Is Dishonesty denial or Denial Dishonesty.

I have been pondering on the difference and the not so apparent obvious has struck me. I have been asking myself for sometime if the actions of others are dishonest or simple denial. Then I realised that both possibilities are the same thing.

A person is in denial when they refuse to acknowledge what is really happening. Making someone else believe in a denial based appraisal, is in fact dishonesty. If you try and convince someone of a situation that you know not to be true, then you are involved equally in denial of the truth and thus dishonesty. If you are simply dishonest you are in denial about morality, ethics or responsibility. Either way, you are unlikely to have a spring in your step on the journey of life.

If something can not survive with honesty then denial may seem like it will keep it going, but the reality is that the dishonesty will catch up. More than this, denial means that there is no vent for expressing concerns and the result is anxiety and pressure.

I think this is where there may be some separation. Dishonesty sucks you into a web that it is difficult to extradite yourself from. One dishonest statement leads to another and before you know it the toll of keeping up with it all, becomes unbearable.

Denial is shutting your eyes to the obvious, refusing to acknowledge cause and effect. Denial is about addiction to an idea of what should be. Deep routed denial results in the symptoms of addiction: loss of sense of values and morality, self centredness, illusion of control, isolation. Denial bids farewell to reality in such a way as to cause confusion, obsessiveness, paranoid thinking and control.

The maintaining of denial has no space for rational thought. The decision making process is wound up in confusion and thus those in denial will be forced to lurch from crisis to crisis. What is really interesting is that whether someone is in denial or simply dishonest, they will project those thought processes onto those around them - assuming that all other individuals are equally dishonest. In doing so, they negate the need for reflection and are able to deny the need to take responsibility for situations. Far worse is an addicts thought process that in fact, everyone else must be too blame.

Those that practice denial or dishonesty walk a lonely path. There is no coalition, simply us and them, me or you, no room for ambiguity. Both denial and dishonesty are self serving and those willing to practise either need no one else to assist.

Consider it like this: Your chum is an alcoholic, you both get on just great when you both are drunk. Sober up and you become less appealing since you make your drunk friend feel bad about being the only drunk. You can rationalise with him as much as you like but it will be fruitless since in the mind of the alcoholic, he doesn't have a drink problem. If he doesn't have an issue then the problem is you - since you are no fun anymore.

With an alcoholic, everyone around them suffers and yet as long as he denies the reality and continues the dishonesty, the person that really suffers is him. The more he denies, the more he drinks, the more he drinks the more paranoid he gets and the more he needs to drink.

So is there really any difference? I think not.