I meant that sometimes we might find ourselves coming from a place where we've had a hard day or week, we're at the ragged edge, the only thing that promises to make us feel better is (a drink, a smoke, a long nap, a two-hour bath, a box of cookies, watching a night of bad TV, flipping off the boss...) so we do, whether it's supposed to be bad for us or not, and don't see that we have much of a choice in the matter. Somebody watching from a safe distance might say we're "in denial" because we aren't worried enough about what we're doing to ourselves.

Other times we might find ourselves coming from a place where we're expecting to find we're "in denial," being too easy on ourselves, but aren't about to let ourselves be caught at it. We go out of our way to prove we're not: no drinks, no smokes, no napping, no sugar, no TV, suck it up with the boss. It looks like the very opposite of denial even though it's no better a place and probably not a whole lot better for us. My parents seemed reassured to see me in this space because they were afraid of finding me in denial, "spoiled". I don't have a good name for this place but "scrupulosity" seems to point in the same general direction. I found it fascinating how that article I linked to, managed to nicely debunk the way I think when I'm being too hard on myself. I was wondering if it did anything of the kind for you.