Avoidance and Denial – Not the Best Problem-Solving Strategies!

So, here’s a pretty gruesome picture of my poor thumb almost severed. Before you vomit or faint, please read on, so you can avoid creating a similar mess. (This is less of a story about blood and pain and more about how it happened).

My husband and I live in a lovely 40 year old home which has needed some window work for about the last 15 years. The windows are beautiful, all wooden framed and large, but all are what’s called “guillotine” windows. Guillotines used to be used for chopping off people’s heads, mostly during the French Revolution. When you’re referring to a window that way it unfortunately functions in the same manner – if you don’t hold onto the top window while opening the bottom one, whatever is underneath gets chopped off, in this case almost my whole thumb, as per the nasty picture above. Fortunately, I got to the ER in time for the docs to sew the laceration back together, and now, three weeks later it’s all in one piece again.

The moral of this little story, however, is that my husband and I used avoidance and denial about the window problem for many years rather than doing our research and finding out if, in fact, they all needed to be replaced (to the tune of about $30,000.) or if we could have them repaired (cost: $3000. and one intact thumb). We just pretended the problem wasn’t really one, as we routinely positioned blocks of wood to keep windows open, or hammered top windows shut. It felt like one of those totally un-fun expenses, like getting a new septic tank or a new well, so we avoided it. The irony is that I pulled this little stunt at the beginning of the evening of my husband’s birthday, so we “celebrated” him in the ER this year.

If you too have any issues which you’ve been coping with through avoidance and denial, it might be time to ask yourself what the ultimate price may be for your “problem solving” strategy. How might you be victimizing yourself in the long run? Who else might be negatively effected if you keep pretending the problem isn’t really such a big deal? Might you be making a mountain out of a mole hill the way we did? Do you too have any body parts which might ultimately be compromised if you keep putting things off?

Think about it, and figure out some real solution to the problem…

Humbly,

Susan