The Invalidator

I've recently read a book titled Nasty People and learnt about a certain category of people..."The Invalidators".

Have you ever talked to people that appeared nice, felt terrible afterwards, yet not knowing why. Seems like your self-worth was hacked away in the most subtle way leaving you feeling lowly and uncomfortable.

An Invalidator may unreasonably persist on their point of view but rather than attacking the argument of the subject matter they attack you and your self-esteem. They may unreasonably want things not within your capabilities and insinuate blame upon you making you feel bad for being unable to do what they want.

They will try to make the other person feel small/bad so they can feel bigger and better. Their words are to strip you away so they can manipulate you because deep down they perceive you as being superior. Subconsciously in their minds they say "I can't equal them, to control them lets cut them down to size". Have you ever met people with these traits? Maybe you were not aware but you probably have met one or two or more.

The Invalidators uses various suppressive mechanisms to chop away at your self-esteem and self-worth.

They may:

-pretend to acknowledge something you are proud of, then later makes some negative insinuation about it.

-feels out what you think your shortcomings are and then exploits them at your most vulnerable times, all the while using it against you in the most subtle way.

-Make you feel bad about something you had no control over or had no choice over for their gain.

-take accusations that have "some truth" and fires them at you as they are "just being your friend," or "to help you out."

~ Invalidator Friend Vs True Friend ~

The difference between an Invalidator and a real friend is that a real friend will tell you one or two of your shortcomings and then back away to give you space to ponder and consider it. All people awaken at different times and they will respect that. An Invalidator will lay many of your faults out for you and persist (nag) until you feel as big as the full-stop at the end of this sentence.

The difference in a good friend and an Invalidator is the intention/motive. When your friends are being critical are they sincere with you or do they have underlining selfish motives? In the end, a true friends intention is not for you to feel worst so they can feel good. They would feel bad if your feeling bad about yourself, least of all feel good about it. They will want to help you improve but also try to make you feel better about at the same time and respect you, not try to manipulate or control you. An Invalidator will feel good about your shortcomings and point out faults to make you inferior. When you feel insecure, your easy prey for manipulation.

But of course even your true friends are not perfect they may fail to be sensitive to your feelings and can seem to invalidate you too, so before getting all worked up stay calm and at least look at their underlining intentions/motives for saying things.

~ Invalidators Are Slipperly ~

An Invalidator will pick out the qualities about yourself that are most important to you and then tear them apart. If you do confront an Invalidator on what she is doing, she will say something like "I'm your friend. Where did you get these silly ideas?" and make you feel bad for thinking such. Even if you successful make them admit their forms of invalidation they will postpone invalidation until later when you least expected it. If they can take advantage of you they will!

An Invalidator could be friendly for a very long time but when a promotion comes, it's either you or him. Selfishly they will chew you up and spit you out before you knew what hit you and all the while putting on the best buddy act. With the knowledge they you had confound in them in the past they will invent perfectly reasonable points why you wouldn't have wanted the promotion in the first place.

Above are the general traits of an Invalidator. My next blog will be a discussion of an Invalidators invalidation techniques....

TO BE CONTINUED...