What causes denial?

I know that denial is a very common experience in those diagnosed with DID but...

What causes you to experience denial?

Well....I just tried to delete this post because I thought people might find the topic disturbing but it didn't work. So I will continue with my thoughts...

I have had my doubts about diagnoses that have been given to me and I have made mistakes while trying to figure things out...but I have never doubted symptoms or the few memories I've kept.

Or is denial simply a part of recovering memories and discovering parts? Because I have done neither and maybe that is why I have never experienced it.

For me denial at first was not experiencing memories or learning about my parts. Or knowing I really even had parts . It was all underground.
Then it started to come up and I self diagnosed DID then was professionally diagnosed... at that point I was pretty ambivalent so denial kicked in again .
I knew I had symptoms and voices but it was difficult to really accept diagnosis-just so shocking . I didn’t know how to think about it , come to terms with what it meant. It changed so much . My history, my present, my future.

Denial serves to protect from overwhelming pain, fear, trauma , knowledge... it sort of cushions the blow until I’m ready to handle the reality of situation.

generally speaking denial is a defense mechanism.
it keeps us from having to deal with a reality that seems so overwhelming we cant take it.
if we face the reality of parts we have to face our inner experience, which is usually severely painful. it also means to ackowledge major trauma, that close people harmed us etc.
denial is protecting us from all that. if we make ourselves believe that it is not true then we dont have to face any of the scary, painful, terrifying things.

for some of us we learned denial from abusers, who kept telling us that we made things up. we enter a learned pattern. if you take a close look at the alternative explanations of why you are showing these symptoms, there is a high chance that it is something that abusers told you.
we for example tend to tell ourselves that we are just too lazy to take care of our life and ourselves, so we make up this disorder. the mother used to tell us that we are too lazy to live. others have heard other things and we tend to return to these alternative explanations during denial.

DID IS denial, in my opinion, that stops gradually once you become aware of your parts, experiences, etc.

If you alterate in session, right. Someone should share, if some of you all don't remember then the doctors are correct. From that point it should be something that explains what you wrote at intake. If you go walk out the door in denial with nothing but denial inside at next session don't have anything to say or don't experience anything. I think psychoeducation, but your system might want to be good with a friend like a therapist or you could be hiding it from yourself.

Yeah, I also think that denial happens when acknowledging something would be overwhelming.

For me it often has to do with preserving relationships.
So if I "forget" something that happened, it allows me to continue to be close to that person.

I think something that can cause denial is thinking about how people will react when you tell them you have DID or any mental disorder. Like all the people who will say you don't have it, no matter the evidence you present that shows you do.

The first time I realized something was seriously "wrong" was when I experienced co-consciousness (right term?) and I was afraid for my child, not myself. I had been afraid before and tried to "talk down" my "rage" and convince "myself" we dont want to hurt others or self sabotage etc but this was completely different. I was immediately aware that I was not in any control of my body and the place where my thoughts were supposed to be were replaced with this ladys very very disturbing thoughts and plans. My child was fine and didnt notice anything happened but I was not fine and I was terrified.

After that I researched and found dissociation information. I was so scared by what happened and more dissociated events that were not threatning just confusing that it wasnt but a few months later I completely forgot and brushed it off if the topic came up in reading.

It was too much too soon, it was scary and I felt insane. That is why I was in denial. Before that I just had no clue about anything and denial/unaware was just who I was.

Now that I am working to accept and remind myself every day I notice denial happens when I have really important things to take care of or if I start hearing "seriously, you believe that?" Etc in my head. Then I remember that if I can have a conversation with a voice in my head and it has its own responses that I cannot control or predict then I am back to square one of "okay, you're right. I do have this."

Im new here, hope I helped.

Our condition was created by an impossible paradox of needing those who have hurt us. We had to adapt various instincts to cope with a frightening and unpredictable environment. You cannot approach someone and be afraid of them at the same time, etc. But that is the dilemma of a child with an abusive or unstable caregiver. They're caught in an endless double-bind, gaslighting and pain. The child begins to develop multiple streams of thought to process confusing and contradictory information and contain the trauma. By the nature of their development some parts will deny or be unaware of others.

I keep coming back over and over to this thread. So I figure I should try to write something.

Denial plays games with my mind constantly. I read everyones words here and they ring true but I cant retain what they say. Denial inside our head is like “double think” where we can manage to make 2 opposite ideals coexist – and not notice the contradiction at all.
Like Myce said in their post. We found a way to want someone whom we were terrified of at the same time - and found a way to make this plausible in our head. But it has seeped into all our thinking processes and affects how we work from day to day. One idea drops out so another can go in even when there is no contridiction… because that’s the way its always been done for nearly 50 years. Makes for a very wishy washy state of mind sometimes.
Its been so effective a strategy I’ve only, in the last year even noticed it and it makes my head spin to try to keep a grasp.
Re-reading this – I doubt I have made much sense… but anyway.