Emotional Intelligence | Stevehein.com

Stories about invalidation

Jen, Suicide, Invalidation

I was talking to Jen today. She was telling me she almost tried to kill herself last Friday. Here is part of our convo

steve dice:

tell me about friday please.

Jen

i almost attempted suicide..

steve dice:

what was going on that day

Jen

felt bad..

Jen

..felt uncared bout...

Jen

housemistress told me to go to her when i felt bad...then that day she told me i had no reason for being angry and upset.. then she told me to go because other people were coming to see her, so i left and felt in the way and thought i would end it..

steve dice:

hug

Jen

hug bak..

Jen

i was pathetic..she was rite

Jen

..n saturday she told me i was just wallowing when i felt bad...

Jen

..so, well, no way am i going to go to her again..

steve dice:

did she really say wallowing?

Jen

yup..exact words

steve dice:

wow

steve dice:

how did u feel when she said it?

Jen

terrible...ashamed.. stupid to have gone to her...not understood

Jen

..then felt i was feeling the wrong things.. and just being pathetic

 

You can see that at the end she was invalidating herself. This is one of the many ways that people who are unaware of the concept of invalidation damage young people. They teach them that their problems aren’t serious and their feelings aren’t serious, so the young people start to invalidate themselves. This leaves them even more confused and less able to identify and solve their emotional problems or try to get their natural human emotional needs met.

You can see also that Jen is judging herself - thinking she is stupid to have gone to her housemistress. Yet Jen has no one else to go to, she needs someone to listen to her and give her emotional support and the housemistress told her to go to her. So it is understandable that Jen would try to talk to her. And it is also understandable that she won’t try again.

This little bit of our conversation also says a lot about the reasons for teen suicide.

Look again at some of the feelings:

In the way, uncared for, not understood

These feelings hurt. And when we take that along with the fact that Jen won’t go back to the housemistress, we have a situation where a person is in emotional pain and has no one to turn to. These are the ingredients of suicide.

S: Hein

Feb 25, 2006

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