Community Chat

[wonderfulworld]

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@mistriTsquirrel wrote:

My first thought when reading this was "what an idiot."

But I thought about it more, and I realized that this guy probably uses denial to cope with stressful situations.  This can happen when a person does not know how to deal with these types of problems in a healthy and adaptive way.  In his mind, he's not putting himself in danger, because a) it's not going to be that bad, b) he's tough enough to make it through and/or c) a higher power will protect him from harm.  So he isn't thinking he will be putting anyone else in danger by doing what he's doing, because he believes that things won't be that bad.

Denial is something that many people employ, to various degrees.  It can be psychologically protective at times when nothing can be done to change the outcome of a situation, and it can be maladaptive in situations where it keeps people from doing something that could help them.  

And denial isn't something that only stupid people employ, even though it sure looks like stupidity at times.  It is actually quite common, and a dash of it could even be considered healthy.  Like many other things in life, it becomes a problem when it's overdone.

Also, I don't know how much the guy knows about the structure he is in, or how much he knows about survival techniques or anything else.  Maybe he knows much more than I do about stuff like that and he will be just fine.  ::shrug::

I'm not saying he's doing the right thing, I'm just offering other views on the subject.

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Agreed...and maybe a dash of 'magical thinking' thrown in too!