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.
A common form of invalidation is when someone tries to cheer you up when you're sad because they feel uncomfortable with your feelings. This can be invalidating because your feelings are being dismissed when someone wants to change your feelings rather than accept them or understand them.
Aside from not understanding your emotions, when you are invalidated by others, they judge you for what you feel and ridicule you for not feeling the same way as they do about things. This is the worst kind of rejection you can get from people.
“Oh, you think you have it bad…” - Tell them how they should feel. “You should feel lucky, blessed…” “What's the big deal?” - Try to give them advice. “What you really should do is…” - Try to solve their problem. “I'm going to call that girl's parents and…” - Cheerlead (there is a time for this, but not now).
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.
A key difference between gaslighting and invalidating is that gaslighting intentionally seeks to manipulate or make the other person question themself. Invalidating dismisses or ignores the feelings or experiences of the other person, making them feel like they, or the experience, aren't important.
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.
Some individuals knowingly invalidate others as a form of manipulation, control, and psychological injury. Possible explanations (other than psychopathy) are a low capacity for empathy and compassion, not understanding or valuing the importance of validation, and/or not knowing how to express it effectively.
Some common synonyms of invalidate are abrogate, annul, negate, and nullify. While all these words mean "to deprive of effective or continued existence," invalidate implies making something powerless or unacceptable by declaration of its logical or moral or legal unsoundness.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Minimisation, or downplaying the significance of an event or emotion, is a common strategy in dealing with feelings of guilt. Words associated with minimisation include: belittling. discounting. downplaying.
[ ap-uh-thet-ik ] show ipa. See synonyms for apathetic on Thesaurus.com. adjective. having or showing little or no emotion: apathetic behavior.
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.
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.
Emotional invalidation upsets the power balance in a relationship and leads to uncertainty and self-reproach. You may think that to stay in the relationship, you must swallow any feelings that are not acceptable to your partner. Disregarding your feelings leads to disconnection from your authentic self.
Look for signs of repeated denial of your experience. 3) Figure out if you are in a power struggle with your partner. If you find yourself having the same conversation over and over again and can't seem to convince them to acknowledge your point of view, you might be getting gaslighted.
Pay attention to what they show you about themselves. If you have a partner who dismisses your feelings about some topic, talk to them about how this affects you. Pick a time when you are calm. Explain that their response makes you feel hurt, angry, sad or whatever it is that you feel.