Ilusions When We Need Them

The Persistence of Memory 1931 Salvador Dali

 My mother faints in my arms and I call an ambulance. Her life is saved with open-heart surgery, valve replacement, bypass and pacemaker, but the life she had is no longer. For three months I work, go to school, live at the hospital, rehabilitation facility and now I am glued to her side. She cannot be left alone for a minute. I move in with her, to feed her, medicate her, supply her oxygen, and take care of things she never imagined I would take of. I am diligent, optimistic and will do whatever it takes for my mother’s health to return, but I am getting worn. I pray for my sister to return from Paris to share responsibility. She finally arrives, but with different ideas, of long-term nursing homes and reverse-mortgages. She tells me that I am wrong to believe that my mother will get better and that our efforts will be futile. I don’t want to believe my sister. How can I go on if I lose hope? I’m in denial, just as Stella is, in Tennesse Williams’s play, A Streetcar Named Desire, when she says “I couldn’t go on believing her story and live with Stanley” (556). She is denying the rape, of course a horrible injustice of her sister Blanche, by her husband Stanley. She does this so that she can go on living the life she imagined, ignoring reality for her own survival. Eunice confirms this by telling her “Don’t ever believe it. Life has got to go on. No matter what happens, you’ve got to keep on going,” (557). Psychologically, denial can be a beneficial tool, maybe not for the long term but definitely for the short term.

In Philosophical Psychology, Jorg Friedrichs, writes in his article, Useful Lies: The Twisted Rationality of Denial, “At least in principle, denial is not irrational. When in denial, people follow what they feel to be in their best interest by minimizing real or perceived harm, thereby maximizing subjective and/or intersubjective wellbeing. Acknowledging a problem may lead to negative psychic and social effects such as fear, shame, and embarrassment.” The interesting thing is that my sister has used this tool,  “denial” most of her life. If you knew her, you would say she has a very similar character to Blanche DuBois. And I have always been a realist, not tolerant of pretense, just like Stanley Kowalski. But while in class, discussing and deciphering this play, my professor gives a personal example of her and her sister, and the way they each dealt with her father’s premature death. A rock hits me in the head with the realization that this is exactly my situation. A student in class also enlightens me with his interpretation of how illusions can create optimism. It occurs to me, that I have switched roles with my sister. I am Blanche, at the point of emotional breakdown and she is suddenly Stanley, raping me of my illusions.