What validation means to me!
I want to thank all my friends I have found on SR. It was through your help that I have had an AAAHHHAAA! moment and have been able to pinpoint the troubles between my AH's and my relationship.
My feelings are not being validated through my relationship with my AH. 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. My AH wants me to run everything I do through him for his acceptance and yet when I suggest that he needs to do something as get himself a physical or get into individual therapy I'm ignored. My idea of a marriage is a two-way straight, it's a give and take mutual agreement. However, my AH's idea of a marriage is it's his way or it's
NO WAY!
I was in intensive care for about one month at the beginning of the year, and and almost died. I have no memory of this chunk of time. It was literally through the
Grace of God that I survived. My doctors can not medically provide an explanation as how I survived. When I became conscious again my awareness rose. I suffered self-esteem damage as a result of my illness. As a result, I began to notice to notice the invalidation. The invalidation took and continues to take its toll on me.
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. 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. The more sensitive the person, the more serious the damage of invalidation. Invalidation undermines self-confidence because it causes self-doubt. This in turn further diminishes self-esteem. Invalidation is serious violation of one's "true self." I believe it is one of the worst crimes one person can commit against another without ever lifting a finger against them. And yet it is neither illegal, "immoral" by most who consider themselves moralists, nor even widely recognized as a problem.
Ann has written a good article about validation and invalidation on the
What is Recovery? on SR.
What does validation mean to you?
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