Denial is a river
By Sabith Khan
PROMPT — The way I see it ...
There are many funny family stories in every family. Here is mine: a family member, who was an English learner thought that the word denial was an expression. As in “The Nile,” and meant that you were so drowning in delusions that you couldn’t see the truth. For many years they maintained this assumption and it was broken only when a family member clarified the actual meaning for them.
Denial, the dictionary tells us, is a statement that something is not true or does not exist: a refusal to accept reality. But my body had its own dictionary
***
My own experience of this word is far more intimate, more real. When I had the stroke on Nov 9, 2025, this word took on a new meaning.
People often asked me as I was recovering from the stroke: "How do you feel?"
My honest to God answer: I felt OK.
Mentally, I felt “normal,” literally three days after the stroke, except for my impaired mobility and exhaustion after the slightest effort.
Cognitively & emotionally, I mostly felt fine. Yes, I’d forget the words for certain actions or certain people; but mostly I thought I was functioning well.
Thankfully, neither my brain nor my body was telling me that something traumatic had happened to me. Sensations were almost the same (my right arm had slight loss of sensitivity) and I couldn’t move my fingers, but other than that, I felt OK. Even though my mobility was impaired, I felt it was temporary and that I could recover.
I felt OK because I wasn't alone. The physical technicians: men, usually, well-built and buff; helped me to the bathroom. They were gentle in a way their gym-honed bodies didn't suggest. And I was grateful, though I didn't say it. Gratitude, I was learning, was easier than grief.
Four days after the stroke, I surely felt a bit off when I tried to write my journal. My fingers wouldn’t hold the pen. I was not able to move them with the dexterity I was used to. Besides, the grip on the pen wasn’t strong enough, the pen kept slipping.
I didn’t think too much about it. “Just a minor symptom of the stroke. It’ll go away,” I told myself as I tried to cope with what had happened.
My internal dialog didn’t reach panic levels, though I was a bit concerned with the physical state of my own body. At 44 years age, the label of “disabled” didn’t sit well with me. I wasn’t ready yet to accept that my body and mind had been permanently altered, for the worse.
“I am young, able and strong. Even if something is wrong, I’ll recover quickly,” I kept telling myself. All that positive thinking literature I had read as a teenager and also religious sermons my (late) mother had given me, came in handy.
My wife was devastated with the turn of events, but I could tell that she was trying her best not to show her reaction. But despite her stoicism, there were moments when she let me know that my inability to do certain things which I did pre-stroke, quite effortlessly, was impossible. Something as mundane as brushing my teeth with my right hand. So, she gently suggested I try using my left hand, which I did.
After a few tries, I was very good at using my left hand.
The stroke was teaching me a few new skills and being ambidextrous was one of them. I took this as a lesson in life, to be grateful for that ability in my left hand to adapt so fast and so easily. It was truly a miracle.
***
It wasn’t until weeks later, when a doctor in white overalls strode into my hospital room used the word that I had been avoiding.
Was my reaction to this catastrophe “Normal”? Why wasn’t I mourning the loss of my mobility or strength?
I asked the shrink at the outpatient hospital I was at, a few weeks out. This is after nearly a month of the initial stroke.
“You are in denial.” He said.
“Denial from what?” I asked, a bit perturbed by his analysis.
“From the trauma and how serious it is,” he replied.
“Is that a bad thing, the denial, I mean?”
“Not necessarily. In your case, it may be helping you move forward and deal with your situation the best you can,” he said.
That was the first lesson from my stroke: I was interpreting and re-interpreting the events as I had seen and felt them. It was certainly traumatic to be in this vulnerable position, to have nearly died three times in a span of ten days; but somehow it didn’t “feel” strange. My “normal” had changed, even though it didn’t feel that way. I’d have to go beyond just how my body felt: a new language had to be learnt to figure out how I was really doing.
Before the stroke, “how are you doing?” meant just that; but now, that very sentence could mean, “Are you able to go to the bathroom on your own?” or “Can you brush your teeth with your right hand?” or “Can you write that email to your supervisor or HR, explaining what had happened to you, in Mexico City?"
This new language was layered, demanding deliberation and explicit detail. But where did I stop? Where did honesty become TMI? And where did discretion become a surrender of dignity?
Before the stroke, I had made a career out of words.
At Ogilvy PR, I crafted crisis communications for billion-dollar clients. I won awards for campaigns that turned on a single phrase. And now, I couldn't remember the word for 'spoon.' The irony was not lost on me.
Sometimes, you learn new words, sometimes your vocabulary and along with it, your entire worldview gets an update.
Denial had worked in my favor by blocking out the negative and focusing on the positive, on helping me focus on what I had left, rather than what I had lost.
Looking back, this has been my strategy for as long as I can remember. As a migrant, as a traveler, as someone who constantly puts their life and well-being in others hands, this is an attitude I have had to develop.
When people use the word denial, it is seen mostly as a negative quality. As if we are running away from reality, but in my case; my denial helped me accept reality and almost heal it.
For this, I am re-constructing this word in my life. Denial is a river after all, I have learned how to swim.
Sabith Khan is a scholar of philanthropy, writer, and photographer living in Southern California. His work sits at the intersection of storytelling, memory, and movement; writing frequently about migration, exile, and diaspora. During the early 2000s, he freelanced extensively in India for publications such as Deccan Herald, The Times of India, The Hindu, and The Week, and later wrote on diaspora issues for Little India Magazine. After a long hiatus from freelancing, Sabith has returned to the craft, publishing recently in The Boston Globe. When he is not teaching or taking photographs, you will find him exploring the world with his wife and toddler, Sami. More at: sabithkhan.com
