Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt —  it’s a mind game we indulge in to evade pain. That’s why we try to avoid even talking about it. Since the experiences we’re trying to deny are “too terrible for words ” we use euphemisms such as “yeneh machlah” and “passed away.” We don’t even like to talk about denying; instead we talk about “the elephant in the room ” which means that there’s a major problem that everyone’s pretending doesn’t exist because they prefer not to talk about it. We also “turn a blind eye ” “look the other way ” and “turn a deaf ear” to people’s distress or bad behavior because as long as we aren’t aware we don’t have to feel bad.Like the saying goes: “I’m not in denial. I’m just very selective about the reality I accept.” First Line of DefenseMalka’s husband of 65 years has just had a brain hemorrhage. She sits by his bed day after day stroking his hand and talking to him though he never responds. The doctors tell her he won’t recover but she says “I know he’ll be all right. He’s a strong man.” She’s not ready just yet to face life without him so she develops an effective defense mechanism: denial.Denial is the first step in coming to grips with a trauma according toDr.ElisabethKübler-Ross the Swiss-American psychiatrist who wrote the groundbreaking On Death and Dying (1969) in which she introduces the five stages of grief. Denial protects Malka from the emotional shock and intense grief of being alone. It lets her shut out the new reality and develop a false preferable reality. That’s why it’s called a “defense mechanism”; it defends her from a sorrow that’s too intense to tolerate. As she gathers the emotional resources to cope with her new reality the denial will slowly dissipate. In time the trauma is sublimated — it’s put on a back burner in her mind where it’s neither quite forgotten nor quite remembered. Eventually as Malka becomes better able to accept her distress her denial will break down and she’ll be able to deal with the pain it contained.