Title: Hide
Prompt #: 0031
Word Count: 545
Rating: PG
Characters: Booker
Booker's defense mechanisms help him hide. He hides feelings, emotions, weakness; anything that can give him away. Anything that would let people know he isn't as sure of himself or his actions as he likes people to believe.
Intellectualization is the removal of emotions from emotional experiences; discussing painful events in a detached or uncaring way. Someone who intellectualizes may become separated from their true feelings and not know what they feel at all or have trouble putting it into words.
"Hey, Dennis, are you okay?" Judy asked softly.
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" Booker asked.
"I thought you were pretty protective of that girl… This must be hard."
"The fact that she's dead? It happens, Jude. There was nothing I could do about it, was there?" Booker said indifferently. "Besides, I didn't know her all that well. It wasn't like she was my mother or something," he smirked, despite the fact Judy didn't find it at all amusing.
Withdrawal entails removing yourself from events that could trigger painful thoughts or feelings. It can take the forms of silence, running away, drugs, or alcohol abuse. Talking to friends could prompt them to ask about painful events, so you avoid them. This defense inevitably leads to a sense of alienation and loneliness which can cause more pain than what it's worth.
"Dennis, I love you," Jessica says, looking into his eyes.
Booker drops his eyes to the ground, and bites his lip. He almost looks back up at her, but can't. "I, uh, gotta go… I'll talk to you later," he says with one foot already halfway out the door.
Projection is something we all do. It involves taking something from ourselves and placing it outside of us, onto others. Sometimes we project positive or sometimes negative aspects of ourselves. Sometimes we project things we don't want to acknowledge about ourselves, and so we turn it around and put it on others. The problem with this is that we still suffer under them. For example, "It's not that I made a stupid mistake, it's that you are critical of everything I do!" Instead of feeling our true feeling of inadequacy, we suffer with the feeling that everyone is critical of us.
"You sound just like my girlfriend," Booker says angrily, "She's always on this I want to get to know you better stuff, let's communicate."
"And you have a problem with that?" the therapist asked.
"No, I don't have a problem with it! What is it with you? I came here to talk about my case and all you can do is nag me like my girlfriend," he snapped.
Minimizing is related to denial. When someone minimizes, they accept what happened, but in a weakened form.
"I thought you were cutting back on those," Hanson said as Booker lit up a cigarette. "They'll give you lung cancer, you know."
Booker inhaled and exhaled slowly before recognizing his remark. "Yeah, well, this case is really stressing me a bit, you know? Once we wrap it up I'll stop again; it's not a problem."
Defenses are something we use to protect ourselves from pain, but they can become a problem if we rely too heavily on them.
