Ok when people talk about coming our discovering themselves I've heard two major words being used, namely denial and repression. Is their a difference between the two or are they basically the same thing? I know I've seen repression used more often in the form of someone actively trying to be hetro and Denial as more along the lines of reflexly trying to deny having homosexual feelings in the first place but are these accurate differences or is it just a false correlation?
For me I think they are different. Denial in my mind is someone who is refusing to believe or accept that they are gay, not just to the world around them but in their own mind. Repression I think is where someone inside probably knows they are gay but pushes the feelings back down deep inside because they don't want to deal with them or aren't in a position to deal with them. I think sometimes there is a bit of both. Other people might see the terms differently though.
From a psychological perspective, they're pretty close. Repression is entirely unconscious. If someone is in denial of something, then there's basically no part of them that accepts it, so in effect, it is an unconscious thing as well.
In this instance repression is when you force yourself to be the what you are not and denial is when you have done it for so long you actually believe your own untruth. Been there
Suppression is the word I meant sorry - that’s consciously denying and repression is when you actually believe it because you’ve been denying for so long
