Leah,
Thank you so much for this post. "You can't move on without validation" is like finding a missing piece of the puzzle of my life.
You made me realize that validation, on many levels, is something I seek.
I never knew what "validation" meant until about 1 year ago when my T said to me that my parents almost "never validated my feelings". After T said that, I sat for a few seconds in silence and then thought to myself "Yes, that's it!! Up until that moment, I almost never felt validated. Hell, up until that moment, I had no awareness of what validation meant.
Now, I realize that I often did not trust my inner voice and that in a great part has caused me to live an emotionally empty life. Now, I realize that not having my feelings validated while I was growing up has left me with a black hole of needy emptiness in my psyche.
I realize the validation you're talking about is the validation of someone bearing witness (a la Alice Miller) to the effects of the dysfunctional FOO. Often, this type of validation comes from a T, but I definately get validation on this board (Bless and thank you ALL). This type of validation (the witness) feels so GOOD, like someone finally HEARS and understands me.
When T validated that my parents did NOT validate my feelings, I felt like a NEW PERSON. But, this validation also made me very sad because I realized that, up until 1.5 years ago, I have lived almost my entire life in a fog of blind denial and unawareness.
My sister also does not want to talk about the dysfunction in our FOO. I think that my sister does not even know that our FOO was dysfunctional.
My parents always told us (during childhood and beyond) how lucky we were to have such a wonderful life (all the toys, good schools, summer camp, etc) because my parents grew up poor and had very little. GUILT!!!!
I now believe that because my parents drummed into me that I had a perfect and prosperous upbringing, it's been very, very hard for me to accept that my FOO was dysfunctional and to accept that the dysfunction has caused me long term damage. Until about 1.5 years ago, I didn't even know or realize that my FOO was dysfunctional!! SHOCK, DENIAL, UNAWARENESS!!!.
SH#T!! The last 1.5 years has really been a rude awakening for me.
Recently, I subtly discussed with my sister, who I believe is an N, some of the FOO dysfunction. I didn't outright tell her "I think our parents and grandparents were Ns and our upbringing was very dysfunctional". Instead, I reminisced about some of our parents' dysfunctional behaviors during our childhood.
In response, my sister basically made excuses for our parents and said "That's how they were and they tried their best".
I was the codependent golden, hero child and my sister was the scapegoat. My T said that my parents damaged my sister much more than they damaged me and I feel very badly about that. My T also told me that my sister is mentally ill and that my parents were in denial about sister's mental illness and instead of helping her, they punished her for not being more perfect. I don't know if my T is correct in her diagnosis, but this broke my heart. I would like to help my sister, but she's really difficult to help.
During one of our recent arguments, my sister went into one of her typical yelling rages and she threw back at me the prior discussion I had with her about our parents' dysfunctionality. She basically said (yelled) "I don't want to talk about what happened 20 years ago, don't ask me about it anymore, it's over, forget about it and move on". So, for now, I can't discuss with sister her childhood memories. Thus, no sharing with sister or validation from sister of hindsight impressions and my sister is the only witness.
Thanks for listening.
dazed
