Do Not Let Anyone Invalidate Your Experience

 

 

How Religious People Behave Like They Know It All about My Experience

A Hindu religious twat took upon himself to diss me in the comment section of my first blog, 'Karma is Not a Bitch. Karma is Bullshit'. He superimposed his beliefs as the supreme truth, ignoring my questions about universality. Anyway, I am used to such twats of all religions - they think the beliefs and Gods of other religions are wrong. I just say all of them are wrong. 

Many people have the habit of dismissing your reality, pain, and situation and lend toxic positivity. Don't get me wrong, I am not talking about putting forth your opinion/experiences and making it sound like your opinion/experience represents everyone's in a situation where others cite their opposite opinion/experience. I get this a lot from the followers of my Facebook page - self-absorbed people are not exactly sparse. 

This is from my Tumblr

Don't Invalidate. Just Listen and Acknowledge - It Saves Lives

It's just that too many people are bad listeners and self-righteous. I have been complaining of pain since I was a child and all my aunts and uncles and even my own mom and sister dismissed me as overreacting, lazy, hypochondriac, and seeking attention. Pretty soon, I stopped complaining about my invisible health issues - as soon as I learned to take the public bus at 13, I started going to the hospital by myself and getting painkillers.

When my rare genetic disease hit me in full-blown form when I was 19, normal, independent life ended for me and I became a lesson for my whole family. The minute my niece or nephew complains of pain anywhere, no time is wasted to invalidate their whine - they are immediately taken to a specialist and all kinds of medical tests are done.

This is why invalidating the complaint of others can bite you back in the ass. I still experience invalidation till today, especially at the hands of religious people who know shit about my disease and ask me how many astrologers did I go to and whether I had my past, present, and future calculated.

My disease was discovered only in 1912. Before that, people with Wilson's Disease were faced with certain death. What amuses me is the fact that religious practitioners think they can cure my disease. They don't even know the name of my illness, what it does to the biological system, the cause of it, or the symptoms. They are quite the charlatans and experts at faking it.

What I hate most is how my experience is invalidated. I am the one who is going through the wringer. It is my body that is affected. But people talk as if they know better than I do about my ordeal. 

This is one of the main reasons I don't talk about my illness openly. I am either invalidated or seen as an inspiration - no, treat me as a human being. I am as human as any of you with a different life. That's it.

My workplace is most supportive and accommodating of my experience than any platform. I was plagued by migraine, nausea and fever last week and I took emergency leaves. When I got back to work, my manager forgot my turn at the Touch Base meeting. 😂 My colleagues just enquired if I am doing better. That is it - they only care about my experience coz they know that my condition is on a whole different level. They don't butt in and cite their experiences to invalidate mine. This is something people really should apply.

Toxic Positivity Does not Help

I know that the invalidation also can be well-meaning but it's toxic positivity. One cannot be positive all the time. Reality is often negative so being real is the way we can sort out a way to turn things around. My virtual monthly team engagement group's name is 'G-Tribe Positive Vibes'. But the leader asks us about any issues we face at work to be escalated to the ManCom committee besides the positivity-enforcement activities. This is what I mean.

I was one who liked to say, "Hey, I suffer more than you. If I can do it, what's stopping you?" Now I know how wrong that behaviour is. Everyone has different coping mechanisms, trigger points, and mental, and physical capacity. What I took in my stride can cause PTSD for others. So, it is criminal to overlap and belittle others who are differently cultivated and moulded. 

I don't want to be an inspiration. I just want to be understood as different yet human like the rest of you.