Author Topic: Invalidation (for Shame Slayer)  (Read 1426 times)

Gabben

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Invalidation (for Shame Slayer)
« on: May 29, 2008, 12:11:47 PM »
SS -- I found this article helpful as I have been working through rage this past year to get to the pain under it and feel that raw hurt...knowing that through the pain I will be transformed into a more peaceful and loving person. This is what I see you trying to do also...your trying to heal, grow and love...keep going...I'm a cheerleader for being real and being really honest about our wounds and how much it just hurts.

Lise
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Invalidation is to reject, ignore, mock, tease, judge, or diminish someone's feelings. Constant invalidation may be one of the most significant reasons a person with high innate emotional intelligence suffers from unmet emotional needs later in life.(1)

A sensitive child who is repeatedly invalidated becomes confused and begins to distrust his own emotions. He fails to develop confidence in and healthy use of his emotional brain-- one of nature's most basic survival tools. To adapt to this unhealthy and dysfunctional environment, the working relationship between his thoughts and feelings becomes twisted. His emotional responses, emotional management, and emotional development will likely be seriously, and perhaps permanently, impaired. The emotional processes which worked for him as a child may begin to work against him as an adult. In fact, one defintion of the so-called "borderline personality disorder" is "the normal response of a sensitive person to an invalidating environment" (2)

Psychiatrist R.D. Laing said that when we invalidate people or deny their perceptions and personal experiences, we make mental invalids of them. He found that when one's feelings are denied a person can be made to feel crazy even they are perfectly mentally healthy. (Reference)

Recent research by Thomas R. Lynch, Ph.D. of Duke University supports the idea that invalidation leads to mental health problems. He writes "...a history of emotion invalidation (i.e., a history of childhood psychological abuse and parental punishment, minimization, and distress in response to negative emotion) was significantly associated with emotion inhibition (i.e., ambivalence over emotional expression, thought suppression, and avoidant stress responses). Further, emotion inhibition significantly predicted psychological distress, including depression and anxiety symptoms.) (Reference)

Invalidation goes beyond mere rejection by implying not only that our feelings are disapproved of, but that we are fundamentally abnormal. This implies that there is something wrong with us because we aren't like everyone else; we are strange; we are different; we are weird.

None of this feels good, and all of it damages us. The more different from the mass norm a person is, for example, more intelligent or more sensitive, the more he is likely to be invalidated. When we are invalidated by having our feelings repudiated, we are attacked at the deepest level possible, since our feelings are the innermost expression of our individual identities.

Psychological invalidation is one of the most lethal forms of emotional abuse. It kills confidence, creativity and individuality.





Telling a person she shouldn't feel the way she does feel is akin to telling water it shouldn't be wet, grass it shouldn't be green, or rocks they shouldn't be hard. Each persons's feelings are real. Whether we like or understand someone's feelings, they are still real. Rejecting feelings is rejecting reality; it is to fight nature and may be called a crime against nature, "psychological murder", or "soul murder." Considering that trying to fight feelings, rather than accept them, is trying to fight all of nature, you can see why it is so frustrating, draining and futile. A good guideline is:

First accept the feelings, then address the behavior.

One the great leaders in education, Haim Ginott, said this:

Primum non nocere- First do no harm. Do not deny your teenager's perception. Do not argue with his experience. Do not disown his feelings.
We regularly invalidate others because we ourselves were, and are often invalidated, so it has become habitual. Below are a few of the many ways we are invalidated:

We are told we shouldn't feel the way we feel
We are dictated not to feel the way we feel
We are told we are too sensitive, too "dramatic"
We are ignored
We are judged
We are led to believe there is something wrong with us for feeling how we feel

You Can't Heal an Emotional Wound with Logic
People with high IQ and low EQ tend to use logic to address emotional issues. They may say, "You are not being rational. There is no reason for you to feel the way you do. Let's look at the facts." Businesses, for example, and "professionals" are traditionally out of balance towards logic at the expense of emotions. This tends to alienate people and diminish their potential.

Actually, all emotions do have a basis in reality, and feelings are facts, fleeting though they may be. But trying to dress an emotional wound, with logic tends to either confuse, sadden or infuriate a person. Or it may eventually isolate them from their feelings, with a resulting loss of major part of their natural intelligence.

Remember:


You can't solve an emotional problem, or heal an emotional wound, with logic alone.

There are many forms of invalidation. Most of them are so insidious that we don't even know what is happening. We know that something doesn't feel good, but we sometimes can't put our finger on it. We have been conditioned to think that invalidation is "normal." Indeed, it is extremely common, but it is certainly not healthy.






     

Gaining Strength

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Re: Invalidation (for Shame Slayer)
« Reply #1 on: May 29, 2008, 12:46:23 PM »
I found this article helpful as I have been working through rage this past year to get to the pain under it and feel that raw hurt...knowing that through the pain I will be transformed into a more peaceful and loving person. This is what I see you trying to do also...your trying to heal, grow and love...keep going...I'm a cheerleader for being real and being really honest about our wounds and how much it just hurts.

I fully understand this process.  You have illuminated the path that I am on.  It is so helpful to know that you are on this path in front of me. 

I hate the feelings of anger and rage but I now know that this is a purposeful experience.  I am anxious to get to the wretched, painful feelings underneath.  Not so much to feel them as to get through them to the healing underneath.  It is such an encouragement to read your words.  thank you.

sKePTiKal

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Re: Invalidation (for Shame Slayer)
« Reply #2 on: May 29, 2008, 01:13:57 PM »
Excellent article Lise!

I wanted to add, that while all invalidation is, in essence "shaming" the person ...

there must be a special place saved in hell for people who would openly, intentionally shame a child for being themselves; for daring to have feelings separate and distinct from the "parents", for thinking for themselves... for being a whole, complete, separate, unique person....And then use this "conditional" criteria as the basis of giving or denying love.

Add my voice to the chorus of rage, over how much that hurts.
Success is never final, failure is never fatal.

Gabben

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Re: Invalidation (for Shame Slayer)
« Reply #3 on: May 29, 2008, 01:34:37 PM »
Amber,

And what a beautiful voice you have...I see so much gentleness, courage and love in you these days...not that is was not there in the past, perhaps my eyes were just not open enough?

Thank you for post -- I agree...children are so precious and every emotion and thought is pure...why do you do think Christ tells us that we must become like children in order to enter heaven?

The more we mourn our voices and the loss  of our real self...as much as if hurts, the more free we will become.

Lise


Gabben

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Re: Invalidation (for Shame Slayer)
« Reply #4 on: May 29, 2008, 01:43:15 PM »
I found this article helpful as I have been working through rage this past year to get to the pain under it and feel that raw hurt...knowing that through the pain I will be transformed into a more peaceful and loving person. This is what I see you trying to do also...your trying to heal, grow and love...keep going...I'm a cheerleader for being real and being really honest about our wounds and how much it just hurts.

I fully understand this process.  You have illuminated the path that I am on.  It is so helpful to know that you are on this path in front of me. 

I hate the feelings of anger and rage but I now know that this is a purposeful experience.  I am anxious to get to the wretched, painful feelings underneath.  Not so much to feel them as to get through them to the healing underneath.  It is such an encouragement to read your words.  thank you.

I hear you about the anger and rage...that stuff is raw and painful. One of the things that has really helped me this past year SS, is reflecting on Christ's suffering on the Cross. 

His last words were "Father into your hands I command my spirit."

I know that anger in me, that feisty spirit, is my inner child who never got the attention she needed and she is mad, screaming mad, if you know what I mean...her anger is really a defense for the raw hurt.

When I take my pain to the Cross and let it die so does that feisty spirit of anger (which is so uncomfortable)... In letting the anger die I become a new person, more meek...(for me that is relative :wink:)

SS, I take time out each day, it has become a practice, something which I eventually realized was the only way to quit seeking relief from seeking relief was to take 15 to 30 minutes out of my day and do a check in with my inner child....let her rant and rave in the silence of my heart until that pain starts surfacing...sometimes I slip back into my head again, well alot of times I do...But the moment I feel toxic I go south to my heart and embrace the pain.....release always comes....We had to live in pain and abuse for so many years, but we are getting better...together.

Lise


LilyCat

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Re: Invalidation (for Shame Slayer)
« Reply #5 on: May 29, 2008, 04:30:36 PM »
Lise,

That is such a powerful article, thank you.

My therapist talks about this concept in terms of "wiping yourself out" --that is, we do to ourselves what our family (parents) did.

That causes so much damage, I see it not only in myself but other group members and friends as well. It takes a lot of time to validate your own validity (????) but it is the root of building self-acceptance and self-confidence.

Thank you so much. I hope things are going well for you.

LC