Emotional invalidation is when you are told or made to feel that your emotions are wrong, invalid or insignificant. If you are experiencing subjective distress and when you reach out to seek comfort and soothing, you are treated as if you are over reacting or that you should conceal the way you feel because it is “wrong”, your emotions are being invalidated.
It can have adverse effects of mental health and the ability to regulate emotions, especially if a child is subjected to emotional invalidation. Research suggest that emotional invalidation in childhood might contribute to the development of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) which is a mental health disorder characterized by the instability of emotions and difficulty in emotion regulation.
If a child is being raised in an invalidating environment, they don’t learn how to manage and cope with their emotions in an effective way because their attempts in expressing themselves and how feel is being dismissed. Instead they learn to hide and conceal them which might lead them to resort to unhealthy ways to cope with their distress and psychological pain.
