"5. Invalidation.
Subtle and pernicious, invalidation strikes at a person’s emotional, existential core.
Invalidation makes a person wrong for feeling how they feel. The emotionally insecure person, incapable of working with and coping with their own emotions, invalidates and puts down whomever is attempting to communicate.
The most damaging of emotional defensive patterns, invalidation can be difficult to recognize.
“You are being too sensitive.” is the battle cry of invalidation. Its variations mock and undermine a person’s subtle perceptions of reality and relationships with other people.
Invalidation is difficult to communicate with words, it happens as a feeling. The result of invalidation is the loss of trust and security. It can happen quickly and without warning, often unintentionally with careless words.
A person knows when it happens, yet often times cannot recognize what has happened until after the experience.
While recognizing emotional insecurity is one step, learning to relate and navigate the effects of emotional insecurity takes time. It’s a learned skill dependent on self-knowledge. How a person relates to their own self, operating with their own emotional nature, is the foundation, attitude and exact same relationship style shared with other people. Learning to relate with emotional insecurity with others first depends on how one relates to it within, first.
The greatest challenge there is how a person treats their own self when feeling emotionally insecure. The dynamic and internal dialogue are the relationship traits one lives daily within and without.
There is no quick fix for emotional insecurity. It is normal. Self-knowledge remains the cure.
“And God said “Love Your Enemy,” and I obeyed him and loved myself.” ~ Khalil Gibran"