Emotional Abuse through Invalidation
Emotional abuse is less visible and so less often dealt with appropriately. It can be the reason why physical abuse continues, in fact.
Invalidation is an entire process, involving acts of denying, rejecting or dismissing someone’s feelings in order to satisfy something in their own life. Invalidation sends a specific message that a person’s subjective emotional experience is not true, not important, and not applicable.
What might that look like?
- "Ordering" you to feel differently
- Ordering you to "look" differently
(clothes, makeup, posture, your face)
- Denying your perceptions
(viewpoints, observations, assessments)
- Defending mistreatment
- Trying to make you feel guilty, while invalidating you
- Trying to isolate you
(physically and emotionally)
- Minimizing your feelings and maximizing the importance of their own
- Using their twisted versions reason, logic, claims about common sense, to manipulate you
- Judging and then labeling you with hopeless labels
- Telling you how you "should" feel or act, perhaps like this list I found:
-Get over it. Don’t be so sensitive.
-Don’t look so serious Don’t look so proud of yourself.
-You’ve got it all wrong. No discussion.
-I tried to help you. At least I....
-You are making everyone else miserable, just stop.
-You are the only one that feels that way. It doesn’t bother anyone else, why should it bother you.
-You must be kidding. It can’t be that bad.
-There is no reason to get upset.
-Let’s stick to the facts.
-You have a problem. You are too sensitive. You are hopeless.
-You should be excited. You shouldn’t let it bother you.
Learning to use your intuition again, finding your voice, and standing up for yourself are important for healing. Although others may have worked to systematically destroy you as a person, you don’t have to let them anymore.