dear AusHam ( AH ), an interesting proposition, but it's a good one.
Well if you were a hermit and suggest by living alone means living in a cave isolated from the world, they would still be facing problems, like not catching any fish for dinner, because they run out of bait, or where they live is not an appropriate area where the fish come any more, so this is then a problem.
They can't leave their cave to get any food, so what are they going to do, problem 2, or their clothes aren't warm enough and get pneumonia, and become very sick, problem 3, and so the list goes on, so these are challenges and perhaps mistakes, so they aren't immune to not facing any hardship.
Whereas being in denial can have two meanings, first of all they refuse to accept any blame for what has happened, and the other side is that people criticise you for not having any responsibility for something going wrong, but being in denial this may or may not upset you, so it's rather dubious, but certainly open for discussion.
What do I believe it is, well I probably I tend to lean towards the latter, simply because when I was in denial I rejected the blame for anything, because I didn't believe that I needed any help, and wasn't honest nor ready to accept my problems. Geoff.
