Before I begin this post, I want to point you guys to a link about invalidation, courtesy of a good friend of mine. Invalidation is a serious problem in today’s world, and it’s being done very casually – it’s something I’m entirely against, and it makes me sick. It also has something to do with today’s post…
A few months ago I asked someone, in no uncertain terms, the following question:
What was it that you did?
Even if you’d consider yourself to be a “normal”, “happy” person, there’s probably been at least one point in your life when you’ve wanted (or even demanded) answers from someone regarding something they did. You might have wanted to hear someone admit their faults, or to acknowledge how they’ve hurt you, so you could have some kind of closure or resolution to something that troubled you.
Unfortunately, these kind of interactions rarely go well. For one, if it gets to the stage where you have to approach someone for them to acknowledge what they did, it’s likely you’re dealing with a negative person, or even more likely an SCPP. I say that because it’s happened every time.
The usual response from asking these kinds of questions goes something like this:
- they initially have no idea what you’re talking about;
- they criticise you for bringing said incident up again;
- they defend themselves, and everybody else;
- they criticise you even more;
- they accuse you of trying to make them feel bad;
- someone storms off, because the other person’s being a “bastard”;
- they completely “forget” everything you’ve said.
Probably the worst part of all of this is that it takes courage to be able to approach said person with this kind of thing. How confident would you feel to do it again, if you had that kind of reaction?
The link on invalidation – if you can see how it relates to what I’ve said so far – can explain what’s going on in the background far better than I can right now. However, if someone completely ignores your concerns after something like that, it pretty much sums up how they feel about you.
A case in point: months before I finally moved away from home, I asked my mum to answer a very simple question. This was someone who demanded countless things from me, regardless of how busy I was or how I was feeling. She also had a history of avoiding any responsibility for things that happened in the past. So not only have I not had an answer till this day to that simple little question, but it turned out – as always – she completely ignored it.
This seems to be the age where people think they can do whatever they want and take no responsibility for the outcome – but insist that other people have to all the time, even for things that they had nothing to do with. How else could they be completely unaware of what they themselves did? I personally wouldn’t want to know anyone like that – would you?