Because We Deserve Better
Reflections on Denial, Change, and the Hulu show Queenie
A few nights ago, a couple friends and I sat around my kitchen island to play “We’re Not Really Strangers” over vanilla ice cream and rum cake.
We flipped a few cards over, each question a little deeper than the former. And then this card came up: Is there anything you’re lying to yourself about?
I sat and searched through my life to answer this question with accuracy and accountability.
“Is there anything you’re lying to yourself about?” My friend repeated the question out loud. The two of them reflected aloud on their lives and justified that there was nothing they were lying to themselves about.
I listened with the intent to either identify a lie or state with confidence that I too, wasn’t lying to myself about anything but I hadn’t come to a conclusion before the next card had been picked up. We moved on, the question still lingering within me.
Days later, I sat with another friend, Cici, on zoom. We talked about life transitions and new journeys — the ones that come to us with very little warning. We could both agree that if we’re paying attention, we may get a little tug in our spirit letting us know that it’s time to transition and if we’re smart, we let go. If we’re afraid, we hold on.
In life, our next chapter can either come by surprise or with preparation. I prefer the latter, but the former usually happens when we’re in denial.
Denial, as defined by Psychology Today, is a defense mechanism in which an individual refuses to recognize or acknowledge objective facts or experiences. It’s an unconscious process that serves to protect the person from discomfort or anxiety.
Simply put, it is often seen as a refusal to believe or accept something as the truth.
I believe denial, while often painted as subtle oblivion, is actually choosing not to recognize the truth — which in essence, is choosing to believe a lie.
And there is no judgment there. Denial is a place we’ve all been in our lives. From the youngest to the oldest to the smartest to the not-the-brightest — we’ve all darkened denials doorstep a time or five in our lives. Some of us have been in denial about small things. Others of us have ignored the biggest elephant in the room. Either way, we can all probably relate to the feeling of wishing something wasn’t what it was.
Earlier this year, I experienced a situation with two of my close friends. I won’t detail what happened, but it was one of those moments that signaled to me that it may be time for our friendship to change.
I can recall breadcrumb moments within the past year that signaled an impending transition but I brushed it aside because I didn’t want our relationship to change. My past trauma around friendships compelled me to cling tightly to my current friendships, even as I was getting signs that it was time to transition. The truth is, I was in denial.
As I reflected on this, I thought of the show Queenie on Hulu.
If you haven’t seen it, it’s a Hulu original, adapted from the book of the same title by Candice Carty- Williams . The show features the life of a first generation UK Jamaican girl and her relationships — both familial and romantic.
The show portrays many revelations of how our past traumas dictate the decisions we make in the present and how we often neglect to identify poor relationship decisions because we fail to recognize we deserve better.
Spoiler alert: There is a moment in the show — where Queenie has just had sex with a guy who is into BDSM (sex that involves dominance, submission, and control). She slowly lowers her body down onto the toilet seat to pee, her thighs and ass seething with pain.
Despite how much pain she’s in, she continues to have sex with this guy, time and time again, warning him to be gentle; knowing deep within, that he just didn’t give a fuck enough to do so.
I watched this scene and thought about the ways in which we ignore the signs and allow ourselves to suffer because we think suffering is necessary to have what we want.
And I hate that for us. Because it’s so simple to decide that we deserve more simply by doing something different. But what is often simple, is not easy.
As I write, I’m reminded of something Cici said during our call about the idea of choosing what we deserve.
If we don’t think we deserve good relationships, we will tolerate toxic ones. If we don’t think we deserve peace, we’ll self sabotage. If we don’t think we deserve affirmation, we’ll speak poorly to ourselves. And if we don’t think we deserve change, we’ll stay where we are. We only put up with what we think we deserve.
The thing about denial is that you can only be in it for so long before the truth smacks you in the face — often in a grand way. The goal, I believe, is to acknowledge it before that happens.
The moment I acknowledged denial within my friendships, I was compelled to search my life for other areas where I may have been in denial. And to my surprise, I found a few other areas.
In confronting my denial, I’ve been able to ask myself a very important question: “What do you deserve?”
Do you deserve friendships that make you feel like an afterthought? Do you deserve a unhealthy body? Do you deserve to put yourself last? Do you deserve to go through life unhappy, drained, and resentful?
My answer is absolutely not; and suddenly, I had an answer to that question “Is there anything you’ve been lying to yourself about?”
From my friendships to my home dynamics, I realize I was in denial about the things in my life that needed to change & I was in denial about my ability to change them.
In denial, we fail to see a situation for what it is because we want so badly for it to be different — so badly in fact, that we completely deny reality.
I spent a lot of time complaining and feeling like a lesser version of myself, making excuses and ignoring the part I was playing in my own suffering before realizing I could just make a different choice.
Whether it’s relationships or other life situations, denial keeps us from recognizing and living the truth, which robs us of the opportunity to change what we don’t like.
We can’t always control the transitions that swoop into our lives without warning (whether exciting or challenging) but we can control how we respond to them.
I believe, it is not our responsibility to label a person, place, or thing as bad or dwell on how unfair a situation may be (while also acknowledging this is a very real and understandable emotion). I believe our responsibility is to choose what we want, what we need, and what we deserve.
The rest will be taken care of by something way bigger than us.
So… are you lying to yourself about anything?
Related Posts
