self-lie

plural self-lies

1. rareA lie told to oneself.

   At the same time I want to hold on to the fact that each modality of the self-lie also performs the presence, albeit as an obscene underside, of a traumatic truth.

   1998, Judy Simons, Kate Fullbrook, Writing, a woman's business, page 139

   2 more examples

   And there comes even to the thinker an hour when he believes at last, that never will he be a social star nor great in anything but his thoughts, and he becomes resigned, which means convinced of the truth of the self-lie that all the lonely days he has been telling.

   1910, Alan Durward Mickle, The Great Longing: A Book for Vain People, page 161

   When people are exposed to information they cannot cope with, they steer away from that information. This state of denial may be an unintentional self-lie. It is a state of knowing and simultaneously not knowing.

   2019 May 22, Rachel Shenhav-Goldberg, “By going vegan, Israelis can avoid talking about human rights”, in +972 Magazine