Validation from others

Hey there, I am struggling to pinpoint some of the thoughts and feelings going around. The past years I worked towards pleasing people and thinking less about what others think about me. It is something that has been around my entire adult life and it has been difficult to ‘get rid of’. These days I am getting help to get over my birth trauma, and it is going better and better. But something that keeps following me around is this: somehow I am seeking the validation of others (especially friends and family) that my trauma is real, and when it is not given, I feel very sad and sometimes angry. A guess would be that for some time I hid what had happened and what it had done to me, I downgraded what happened to me at the birth of my child, and only when working with a psychologist things came to the surface. I am working on accepting that what happened to me was very bad, and real and it had an effect on my mental health. But somehow I want others to validate it as well. Typically people would ask me about what happened and they say they are open to hearing my story but then they say universal things like ‘ could have gone worse’ ‘ at least you are alive’ ‘ I have heard worse stories’ ‘ don’t be ungrateful, your child is in good health’ etc. What I wish to hear is that people hear me and that they give me the space to feel all my feelings. When they don’t my thoughts are ‘they don’t believe my story’ ‘ they think I was overreacting or that I am too sensitive’. I know they might think or not think that and that I cannot change it any other way but I still seek this validation from there. Like if they validate it, then what happened to be is real. What happens now is that I don’t talk about it to anyone and close myself in because I don’t know how to change my thoughts about it. Any thoughts?

 

 

Answer:

 

This is such an important thing to explore for yourself. We hear you, we see you, and we’re so glad you’re here to dig in. It can be very painful to put validation of our experiences in the hands of others – people don’t often know what we expect of them. When we want them to behave in a certain way and they let us down it can cause us pain – even heartbreak.

This might be a time to examine what your expectations of others are when you want to, or are asked to share your birth story. Write a list out without judgement and without stopping to edit or revise. When you take a look at your list, what do you see? How do you feel? What do you love about your expectations? What do you want to eliminate? What do you want to add in? Check in and notice whether and how these expectations of others support or don’t support your ability to validate your experience of childbirth without someone else’s validation.

Notice what comes up for you and bring it back to us so we can continue coaching. Sending you all the love.