Validation from Others

Day Eight: The Language We Use

Welcome to day eight of The Language We Use!

If you’ve been following along up to this point, you’ve hopefully made some big changes in the ways you speak to yourself. This week, we are going to work on how we respond to others when they speak to us about our pregnancy losses, and how we can support ourselves when others invalidate our emotional experience.

Validation and Invalidation

What does it mean to feel validated and invalidated?

Validation: the action of checking or proving the validity or accuracy of something; recognition or affirmation that a person or their feelings or opinions are valid and worthwhile.

Invalidation: denying, rejecting, or dismissing someone’s feelings. A person’s emotional experience is inaccurate, insignificant, or unacceptable.

We have many invalidating experiences throughout our day. Some of them are very minor, and others can be obvious. Regardless of the severity, invalidation from others can be hurtful. We can internalize what others are saying, which leads us to question our own emotional experiences.

Think about all of the invalidating things people can say to us when it comes to our pregnancy losses. Here are some examples:

It’s just a blip on the radar. You’ll get pregnant again in no time.

It’s just one miscarriage. Everyone has one!

It’s simply nature’s way/God’s way.

It wasn’t meant to be.

Heaven gained another angel.

Everything will be better once you have your baby.

Now, I don’t believe that people are saying these things to be hurtful intentionally. I really believe that people are trying to be kind and well-intentioned. I also believe some people have a hard time sitting in grief or sadness with us. It feels uncomfortable, and reminds people that they might also experience this level of grief as well. Because it’s too hard to think about, others try to problem-solve or fix it. They are uncomfortable sitting in sadness, that they do whatever they can do to make it go away.

But, instead of wiping it away, we need people to hold our grief, sit with us without moving on from what we are feeling. Instead of the invalidating statements, we need people to say:

I’m sorry you have to endure this.

A loss at any stage is tragic.

I’ll sit right here with you.

It takes courage to be validating and empathetic.

Our third miscarriage was confirmed in an emergency room in Grove City, Pa. My husband and I were traveling from Michigan to Brooklyn. We were far from home, and felt alone and scared. The emergency room doctor walked into our room, pulled his chair very close to us, and shared the news. As we started crying, he said, “I’m so sorry to meet you both under these tragic circumstances. This is truly a tragedy.” In that moment, we felt loved, supported, and validated. Our emotional response to this pregnancy loss was tragic, and someone supported that.

The hard part about all of this this is that we cannot control what others say. People are going to say things that are hurtful, invalidating, and unsupportive. We are going to have people who think they are helping us by saying, “it will all be ok.” And, we are going to have people who say nothing at all, which can almost be the most invalidating. But, the work is not controlling others and what they say. The work is learning how to support ourselves when others say things that are invalidating.

After my fourth pregnancy loss, I was enrolled in a research study for women experiencing recurrent pregnancy loss. As I started my initial interview for the study, the research assistant asked, “how many pregnancy losses have you had, and how far along were you?” I started to answer, “I was four weeks along with my first miscarriage.”

The assistant immediately cut me off. “So, it was just a chemical pregnancy?”

I answered, “I had a miscarriage at four weeks.”

She responded, “OK, right, just a chemical pregnancy.”

That is an invalidating statement, because it diminishes the importance of the event for me. It didn’t matter if I was pregnant for four-weeks, or four months. For me, a loss was a loss.

Prior to the work I had done for myself, I would have internalized this. Should I count it if it’s a chemical pregnancy? Maybe a chemical pregnancy isn’t that bad. I shouldn’t worry about that first one too much. But I was sad, does that count?

But, this time, I smiled back at her, and stood my ground that I had experienced four pregnancy losses. I didn’t internalize her statement, rather, I identified it as an invalidating statement, said a few kind things to myself, and moved forward.

Journaling Exercise

Today, answer the following questions:

1.     What are the invalidating things others have said to you? How do those statements make you feel?

2.     How do you know when someone is being validating or invalidating?

3.     Who are the people who have validated your pregnancy loss experience?

4.     How can you validate your own feelings about the experience?

Tomorrow, we are going to identify how you can use validation to advocate for yourself in this process.