The painful effects of emotional invalidation

Over time, a child who is told their feelings are “wrong” will become confused and learn to not trust their emotions. This is called chronic emotional invalidation, which is often one of the markers of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

The study found that a history of emotion invalidation (i.e., a history of childhood psychological abuse and parental punishment, minimization, and distress in response to negative emotion) was significantly associated with emotion inhibition (i.e., ambivalence over emotional expression, thought suppression, and avoidant stress responses).

Further studies showed that emotion inhibition is a significant predictor of depression and anxiety symptoms.

Source :  http://www.borderlinepersonalitytreatment.com/borderline-personality-disorder-chronic-invalidation.html

Understanding the impact of a lack of emotional validation has been essential for me in healing from the terrible symptoms of internalised self invalidation which led to addiction. These symptoms were not even conscious for me until about 10 years ago after over 10 years of active abstinence from…