THE INVALIDATOR

photo by Eric Ward, Unsplash.com

Josh left Anu’s room shouting, his voice echoing in the hallway, “It’s not even that deep, this babe will just be pressing p for no reason.” Anu, on the other hand, was in a fit of rage, “It’s like this boy always finds a way to unlock a new level of anger within me,” she said to herself. Before the disagreement, she had expressed herself to Josh, she told him how disrespectful it was for Liv to be calling him at odd hours for favours when she knows he has a babe.

Josh knew he had a very platonic relationship with Liv, so he said to her cackling, “Babes, you are always overreacting to little stuffs, you have no reason to feel that way.” That statement was enough to make Anu mad, and an argument ensued between them.

It is a normal human action to communicate our feelings to our loved ones. It is because of this that, whenever our emotions are not validated, it can get really painful. The essence of the scenario above is to depict the pain that may arise from psychological invalidation.

Psychological invalidation is the act of downplaying or disregarding the emotions of another person. It has a bad effect on all humans, and it may have a worse effect on people who are survivors of emotional abuse, depression, anxiety, etc.

There are two different kinds of invalidators:

1. The Unconscious Invalidators

This is the category that most people fall into. Most people aren’t bad and they genuinely want to help, but the issue is they never seem to know the right things to say. They end up making you feel a lot worse than you felt before you expressed yourself to them. Popular phrases of Invalidators are, “It’s not that deep.” or “Why are you always making a big deal out of things?”, “You de always overreact”. These phrases make the other person feel abnormal and unimportant. 

There is no direct answer to why people unconsciously invalidate the feeling(s) of others, but I think it has to do with a vicious cycle of invalidation. For example, most men are told from a young age to “man up” and that the expression of feelings makes them look weak. This narrative is passed down to their male children and the vicious cycle of invalidation continues.

2. The Conscious Invalidators

There are few people in this category. It is largely made up of emotional aggressors, narcissists, and control freaks. Most people in this category require therapy and other forms of psychological help. There may be a long history of continuous emotional abuse in their lives, hence, it is best to stay very far away from them until they get the required help.

How to deal with Invalidators

It is the sole responsibility of everyone to take care of their emotional health. Hence, when a person is invalidating your feelings, inform the person of what they are doing and if there is no change try to avoid expressing your feelings to the person. You may eventually have to re-assess your relationship with the person.

How to Validate People’s emotions

Learn how to listen and not be heard all the time. And whenever you think you do need to say something, let your words show understanding. You may have your opinions as well, but when expressing your opinion let the other person feel like they are being heard.

In conclusion, we should all try to validate the emotions of our partners, family, and friends. What this does is that it creates an emotional safety net around us, where people comfortable express how they feel without judgement and everybody ends up happy.

Odabo.