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Emotional Invalidation from family

dontrainonmeContributor25 Sept 2020, 7:24 pm AEST

Emotional Invalidation from family

Hey Guys!

I have begin to recognize that my whole life i have been taught that feeling negative feelings or thoughts is bad and needs to be avoided at all costs. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD and have realised i struggle with emotional disregulation. Since i was a kid i have been called dramatic, overly sensitive, emotional etc. because i struggled to hide when i felt such overwhelming emotions. That beleif that when i have feelings i'm dramatic, has manifested in me invalidating my own emotions, fearing sharing my feelings and thoughts, feeling like a burden because i have emotions and more.

I know i am not the only one who has experienced this as i have begun to realise just how common emotional dismissal is in our society. I was wondering if anyone has any advice or thoughts about this? Even if it is to feel just a bit less alone. Sending love.

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In response to: Emotional Invalidation from family

dontrainonmeContributor26 Sept 2020, 1:07 pm AEST

Re: Emotional Invalidation from family

Thank you so much! I am very new so thank you for the advice!!

In response to: Emotional Invalidation from family

LoiterContributor26 Sept 2020, 6:37 pm AEST

Re: Emotional Invalidation from family

Hi, I'm new too (. .) /

I also experienced a lot of emotional invalidation in my family growing up. I developed CPTSD from my abusive upbringing (which includes all the invalidation) which also caused problems with my emotion regulation as an adult, but I think even aside from that I have an anxious streak and I tend to be a big, deep thinker. I was also called overly-sensitive and overly-emotional. It made me constantly second-guess myself for everything. It's exhausting, isn't it? Like always fighting with yourself.

Learning to validate myself is something that I have worked on a lot in therapy. I can't say I'm perfect at it (I strongly doubt anyone is), but I've definitely come a long way. It took a while and it involved bringing together a lot of separate things in my life (basically making changes to my life to take action and bring it more in alignment with how I wanted my life to be), so it's hard to pinpoint some specific advice that might help. I think one thing that helped was doing things that made me feel so happy I didn't care that my thoughts and feelings were "wrong" and "stupid". Like joining an environmental activist group, for example. Doing something that felt important to me with like-minded people made all those invalidating voices in my head just a little bit quieter. I think it's about rewiring those pathways bit by bit in your brain. It can feel like a bit of a slog, but making time every day for something that makes you happy helps keep me going and keeps my recovery up.

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