On Validating Each Other`s Reality and Why it is Important

If I want to have fun, relax and be myself, feed and be fed and be left with the feeling that something wonderful happened, I choose the company of my four sons (all at once).

If I have juristic problems, I go to my lawyer who is also a friend. If I want to let off steam about my current relationship, I talk to my best girlfriend. If I want sensible advice on my current relationship, I talk to my daughter-in-law. If I want advice on money issues, I talk to a friend who is also a Finance Expert. When my computer goes on strike, I call my brother, when an electrical appliance goes on strike, I call my ex-husband. For everything else, I have friends.

All of these validate my perceptions of reality, enhancing or correcting them as need be.

This forum validates our perceptions of reality, enhancing or correcting them as need be.

We choose those who are around us, if we choose them wisely, on the strength of two premises: (1)trust that, when they validate our perceptions of reality, they are giving us honest feedback based on their own perceptions of reality, not trying to trick us into trusting them and (2) that, when they correct, amend or enhance our perceptions of reality, they are doing so on the basis of their own experience in the hope that this will enrich us, not trying to pull the carpet out from under our feet and screw us up completely.

Trust is a very big issue here. We need to trust the honesty of their feedback that we are having a great time together and that the environment is a safe one in which to be ourselves. Or we need to trust either their judgement, when they correct or enhance our perceptions of reality, that these really need to be corrected, amended or enhanced, or that they at least have our best interests at heart in attempting to do so.

When we validate another`s reality as far as it is appropriate to do so, and amend or enhance it when we feel that it necessary to do THAT, with the other person`s best interests at heart, we give them security. Actually, anyone who has ever parented a child or taught probably knows this already, at least subconsciously. I think that`s one thing we are looking for as children, someone we can trust enough that, when they validate our perceptions of reality, we can believe that we are on the right track, and when they correct, amend or enhance them, that they really have the wisdom, experience or intuition to correct our course in a manner that will be of benefit to US! Mentors, in short. And I`m not trying to imply that we should only consort with what most people understand by mentors, because even babies can be excellent mentors when we allow them to.

Other times we hang out with people who are fun, or who make us laugh, who bring out sides in us we didn`t know we had, who allow us to live out aspects of ourselves that otherwise live under wraps, whatever. (And occasionally we hang out with people - who might or might not be family - simply because it`s the "done" thing to do, and come away untouched, or irritated, or even indignant or vindictive, whatever: our perceptions of reality may have come under fire, but they are still intact).
Narcs. invalidate our perceptions of reality, that is what creates cog. diss. When our intuition, our experience, our love, our emotions are screaming, "This is reality and it is awful", narcs tell us, "You are off, you are crazy, you are clinging and weak, you need therapy, you are ugly, despicable, weak, over-sensitive, you are over-reacting, you are hurting me, I need a break, no-one could live with you" etc. etc. They tell us what we feel, see and experience is not real, what they feel, see and experience is the only reality. That is invalidation of OUR reality, and it takes away every security we have, the security to trust our own perceptions as well as to trust the feedback we are getting from our environment.

It is like blindfolding someone in a wheelchair and throwing him into the ocean saying, "if you don`t realize I`m doing this for your own good then you deserve to drown".

It is only possible for them to do this to us because of "splitting", the typical psychopathic tendency to split everything into black or white. Most halfway healthy human beings with a little experience know that life consists of varying light or dark shades of grey, with the occasionly dazzling white peak and the occasionally horrifically dark trough. We would wish it different. We would wish it dazzlingly white all the time, and our biggest terror is that it become horrifically dark all the time. But reality is grey. And to paraphrase Procul Harem, a human being with experience and insight will no longer wish for "dazzling white all the time", nor for an absence of "horrifically dark", he will only wish for "a lighter shade of grey".

Psychopaths throw a spanner in the works by first offering us what we secretly wish for ("dazzling white all the time") and then what we are most afraid of ("horrifically dark all the time"). It is how they hook us, and how they break us down. It is also how they invalidate reality - not just our own personal reality, but the whole reality of human existence. And they do this with a smile on their faces, having won our trust:
You can trust me to validate your perceptions of reality. What we have together is good.
You can trust me to enhance your perceptions of reality. You are crazy.
You can trust me to correct your perceptions of reality.
I am only torturing you because you need to be tortured to evolve.

For any of us who encountered that kind of treatment in early childhood, it`s clear why we`re on this forum now. But this forum is a good place to be. On this forum, we can find really good friends - those who share our experience, those who validate our personal reality, those who correct, amend or enhance our personal reality, those whom we allow to do that, those whom we don`t allow to do that, those who rage briefly against another`s view of reality and then give in - or don`t. But invalidation of another`s perception of reality I have not found here, and don`t expect to any more.

I`d like to end with a really neat, really clever, really on the spot one-liner, but I cant find one! So thank God for this forum, thank God for people who despite being maltreated still have the gumption to fight, thank God for people who while still scarred, scared and terrified are still prepared to share whatever they have to help others, thank God for those who have grown wise through suffering and share the wisdom they acquired through suffering with others who are still suffering, and God`s mercy on those who are suffering all over the world and here, now and at any time, and for whatever reason.

Amen.