Discharging Denial of Aging, Death, and the Climate Crisis
I had a breakthrough session. It helped me better understand denial. I define denial as refusing to grasp what is actually happening. I first focused on my own aging. After that I explored my denial of death, disability, illness, oppression, emotions of all kinds, and the climate crisis.
I started by taking a look at my internalized oppression as an older person. I’ve seen a t-shirt with the slogan “It’s weird being the same age as old people.” Friends, cousins my age, and I have said, “I can’t believe I’m this age!” “How could this happen?” We laugh. I asked myself, “Why do I feel puzzled at being my age?” My Co-Counselor, also an older person, let me wander around in my mind, and I found some distress recordings:
- I should have somehow prevented this. I’ve been remiss, I gave in; I could have fought better against or prevented getting older.
- Getting old is a betrayal of my younger self!
Wow. Of course, these thoughts are completely irrational.
We all have distress about aging. Age oppression is widespread. Some cultures are apparently better than others in their treatment of older people. My U.S. culture is harsh. Older people are invalidated just for being older.
OLDER WOMEN
I remember my mom saying, “I hate getting old!” She hated her wrinkles, her achy joints. She tried to “look ten years younger.” She agreed with others of her generation that “women don’t reveal their age,” as if this secret flaw could be hidden. My aunt, a community activist, told me she didn’t want to get in the local newspaper because “they always state your age.” Ageism still hits women particularly hard. In my mom’s generation, a common joke at someone’s birthday was “I’m twenty-nine again.” In the “youth culture” of the 1960s (my generation), it was commonly said, “Never trust anyone over thirty!” We forgot that we might want to arrive at that age and beyond.
ENDING MY AGREEMENT WITH DENIAL
For a while I couldn’t get to the discharge. I realized I must be numb! I crossed my arms over my chest and said, “I’m not going to feel this! I’ve agreed to denying my age. I will keep refusing to accept my age and never face the old pain!”
Finally, the discharge poured out. I was admitting I’d agreed to the denial. It was as if I’d signed a contract to never face the grief or fear or try to understand the oppression. I kept having memories and insights. It occurred to me that in Western culture there are “phases of life”—babyhood, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, retirement, old age. In each there are expectations of how to be, what we are supposed to do or not do. As a young child I wanted to be older. I wanted to go to school, date, get a driver’s license, become twenty-one. Over time, birthdays became less welcome. There were jokes about getting old, and self-invalidation, judgments, cruel stereotypes, and eventually shame at being who we were at a particular age.
If we reach our nineties or hundreds, there can be a consolation prize, a sort of celebrity status. We are considered heroic, especially if we are still relatively “able-bodied” and don’t need much help. We may be asked for “the secret” of reaching that age. There can be a kind of (false) respect. But the dismissal, the invisibility, the assumption of incompetence and insignificance are still there. We are expected to “age gracefully,” whatever that means—perhaps we don’t show how pissed off [angry] we are at age oppression. We may be regarded as “cute” or accused of being in “our second childhood.” Older women are often called “little old ladies.”
DISABILITY AND AGEISM
We are likely to become disabled as we get older. We assume our bodies “wear out,” and our accumulated distresses may contribute to physical problems. For those who are disabled before older age, aging with disability is a double oppression, which comes on top of multiple oppressions for those in other marginalized constituencies. (“Aging with a disability” is now an important focus of the disability rights community.)
Despite having age-related disabilities, older people may resist being connected to the disability community. My late husband, Mark, was a wheelchair user. My Aunt Alice became increasingly disabled in her late eighties. She had hearing and vision loss and was unable to walk. However, she refused to use a wheelchair and therefore couldn’t leave her house. She would tell Mark, “You handicapped people are amazing!” She was much more disabled than Mark but could not imagine taking on the identity of a disabled person. She said she was “just old.”
The prospect of depending on others for help is often frightening. People fear memory loss, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease—being “senile.” However, as with sexism, racism, and other oppressions, these conditions are the excuse for oppression, not the cause.
MORE DENIAL
In addition to aging and disability, we fear death, loss, and feelings of grief and fear. Without discharge, it’s too difficult to face the painful emotion, so we deny our feelings. We wall them off from our conscious thoughts. We go numb, and this distorts reality.
Denial of death is pervasive in my U.S culture. Without discharge, many people cannot explore their questions, fears, confusions, and uncertainties about death. Unless we discharge our grief about having lost loved ones, we can’t confront our feelings about our own deaths. The many jokes about death can be our best attempt at discharge.
CLIMATE DENIERS
I now feel more compassion for climate deniers. Without discharge, it can seem too hard to face the terrifying predictions; our part in environmental exploitation; our collusion with racism, class oppression, and frozen needs for material things that damage the planet. We might have to face the sacrifices and enormous changes that will be required. However, large numbers of people will have to face and feel these emotions if we are to heal the planet. I’m now committed to sharing RC more widely. I want everyone to discharge the feelings behind their denial of the climate emergency, face what is actually happening, and do what it takes to change it.
El Cerrito, California, USA
(Present Time 203, April 2021)