Sunday, May 1, 2011

Validation, Is it needed?

Pay no attention to the critics. Don't even ignore them.
Samuel Goldwyn
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Spent the weekend having a wonderful time with family.  Pictures of the fun>
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Friday I read an article over on upsi's blog.  
http://upsi-upsi.blogspot.com/2011/04/on-validation.html


In an article on Pain, Suffering, and Validation Steven Stonsy criticized those that seek validation. 

This is one of the comments I sent to be posted:

Read and re-read this article.  Validation is essential to those that their pain was denied.  The article expresses that pain doesn't need to be validated since we know we are in pain.  With narcissistic parenting, pain is denied.  "That didn't hurt", "you're too sensitive", "what's wrong with you that you can't take a little teasing", and other statements have invalidated the pain experienced.  I will agree that you will not hear the validation from the narcissistic in your life.  I came to upsi's blog and many other blogs to learn that the pain is real.  It is not a figment of my too sensitive imagination.  The article states that pain must be recognized first before healing.  For me, outside validation is needed before I can believe that the pain I felt was real.  I appreciate the many comments and bloggers that are validating that what I am feeling is real pain.  I am even more thankful to learn steps to healing. In Dr. Stosny's world pain is recognized, but in my bizarre world validation helps me recognize when I am in pain.   

I grew up in a twisted world.  Imagine holding a child's hand to a hot stove and screaming at the child over and over again that it does not hurt.  Eventually the child will parrot back, "The hot stove doesn't hurt."  Eventually the child will not even recognize that the stove is hot.  The first year of counseling KavinCoach worked at getting me to recognize what emotional pain meant.  How to separate the many events past and present that invoke pain.  In fact, KavinCoach taught me how to feel pain.  I was miserable when I started counseling but I thought it was just because I couldn't communicate adequately.  I could not recognize my own pain.  Hours of tearing off callouses and exposing massive amounts of ignored pain was slow and difficult.  Before I could heal, I had to recognize that I was in pain and what was causing the pain.  Outside validation was essential since I didn't know for myself that I was in pain.  If you are like Dr. Stosny and can recognize your own pain, congratulations you probably don't need validation.  However, if you are on the end of the continuum where pain is denied, validation is an essential tool to help recognize when you are in pain and needing to heal.   I am thankful for validation.

Thanks upsi for another great discussion on an article.

     

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