Invalidation, page 2

That's not how things are, Jessica.

I honestly don't judge you as much as you think.

Don't be

You're just being stupid

I don't find she is

Stop feeling sorry for yourself

There are other things in life besides relationships

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Dec 16, 2005 - There are other things in life besides relationships

One evening in Peru I started talking to two sisters. Jessica, age 14 and Odalis, age 27.

Jessica was talking about how it was not fair that her father punished her other sister, Fabiana, and made her come back home from school in Lima where she was happy studying psychology. She also was crying as she said her father will never understand her and she would rather talk to her dog than to her parents and she doesn't want to tell them anything anymore.

The older sister, Odalis, was sitting there with a cold look on her face while Jessica cried. When Jessica stopped talking, the first thing the sister said was "Las cosas no son asi, Jessica" - That's now how things are Jessica.

Note, this is also a good example of a total lack of understanding. It is not hard to guess what Jessica would have said if we would have asked her "Jessica, how much do you feel understood by your sister right now, from 0 to 10?"

Recently I told Sarah, my 16 year old friend in the USA, that I felt judged by her. She wrote back, "I honestly don't judge you as much as you think. I really don't. There's four people I judge" Then she named them. My name was not on the list.

Sarah is someone I consider very emotionally intelligent, but who comes from a very emotionally abusive home, lives in an emotionally toxic culture and is forced to spend about 8 hours a day, five days a week in what I would call an emotional gas chamber, but what others call a high school. Here is something I wrote about her school and its mandatory attendance rules. Over the four years I have known Sarah I have seen her get more and more defensive and bitter, both of which are natural responses to her emotionally damaging environment. Because of the laws which keep teenagers virtually imprisoned till they are 18, there has been nothing I could do to stop this process. In the state where she lives, Wisconsin, there is not even any emancipation law for teenagers. It is interesting to note that the word "emancipation" was also used in reference to giving freedom to slaves in the USA. I have often made the comparison between how slaves were treated and how teens still are treated. This is more easily seen in a place like Peru, where I am now. A place where parents expect and demand their children and teens to work for them without pay.

At the time I first read her email, I felt a little better. But this morning I started feeling invalidated by what she wrote. I decided to put this example on the site because I believe it shows how an emotionally intelligent person can very skillfully invalidate someone. So skillfully, the person, even someone who is very aware of invalidation, actually is talked out of their feelings, at least for a time. This is an example of what I call the Dark Side of emotional intelligence. (More analysis of this example below)

I don't really know what anyone could say to some who tries to assure you -- tries to convince you --that they are not judging you and that your perception is wrong, especially when they do it in such a skillful way. A way which allows them to say, "I wasn't invalidating you. I didn't say I wasn't judging you. I just said I wasn't judging you as much as you think." This could really confuse someone and possibly cause them to go crazy trying to figure out how they really feel and whether it is "justified" or "valid."

So is this person invalidating me? When she says "There's four people I judge..." and doesn't include my name, it implies she believes she isn't judging me. So what am I to think? That I am being judged, though not as much as I think, or that I am not being judged at all? Or do I just go with my feelings? Or do I look for more evidence that I have been judged and try to convince her? This could easily start a debate which would get no where. Which reminds me of one of my little sayings: Feelings are not debatable. So there seems no point in trying to debate, trying to prove the other person is wrong and I am right. How can I "prove" I feel judged? How can she "prove" she doesn't judge me as much as I think, or that she doesn't judge me at all?

What it is most sad about all of this is that this is a person who used to be able to say something like "Sorry, I guess I was judging you." But she has gotten more defensive. So I will let her read this and see what she has to say next. What would she say for example, if I said, "Well, maybe you don't judge me as much as I think you do, but I still feel judged, and when you say you don't judge me as much as I think you do, I feel invalidated on top of that!"

Sarah is constantly surprising, teaching and amusing me. So it will be interesting and informative to see what she has to say to this!

But as I think about this some more, I see the danger in being so interested in what someone else has to say about your feelings. In this case, I see that I need to trust my own instincts, trust my own feelings and not be talked out of them no matter what she says. My feeling is very clear to me. It is a definite feeling of feeling judged, along with feeling afraid of being judged and hurt in the future. What makes it hard, is that I really want to believe that I can trust her. And I feel sad now knowing this is unrealistic. She has just been hurt too much, both by me and by others. It is probably fair to say that she really can't help herself when she responds to pain the way she does. I can understand this while at the same time listen to my feelings and take precautions. This seems to be the best course.

As time has passed, I realized I still am afraid of being judged again by Sarah. I've written her this so I am not telling you anything I haven't already told her. She wrote back that she understands and hopes someday we will trust each other again.

The dangerous part for me, is that if I believe Sarah when she says she really doesn't judge me "as much as I think she does", then I set myself up to be judged again in the future. I say I set myself up because:

This is a very difficult situation for me because I want to be able to trust her. We used to have this trust and the loss of it hurts. I want it back so badly. So badly that I am almost willing to share things with her even though logically I know that it is a dangerous move and I will almost surely regret it later. In fact, at this point, I can say I am sure I will regret it. Even if she never uses something else I might say against me, I will always be afraid that one day she will.

She is in so much pain that when she is hurting, nothing else matters. It doesn't matter how much she hurts someone. This is like when I was hurting so much and wrote about David Caruso without caring enough about how he felt to tone down what I was saying.

People who have been in emotional pain for years and years are dangerous to some degree or another.

As I think about the similarities between Sarah and me, I see more clearly what needs to be done. People who have been emotionally hurt for years, as she and I have, need to be especially careful in how they expressing their pain. It is so easy for us to do what everyone else does. Attack others. Try to hurt them. This is the most "natural" thing. It is the instinctive thing. But it is not the most helpful thing for anyone. It helps me feel a little better temporarily when I attack someone else. As I did with David. I feel a little stronger, perhaps, on a survival instinct level. As if an animal were attacking me and I proved to the animal and myself that I could hurt it back.

But the expression "rise above" comes to mind. It seems it is the only way out of a destructive cycle. Sadly, the USA has not "risen above", but that is another topic.

Now I see the problem I have read about and seen before. The problem for Sarah and I, and so many others, is that we have learned ways to survive inside our emotionally dysfunctional homes, schools and communities which have no chance of bringing us happiness once are free to leave these environments. This is, no doubt, one of the reasons I am so alone at this point in my life. I have not been able to stop hurting people I loved and needed.

When I am in pain, it hurts so much that I need to either a) leave or b) hurt or scare away the other person. Or sometimes I think of killing myself to stop the pain.

I am not sure how you "rise above". I have some ideas, but other than expressing your feelings with feeling words and "I" messages, I can't think of much right now. Having compassion for the other person would also help. But that is so hard when you are in pain yourself. Maybe it is even impossible. So somehow, those of us who have been in emotional pain for years, who have had so many unmet emotional needs for so long, need to find our own individual ways to stop the pain. Travelling is one for me, constantly moving. Going into nature. Getting away from people. Writing. Laughing which children. Teaching children and teens. Crying. Sleeping. Swearing. They all help to some degree.

The main thing, though, seems to be to refrain from hurting someone else when I am in pain. This is really a challenge. Usually I can walk away from nearly everything. But now I am thinking of what to do with my writing about David Caruso. There are things I feel obligated to say, not to hurt him, but to help others. And possibly even help him, if I am 'successful' in the way I write. I haven't written anything about all of that for many days now. It is still being processed somewhere in the back of my mind, so to speak. It is still causing me some stress. A stress which won't be relieved till I write about it to my satisfaction. But that is another topic for another day.

I am not sure if this counts as a "true story" but here is what I saw the other day. I was watching TV (something I very rarely do) and saw an ad for a movie called "Jack and Bobby". I assume it was about Jack and Bobby Kennedy, though I only caught part of the commercial as I was flipping channels. In the scene I saw, Bobby, looking about 12 years old said, "I'm scared, Jack." Jack said, "Don't be."

(A little history for those of you who don't know who Jack and Bobby Kennedy were. Jack, more commonly known as John F. Kennedy, was president of the USA around 1960. He was murdered. Bobby was his younger brother. He was running for the president's office in around 1968. He was also murdered. There are lots of conspiracy stories about each killing. I don't know how much truth there is to the conspiracy stories, but I know I feel skeptical, to put it mildly, about anything the US government says about anything.)

Here is part of an email which was sent to me by a 13, almost 14 year old in England.

This girl is suicidal. She self-harms regularly. She has thought seriously about running away. She has a very, very low self-esteem and has been convinced that she is stupid. But when we chat, it is obvious to me she is exceptionally smart.

This girl is being psychologically destroyed. And at this point in her life she is defending her mother, saying she is a "good mother." If she kills herself at some point in the future, we should not be surprised or ask "How could she do such a senseless thing?"

What is even worse, is that she goes to a very expensive, very elite, private school. But she has never been taught the meaning of the word "invalidation." And it is unlikely this word will ever be used at her school unless she herself introduces it. And it can be expected that if she were to use it, she would only get invalidated and dismissed by an insecure, defensive adult who would say something like, "Stop trying to act so smart." Or, "You are just looking for attention." In fact, when they found out at her school that she cuts, this is exactly what she was told."

Let's also remember that all of this is perfectly legal. No mother has ever been convicted of abuse for invalidating her teenage daughter, even to the point of daughter not wanting to hare anything with her and instead trying to keep everything inside until she can no longer stand the pain and pressure and then tries to kill herself to stop it. And I think it is fair to say that no teacher has ever been fired for invalidating an intelligent, sensitive young teenager.

Here in Peru, it is easier to see the problems. It is easier because things are so bad. One example is the parenting. Parents teach things like "It is a lack of respect to talk back to your parents." And, "You should show respect to anyone who is older than you." Parents are quick to hit their children and teens. Obedience is demanded here. And freedom hardly exists for children or teens. Teenage females, for example, are not allowed to go out of the house without permission. They are not allowed to invite their male friends over to their houses. They are regularly forced to work for free for their parents. Either in fields and farms or in small family businesses.

Jessica told me that if she had a chance to take a job which paid her a good salary, her parents would not allow her to take it. It is hard to understand why parents like this.

I was just talking to someone. I said "Susan is a bit annoying". Then my friend said "I don't find she is."

When people say something like this we don't feel understood. We might start to debate with them but this imediately creates a conflict. Or we might just be silenced. We might just drop it. The other person then will never know why we felt annoyed by Susan. They miss out on a chance to get to know us. We also feel more alone in the world.

All these little things, these small interactions add up. A sensitive person will just stop sharing their feelings if they get too many of these kinds of responses.

I was trying to explain to Laura what this expression means. I was writing about it because that is what a teen told me her mother and sister say to her when she feels depressed. (See convo) In Spanish they say "Lo siento" when they say want to convey something like the feeling that we say when we say "I'm sorry." Translated literally it means "I feel it." To say "I feel sad" they say "Me siento triste." Sentir is what is called a reflexive verb in Spanish. So they say "Me siento..." "Te sientes" or "Se siente". Kind of like saying "I feel myself sad" or "You feel yourself sad."

So feeling sorry for yourself would be something like "Lo siento me siento". But this would make no sense in Spanish. To try to tell someone not to feel sorry for themselves would be kind of like telling them not to feel anything at all, or not to feel their own feelings. And really, this is what the message is in English, too. Don't feel anything for yourself. You don't matter. Your feelings don't matter.

If anyone knows how to translate "Stop feeling sorry for yourself" to Spanish, please let me know. And let me know if this is a common way of invalidating someone in the Spanish speaking countries.

PS - What they say a lot here in Peru a lot is "Don't be so egotistical." This is pretty much the same idea. It is telling you not to think about your own feelings or needs.

Here is part of an email I got after Laura left me. It is from someone who I have never met and had only written me once before, and obviously doesn't know me very well and hasn't read much, if anything, from my page on invalidation.

To me it is almost incredible someone could say this. I feel sorry for this person. Not only do I feel invalidated but I feel almost totally not understood. Laura leaving me hurt me so much, and this part of the email shows zero empathy or understanding of how much the relationship meant to me. I feel sorry for the person that wrote it because she said "There are other things in life besides relationships."

I have lived long enough and suffered enough to know that relationships are far and away the most important thing in life. Especially a loving romantic relationship. Laura didn't realize how important love was. In her heart she knew it, but she was confused by what her culture taught her. Her culture taught her that degrees and jobs and houses and material things and "family", even it means an abusive mother, is important.

It is really almost incredible someone who doesn't even know me would be telling what do do. "..then accept that and move on." As if it were that easy. I hope that this person learns something about validation and invalidation before she has children.

Also, what is this about "Everybody has to be happy"? What does that mean? Does it mean I "have to be" happy? In other words I am obligated to be? Forced to be? How can you order someone to be happy and tell them "You have to be happy!"

There is a reason we feel pain. It is so we can know what is important, and so we can change things that need to be changed.

This person who wrote me, by the way, is also from a Latin American, country. She was taught that to help someone you give them advice. If she doesn't learn some new things she will most likely destroy any relationships she has in the future.

I feel really frustrated right now. I feel offended by what this person said. Laura was so important to me. She was the most important thing in my life. I went years looking for someone like her. I have felt suicidal since she left. I don't appreciate advice like this. I resent it. But I also feel frustrated that I can't change the person who wrote this email. I imagine she will feel defensive when she reads this, if she does. It would take too much work to try to teach this person not to invalidate people, and to change her misguided beliefs about what is important in life. It is probably too late for this person. But on the other hand I don't want to say that as if I don't think she can learn new things. Yet from this email it shows she has a long, long way to go. I can only offer her my site and wish her the best.