Hope and denial get confused because they both sound cheerful from a distance. Denial needs the facts to be wrong. Hope can hold the accurate picture, including the parts that are genuinely bad, and still refuse to accept that the picture is permanent. It is a claim about time rather than a claim about now.

If you are in a hard stretch, you might try describing it honestly to yourself, without softening. Then name one way it could look different in a year. You do not have to believe the second part yet to write it down.