The most common forms of invalidation include blaming, judging, denying, and minimizing your feelings or experiences. Invalidation isn't just disagreeing, it says: I don't care about your feelings. Your feelings don't matter. Your feelings are wrong.
Invalidation can sound like:
“I'm fine.” “I really don't even care about this.” “I think I'm just too sensitive sometimes.” “I don't have a reason to feel sad right now.”
Inattentive invalidator: The most common one, when someone ignores you completely. Judgmental invalidation: This is a case in which people judge you all the time. Controlling invalidation: Where your actions are controlled by someone else. Belligerent invalidators: Who refuse to listen to your side of the story.
Invalidation often leads to emotional distancing, conflict, and disruption in relationships, as well as feelings of loneliness, worthlessness, confusion, and inferiority in the affected individual. Psychologist Marsha M. Linehan, Ph.
The most common forms of invalidation include blaming, judging, denying, and minimizing your feelings or experiences. Invalidation isn't just disagreeing, it says: I don't care about your feelings.
Emotional invalidation can look like blaming, name calling, and problem-solving before understanding the other person's experience. Playing down another person's experience is another way to invalidate.
Gaslighting goes further than invalidating other people's feelings, which makes it more damaging than we think. Invalidating means telling someone they shouldn't feel a certain way. Gaslighting, on the other hand, makes someone believe that they do not actually feel that way.
Self invalidation looks like; “Why am I having such a hard time, I don't know what my deal is.” Or as I like to tout, basically any sentence starting with “I need to just,” or “I should just,” these sentences infer that if one was trying harder or took a simple action then everything would be different.
Gaslighting
One of the most common strategies that narcissists use to invalidate you is gaslighting. Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse where an individual tries to manipulate you into questioning your perception of reality and recollection of events and experiences.
Oftentimes, however, we can unintentionally hurt our partners' feelings and their mental health through dismissive statements aimed at their emotions (even when we do not intend to do any harm). This is called emotional invalidation.
Dismissive: Being ignored; dismissing behaviors or accomplishments as insignificant. This often leads to dismissing or denying individual feelings and needs. There is a deep feeling of longing for love and attention, yet these individuals begin to believe they are unworthy of attention.
Traumatic invalidation occurs when an individual's environment repeatedly or intensely communicates that the individual's experiences, characteristics, or emotional reactions are unreasonable and/or unacceptable.
If people make statements in the context of an argument in which they are trying to explain their point of view, or if these statements are made over the course of legal proceedings or formal hearings, then they may be viewed as someone defending themselves, not intentionally attempting to gaslight.
It's important to talk to the other partner about the emotional invalidation. Talk with them about what you feel when you are feeling invalidated. Your feelings and emotions matter. There are many well-intentioned invalidators out there, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation.
Reticent means either quiet or restrained. If you're reticent about your feelings, you like to keep them to yourself, and you're probably quiet in rowdy groups where everyone is talking over each other. The original meaning of reticent describes someone who doesn't like to talk.
Antisocial personality disorder, sometimes called sociopathy, is a mental health condition in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others.
Invalidation is a form of relational trauma which, over time, harms the brain and nervous system, and also results in the disintegration of any healthy bonds of connection, and dissolution of trust in others. Healing requires the slow, ongoing work of diligent growth in character, self-awareness, and love.
Inability to Compromise and Emotional Invalidation
The inability to compromise and emotional invalidation are red flags because they are a form of gaslighting. The abuser removes your power to counter them by insisting that you are always wrong, overreacting, or lying.
Leading to low -self-esteem and an inability to express one's self. When a person is told that their ideas, desires and thoughts are wrong, stupid or not worth considering, that person can feel invalidated, i.e. they can feel unheard and discounted.