One of the other things that book I read this weekend talked about was invalidation. I thought about how often people have done that with me.
This is not me complaining, just using my experience to help other people understand how damaging invalidation can be.
Invalidation can send someone the message that what they think, feel or experience isn’t real. As a highly sensitive person I have had many, many times where others gaslight me and told me that I was wrong to feel the way that I did.
For example, I once was having a meeting with a boss who said that I make mountains out of molehills. I couldn’t believe that I heard him said that. Its ok if he disagreed with my ideas or right to my ideas and feelings, you aren’t wrong for having feelings.
When people share with me a feeling, thought or whatever they want to share I ask them is this feeling, thought, helpful to have or not? I don’t examine if they are wrong for having it. In fact, most peoples thoughts and feelings are completely appropriate given their past experiences. You would feel the same if you had the same experiences.
One of the things that I hate about our current society is the gaslighting that happens to people. People are told that their thoughts, feelings and ideas don’t matter and that it doesn’t fit into what is acceptable. If we truly are a people committed to freedom of speech, doesn’t that mean honoring the very speech that people are sharing with us and seeking to understand them and not dismissing them?
I grew up in a religiously conservative area that was oppressive. Certain ideas weren’t seen as acceptable, and for me that meant all the more that they needed to be expressed and acted on. For example, I had a misguided relative who hated Mexicans because she worked beside them in the factory and was afraid they would steal her job. I understand that thought, but I don’t agree with her racism.
Why did I share that? It was easy to be racist where I grew up, but I never felt that way. I felt that the friendships that I had with individuals was about individuals and not about their color. I couldn’t understand people who didn’t want to see people as individuals but just as a way to hate someone.
When you don’t listen to others and accept they are human, you are denying part of yourself. The most screwed up people invalidate others and also themselves.