helping the poor.

This is absolute insanity. Like they dont even seem to realize they ARE the poor being offered help. They somehow use the cult thinking of system justification to somehow exclude themselves from thinking they are the poor.

Any 40+ year old man getting upset with his 18/19/20 ish year old girlfriend for being “immature”.

So my sister gets married, he husbands family are pretty heavy drinkers, and it's the full range of drinks; beers whenever, mixed drinks, straight hard liquor like vodka, whatever is on hand, and plenty of it; seven days a week, and all day on weekends, holidays, etc.

So her husband's brother, late 20's, hits it a lot harder than even the other people in his family; a full handle of vodka after work every day kind of hard. Four or five over a weekend, all by himself.

So he gets sick, not felling well, tired, etc. but just puts it down to getting older and maybe not handling his liquor like he used to, but doesn't cut back at all.

Once he starts turning yellow, he gets to the doctor, who tells him his liver is shot; full cirrhosis, there's nothing left of it, whatever. He tells the doc he doesn't know why, he doesn't drink any more than the people he knows, it's a mystery, but he'll stop entirely to get put on a list for a new liver.

He obviously doesn't stop drinking, doesn't even cut back. Everyone knows it's the drinking and cirrhosis, but he and his family start calling it "cancer"- it's cancer, so the drinking has nothing to do with it.

So he eventually ends up in the hospital full time because there's no liver for him yet, and his family starts sneaking vodka into the hospital so he can keep drinking.

He left the hospital on a slab, and the family starts asking people for money for cancer walks, stuff like that, and not a one of them cut back the drinking at all.

My loving, yet abusive and alcoholic father telling me that he has no problems to fix and that whatever trauma I think happened in my childhood is a product of my “sick and twisted mind” because he was “nothing but good to me”.

That'd be my "father". My "mother" was manic-depressive, as it was called back then. She had several major breakdowns during my childhood. Every time, he'd act like nothing was wrong. She'd be screaming & throwing things, and he'd just try to placate her. It never worked.

A couple times, I pointed out that she needed to be committed. He always responded that a person couldn't be committed unless they're a danger to themselves or others. True, but she obviously was. I was terrified of her. Even apart from the breakdowns, she threw rage attacks at the drop of a hat.

Long story short, in my 20s I found out that A) they'd had two kids before me, and B) she'd drowned them in a bathtub during a psychotic episode. What I never found out was how she gor released or why she was able to conceive me less than a year later.

A friend was with me when I found out about B). He told me later that he'd always thought I was exaggerating when I said I'd feared for my life as a kid. I couldn't blame him, it does sound outlandish.

After that, it was even more baffling that my father thought we were safe living with her.

My Dad has PSP/dementia. My Mom refused to acknowledge that it was a developing problem, because it was an “inconvenience to their lifestyle”. I confronted her, because he needed to have his drivers license taken away, because he was a danger on the road.

My Dad impulsively went out one day, bought a BMW without her present, and later drove it underneath a semi truck. And shocker- that was when she realized he was unwell. I also had to find out through extended family about his accident, because she didn’t want give us “the satisfaction” of being right all along.

My mom - "There are no gay people in India"

Her wondering why one of her friend's son is not interested in meeting any girls and me explaining that he's gay.

Broadly speaking, parents who think their kids are “so smart” bc they can use an iPad. Like wow he can click the next video, great. But he’s almost 5 and can’t count and doesn’t know his letters, and you kept him out of preschool because “he’s not ready yet.” Maybe reevaluate what’s important.

Hilaria Baldwin’s commitment to her fake Spanish accent, even after she was outed as having been born and raised in Boston with zero Spanish heritage.

Ex’s mom: moved to Vegas from Europe. Went broke gambling over 10 or so years, practically homeless… then she got injured on a casino escalator and was compensated more than fairly with a life changing amount of money… guess who went broke again, pretty much exclusively at the same casino…?

Friend diagnosed with diabetes 10 years ago, has needle phobia so afraid of pricking his fingers to monitor his blood sugar so doesn't, and just "eats healthy". Due to blood sugar fluctuations, gradually goes blind and kidney fails, 3.5 years on dialysis, then finally gets a kidney transplant. Home again with new kidney, is still afraid of pricking his fingers and decides he will manage his diabetes by "eating healthy" just like he did for the past 10 years :_-(