Invalidation: The Root Of All Evil?

[bankhead]

My mother is incapable of validating any of the things that happen to me. But something in me is drawn to testing this. Yesterday I was thinking about something that my father did to my brothers and me and I decided to call my mother and ask her about her memory of those events.

My oldest brother and I often got carsick when we went to our river house on the weekends. My father would refuse to do things that would help prevent carsickness like letting my brother sit in the front seat or have the window down or drink cokes or take the curves more slowly. And when my brother or I became sick my father would rage and start with the belittling tirades.

When I asked my mother if she remembered this she said she did and then she began talking about how she got carsick as a child. After a few minutes I brought her back to what happened to my brother and me and she responded by saying, "I don't know why your father did that."

That was it. But it was a helpful interchange in that I got clear affirmation about her inability. I'm not sure what I am going to do with this but it does help me know why validation is so critical to me. I am praying for healing.

 

[Tinyflame]

Bankhead it would it explain if you felt guilty or 'bad' getting sick now.
You can't win when you can't stop something involuntary, and then get blamed for it.
I hope you get your healing.

 

[ms spock]

What a new concept that "normal" people don't want to go deeper in to conversation. Here you have written it so clearly. I see it and get it. I've always wondered why I was interested in things with more depth and rued the frustration that most are caught into the shallow but I never would have made the connection about people who have experienced family based PTSD. That makes so much sense. It helps me understand how I became ostracized.

I am not good with chitchat but I think I might be able to develop that ability as a means of connecting with others. thank you for putting down these ideas in such a clear way.

A lot of other things are being discussed amongst those "shallow" conversations.

Of course there are just morons as well but there are different socially proscribed ways of discussing some things. If someone complains to you with great sadness about the rain at their cricket match and you show empathy - after awhile the conversation shifts deeper and then you hear the heartbreak about a sick child or so forth.

Some people need to have lots and lots of "shallow" conversations before they trust other people.

This is a lot about nuances, insights, realising that desparate needy damaged bit isn't going to be rescued - you are going to have to heal yourself - timing, empathy, kindness and listening sometimes not to the content but the emotion that some people talk about an issue.

For instance someone might be suicidally depressed and battling suicide ideation so I see them and I go closer to see if their body language is receptive to my approach - then we might have a totally unrelated conversation to their ptsd or their suicidal ideation - passionately about the destruction of some habitat or some such thing - how someone spilt something on their favourite item of clothing. It is not the content
(though I am pretty open to that most of the time) it is the connection and the care and a little bit of TLC. People will thank me later - was really down that day etc and that is good - we all pass it around.

Up close and personal. straight up, is scary for a lot of people because it is seen as an indicator that the new person doesn't have boundaries, perhaps they may be perceived that they don't care about others etc etc - that is also context based and nuanced.

I am so good at reading it for other people. But find myself bewlidered at times my self. I guess I don't have a fully formed idea of who I am. But still I am often spot on.

I am sorry I have merged in 6-8-10 types of social engagement here.

 

[Helliepig]

Sadly the remaining members of my clan are too toxic for me to ever ask their perception of things, to validate anything or otherwise. Perception of what, they'd ask. How dare you even suggest there was anything? M&D were perfect and it is and was you that is the problem. It makes me feel sick even thinking about it. None of them ever contact me anyway and although I wrestle sometimes with the desire to try and build something with them, I always come back to this realisation that therein would lie more madness.

That's why it's so good for me on here, to hear from others who are open and not in toxic denial that anything ever happened to them.

What I want to know is, if they're from the same family and the same dynamics, (although not scapegoated and ??abused,) if they can't bear anything to do with it and react with rage at any hint of it.... how come they aren't in pain/truth searching/ever missing or wanting anything from me??? Do they still, after 40 years, still believe that I'm so terrible??? That seems exceptionally childish and plain weird to me. Sadly, in a way, not being able to see them and observe their behaviours and beliefs and level of functioning, I am in some ways stuck in a time warp and, at best, trying to understand things that I can't examine or question with the benefit of more healing.


The crazy world of my family.

 

[ms spock]

Sadly the remaining members of my clan are too toxic for me to ever ask their perception of things, to validate anything or otherwise... was you that is the problem.

I so feel for your place this is very hard when there is no one else to say. "Yes I witnessed that." "Yes it happened!" No acknowledgement is very, very, very hard,

I wrestle sometimes with the desire to try and build something with them, I always come back to this realisation that therein would lie more madness.

And that is hard to sit with when you want to belong and get TLC, be acknowledged and seen.

That's why it's so good for me on here, to hear from others who are open and not in toxic denial that anything ever happened to them.

Along time ago I had a time where one of my sisters said yes this all did happen and remembered so much and it was such a weight off my shoulders. I felt real again. I can't even describe what it felt like.

What I want to know is, if they're from the same family and the same dynamics, (although not scapegoated and ??abused,) if they can't bear anything to do with it and react with rage at any hint of it.... how come they aren't in pain/truth searching/ever missing or wanting anything from me???

Because it does terrible damage to a person if they watch someone else they love be scapegoated and abused. It is so very hard to sit with that and feel that.

Do they still, after 40 years, still believe that I'm so terrible??? That seems exceptionally childish and plain weird to me.

I doubt that they really think you are terrible. That is just code for "What you went through was so horrendous and painful - I am not going back to feel those feelings!"

Sadly, in a way, not being able to see them and observe their behaviours and beliefs and level of functioning, I am in some ways stuck in a time warp

This is so hard and It is almost impossible to explain to people what that is like - to have no history = is to fight for very your existence on some levels.

The crazy world of my family.

So very, very hard that loss of family and belonging and of being needed and wanted and cherished.

 

[bankhead]

Helliepig - you could be writing about my family as well. I have no one to talk to about what we experienced. My mother lives in her own world of denial and my brothers as well. It is truly insane. I cannot ring up any one of them to have a conversation about what we went through. Sometimes it makes me crazy.

 

[Helliepig]

Because it does terrible damage to a person if they watch someone else they love be scapegoated and abused. It is so very hard to sit with that and feel that.


.

Interesting thought.... wish it might be true but I don't think they do love me, not sure "love" was something understood in our family as a whole. Maybe my brother does. The other two behave like i have the bubonic plague. For the last 12 years my middle sister refused to even talk to me unless she had to, and wouldn't come in my house. My godmother died and she didn't even let me know. The eldest I never hear from. They have never been interested in me or mine or who I am. As children they wanted to destroy me

No I don't think they love me at all.

 

[bankhead]

Interesting thought.... wish it might be true but I don't think they do love me, not sure "love" was something understood in our family as a whole.

Love was definitely not understood in my family as well though the word was bandied about quite a bit. There was such a pretense and I was actually confused by the use of the word. My father certainly interchanged the word love with obligation. And unfortunately he taught my brothers how to participate in the same scapegoating that he used with me as the target. Sadly, none of us understood what a wretched narcissist he was and we took his treatment as normal. This worked for many years as there was none to invalidate his behavior or treatment of us - not our mother nor any of our grandparents or aunts. Bizarrely a few years ago my mother's youngest sister bemoaned to me the mean spirited treatment of my brothers by my father. It was as though I did not even exist. Her words hit me like a kick in the gut.

I know how painful and devastating it is to have lived in a family of no love except for show to the outside. It hurt then and unfortunately I have not yet healed from that pain - though I believe I have found a way to get there.

 

[soulofLC]

Sadly the remaining members of my clan are too toxic for me to ever ask their perception of things, to validate anything or otherwise.

I confronted my little brother last year with the fact that as children, he lied to my father about things I did (not) to him as a child. He was my dad's favorite, so my dad would pick him up, soothe him, then look at me and say "why did you do that to your little brother?" I would just walk off, disgusted. Dad would never believe me.

So guess what brother said when I confronted him/asked for validation last year? He laughed and said, "I did it because I could." Yeah, he validated alright! Thanks for nothin. He is biggest reason I am on the outs with everyone, poor little brother, but it is better this way.

 

[Helliepig]

yeah - it hurts when you realise sometimes other people aren't interested in being fair or kind. Kind of throws you on the back foot really as you think, golly, I don't think like that, so in the game of grab what you can the people who are out for number one will always be one step ahead. Another reason we ended up with PTSD????

 

[soulofLC]

yeah - it hurts when you realise sometimes other people aren't interested in being fair or kind.

Yes, perhaps another reason for our PTSD. Not fair, not kind, not loving. Born to kill, so to speak.

 

[Tinyflame]

Not a 'technical' term but doesn't feel very good when someone doesn't care about you more than a hill of beans, lol :(