Invalidation: The Root Of All Evil?

[soulofLC]

Sea, I quote you:

"Invalidation of emotion itself, of perception, of identity, of thoughts, to fail to acknowledge a person their right to feel and think as they wish, I think is the root of a lot of a traumatized individual's issue. Even if one were traumatized but were allowed to deal with it at their own pace, allowed to feel about it as they wish, and then rather than say "what you are feeling is wrong", to simply help that person to mature their emotional understanding in a healthy way, for their own benefit rather than because how they feel is inconvenient for someone else..."

Wow, yes perfectly stated. My "friend" told me recently to quit living in the past and just get over it, adding "I'm saying this with only love and concern." I told her I would get over it when I got over it, and no sooner. Huge email fight/exchange ensued; friends no more.

The invalidation of my condition by my whole family has been trauma on trauma, but I realize in reading these posts that I was never validated in the first place. So why would I expect it now? It would be so nice to have, but from reading these posts I am thinking more and more that it will have to come from therapist (I hope!) and doc and this website is awesome, but most importantly, I have to learn to validate myself and my own experience.

 

[Tinyflame]

I can only say I try to 'get over it' as best as I can.
I don't know 'how' to be anyone else other than 'me' or to 'feel' (or 'not feel') any differently than I do, or 'be' or 'not be' more or less affected by what and how I am affected, or have been.

I suspect it would have been easier if I hadn't 'invalidated' how I knew it felt, to begin with. But it seemed necessary, considering others' needs, reality, perhaps even my own nature.

 

[soulofLC]

And, to answer the question as to "have I ever been invalidated to invisibility?" Yes. I told that to someone recently..."I feel invisible." My social worker would not return my phone calls, my psychiatrist took a personal call on his cell while I was sitting right in front of him bawling my eyes out, my family cut me off because they think it is "all in my head" and my children do as well. My friend told me to "get over it." I applied for a job that I was way overqualified for and was told that they " wanted someone young and energetic that could relate to the students." Wow, they might as well have said we want someone who is white!! I went to a Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance Group (a national free support group with meet-ups nationwide) and the facilitator cut my story off and completely misunderstood what I was trying to get across....he used the word "should have" and acted as if I had behaved as a child. (DBSA is a good organization; I have benefited from the meetings and made contacts and friends, but PTSD is not their mission, and knowledge and support for it are limited. But there are good facilitators, and not so good ones...some are professionals, and some are fellow sufferers who have a little training...You just have to try the different groups if you are interested.)

My several friends, when they are emotionally available, are good, but they have their own issues so are sometimes unable to help. I have new therapist and looking for new P doc. And I am distancing myself from my family and whoever is not validating, which is hard. But at this point, I feel like I cannot continue to be re-traumatized over and over...I need time for me...to heal, to feel better about myself. My new therapist said to begin to say to myself..."Maybe I can do this...maybe there is a way...relax into it..don't force it...just maybe I can do this." I liked that. No pressure.

 

[Kb3]

I am scared of relationships because of fears of my lack of worth to other people - I long since believed I have no worth to them - and because people seem dangerous/shallow/ likely to lose interest/become bored etc etc. I had thought that believing in myself was the key to feeling better about relationships, that the invalidation issues were the "big deal", but now it boils down to trust.

It is about trust. As in trusting someone not to invalidate my existence as a human being of any worth. I am fine with those who have proven themselves to be worthy of my trust, but I am anyone's victim in most other circumstances. I am either too suspicious and closed off, or too open and trusting.

Parties and other socially competitive venues are my idea of hell. I have no defenses, no way to protect myself at them and unfortunately they are part of my life. I know some people drink to feel bullet proof, but that only makes things worse for me. I almost always leave them hating myself.

I don't want to shut myself away from the world, but a lot of time the world feels very cruel. I think to myself that I have been through so much, why should I subject myself to stuff that makes me feel so terrible and is so inconsequential? The day I figure that one out will be a happy one.

 

[Philippa]

And, to answer the question as to "have I ever been invalidated to invisibility?" Yes. I told that to someone recently..."I feel invisible." My social worker would not return my phone calls, my psychiatrist took a personal call on his cell while I was sitting right in front of him bawling my eyes out, my family cut me off because they think it is "all in my head" and my children do as well. My friend told me to "get over it." I applied for a job that I was way overqualified for and was told that they " wanted someone young and energetic that could relate to the students." Wow, they might as well have said we want someone who is white!! I went to a Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance Group (a national free support group with meet-ups nationwide) and the facilitator cut my story off and completely misunderstood what I was trying to get across....he used the word "should have" and acted as if I had behaved as a child. (DBSA is a good organization; I have benefited from the meetings and made contacts and friends, but PTSD is not their mission, and knowledge and support for it are limited. But there are good facilitators, and not so good ones...some are professionals, and some are fellow sufferers who have a little training...You just have to try the different groups if you are interested.)

Sorry to hear you've had these experiences. I can relate to them though. People can just be such dimwits at times...well, a lot of the time let's face it. They have no concept of how their actions affect others, and that therapist taking a call in the middle of your breakdown is just unprofessional and rude. I've also had rape crisis counselor yawn while I was talking to her about my assault. I had that with a counselor a few years later as well, though I was a bit more able to see that it was the end of the day and she was just really tired from listening to people all day. It's harder to not take it personally when you are suffering though.

My several friends, when they are emotionally available, are good, but they have their own issues so are sometimes unable to help. I have new therapist and looking for new P doc. And I am distancing myself from my family and whoever is not validating, which is hard. But at this point, I feel like I cannot continue to be re-traumatized over and over...I need time for me...to heal, to feel better about myself. My new therapist said to begin to say to myself..."Maybe I can do this...maybe there is a way...relax into it..don't force it...just maybe I can do this." I liked that. No pressure.

This was validating for me, as I have also distanced myself from family to prevent further invalidation and trauma. It is really hard though, and I feel awful about it most days...though today I feel almost peaceful and totally ok about it. That might change later on though...?

If we were stronger, it would be easier to remember that no one can really harm us unless we let them...but when we are traumatized, that just isn't true. Being vulnerable makes it easier for further trauma to knock us down...so it's helping me to see that I am doing what I think is best for me right now...even if it is hurting my family. I really don't think my father cares about my feelings being hurt. It's more about the fact that he got called out on his behavior that has made him sad.

 

[angel2write]

This may be a warped perception on my part, but I often find myself noticing that what most people see as "friendship" seems to be a lot shallower than what I'm looking for.

I want someone I can talk to about my joys and fears, successes and concerns. Someone who listens to the things I worry about and the things I'm thinking about. Someone who shares their heart and life and dreams. I've found this a couple times, but always with other people just as damaged as me.

Is one of the reasons we (people with family- based PTSD) don't find validating friendships because, somehow, abuse has conditioned us to want a kind of contact that "normal" people don't engage in? Just thinking about this because of what a couple people said about friends turning away. Am I driving people away because I'm wanting to go deeper than they are comfortable with. Or wanting to go too deep too soon?

We get on here and we talk about really deep issues. There's a lot of thoughtful discussion about how our hearts and souls work. I don't think most people talk about these things at cocktail parties. They talk about beer and dates, sports and cars and clothes and who is talking about who behind whose back. Sometimes they also talk about movies, music and what they're doing at work. But, really, mostly it's kind of shallow. And I feel left out of that. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about that kind of stuff. I can't really relate to most of it.

Maybe I just wear people out.

 

[angel2write]

Or maybe I'm looking for a level of reassurance and feed-back that regular people just don't need or provide. Like, I get really freaked out if I respond to a post and nobody "likes" my post, or responds to it. And I start beating myself up about how stupid I am.

But in normal life, people just don't go around praising and re-inforcing each other all the time. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Like- we're starving for validation... but most people just don't need it. So the very act of needing it cuts us out of the herd?

Dang- am I making any sense here? (I swear I'm not on drugs. :p)

A

 

[Helliepig]

Or maybe I'm looking for a level of reassurance and feed-back that regular people just don't need or provide. Like, I get really freaked out if I respond to a post and nobody "likes" my post, or responds to it. And I start beating myself up about how stupid I am.

But in normal life, people just don't go around praising and re-inforcing each other all the time. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Like- we're starving for validation... but most people just don't need it. So the very act of needing it cuts us out of the herd?

Dang- am I making any sense here? (I swear I'm not on drugs. :p)

A

Ummm, lots of thoughts coming to mind about your posts.

When you are suffering from PTSD and trying to heal it, inevitably you will want to focus on where it hurts, it's a big part of your day and of your life, and it leads you to think a lot about things that other people may not have to think about, or may not have experienced -life threatening terror etc. You want to talk about it, you want to connect, you want something to break the loneliness, you want to be heard.

But this is something a parent or therapist or suport group should provide, and and needs grieving, releasing, accepting what you never had etc, Looking for it in every day connections is like asking to be hurt over and over again because most people are not offering themselves up for that job when they connect with you. While you are full of that stuff it is hard to choose healthy relationships and healthy people might not be attracted to you either.

As well as that, for some people, they may have "stuff" inside too, but have "chosen" not to go there, so any whiff of what you are talking about and they close down lest in case you threaten their defences.

This is true, I think, sometimes for mental health professionals. Those who are attracted to mental health but who have learnt it the scholarly way and never done an inward journey to discover their own inherent human weaknesses etc etc. Easy to sit there being "ok" helping someone who is "not ok" but being completely unable to really understand.... needing mastery of their own internal fears of their past by appearing to rise above it.

I am sure many of us will have met people like that in life, the trouble is for many of us, we grew up among people like that, who couldn't hear us as human beings and couldn't stand what we brought up for them. Inevitably we are drawn to people like that cos they are familiar and somehow we keep trying - and still feeling as inadequate and stupid as we did the first time round.

It takes a while for the feeling inside - when talking to such people - to be identified as anger, frustration, disappointment and bewilderment, rather than to be identified as "I'm not good enough/interesting enough/doing it right/ talking about the wrong things" And there is a lifetime of such frustration and bewilderment. It can feel overwhelming and hopeless.

Other people who are NOT afraid of deeper topics of conversation do exist and would happily accept you as you are - there are more of them than we realise and a lot of supposedly shallow celebs have deep/spiritual sides - but people like that can feel very alien and scary until you are ready to deal with the sort of people who really see and hear you - because that means exposing yourself. It's easier to stay in the familiar pointless dynamic of trying to be heard by people who can't hear you because it's a well worn game that you know how to play and that never threatens your sense of self.

I think relating to people when you are recovering from PTSD is very hard, it's like a complex jigsaw puzzle that has to be completed one stage at a time - all sorts of insights and understanding and changing to do about boundaries, choices, sense of self, picking the right people, being authentic, stopping acting, stopping caretaking or filling in gaps......the list is long and ever evolving. All you can do is work on whichever bit you are aware of at a time, and then you move onto the next and the next and realise your perception and expectations and results are subtley changing..

You change yourself and the world around you (and the people around you) change.

Don't get too preoccupied about the big picture cos you can only cope with and change small chunks at a time. For me the relational aspect of my abuse history has proved the deepest cut and I am still struggling with it. But it gets better.....

I also think that real friendships can be lighter because they asssume a basic sense of trust, safety, liking each other, on-going-ness, so it doesn't have to be intense or discussing heavy stuff. Maybe it takes a certain degree of healing of pain and trust to feel safe enough to let go and go with the flow.

Your posts make perfect sense and I'm sure many many of us on here know EXACTLY what you are taking about. X

 

[angel2write]

Some very good perspectives on things, there Helliepig. A lot to mull over and think about. Thank you. I think I have been guilty in the past of trying to use my friends as a support group. One of the things I'm trying to fix. Find better boundaries.

I really liked this:

It takes a while for the feeling inside - when talking to such people - to be identified as anger, frustration, disappointment and bewilderment, rather than to be identified as "I'm not good enough/interesting enough/doing it right/ talking about the wrong things"

 

[Meadowsweet]

Angel2write, I can so relate to your posts. I have driven everyone away, and yet I am always surprised at the reasons they give to justify going, because I don't understand that surface level of friendship.

 

[Kb3]

Helliepig, thank you for your posts on this thread, I have gotten SO much from them. You are a wise owl.:)

Angel2write I can relate to everything you said, it made perfect sense to me..

 

[soulofLC]

Phillippa said
"This was validating for me, as I have also distanced myself from family to prevent further invalidation and trauma. It is really hard though, and I feel awful about it most days...though today I feel almost peaceful and totally ok about it. That might change later on though...?......"I really don't think my father cares about my feelings being hurt. It's more about the fact that he got called out on his behavior that has made him sad."

Thank you Phillippa, it is in turn validating for me to hear that someone else is choosing the same route regarding family and distance. Sometimes they can hurt us more than anyone because they know our weak points...so unfair, but true. I am glad to know that peace comes with time, cause right now I am hurting really bad over my son. But it feels necessary.

Christmas! My grandkids! I can't even go there without getting tearful. And I wish I could call out MY parents behavior but they are so old--dad 93 and mom is turning into forgetful mess after stroke at 86. I will see them after Christmas. Perhaps there is a way to express myself appropriate to the situation, because I may never see either of them again. Something to work on with my therapist perhaps, cause I sure need some closure...