Furthermore, an Invalidating Environment is characterised by a tendency to place a high value on self-control and self-reliance. Possible difficulties in these areas are not acknowledged and it is implied that problem solving should be easy given proper motivation. Any failure on the part of the child to perform to the expected standard is therefore ascribed to lack of motivation or some other negative characteristic of her character.
My father was the one who insisted on the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" ideology, and often told me that I was stupid or some other equally damaging name when I couldn't figure out the answer to a problem. I was just a kid, for Pete's sake! I didn't have all the worldly knowledge required for many of those problems, and sometimes, I was too scared to venture a guess for fear of being punished again. "[...]nor will she learn to trust her own responses to events." No crap.
On the other end of the spectrum, I just read a post from a friend about perception. It makes reality. A person's perception makes a thing or event good or bad, or neutral. I like to make things neutral. I don't want bad in my life, of course, but I don't want to label as "good" most of the things I deal with. I think that may be a bad course, because "neutral" can easily turn "bad" but it seems to be much harder for it to turn "good". Neutral doesn't seem to want to stay neutral.
2 comments:
Very interesting. That environment sounds exactly like big law firm life. That explains a lot. Thanks for sharing that.
My environment was much like that as a child, as well. I can totally identify with those feelings...
As far as the good, the bad, or the ugly...LOL...I think it rather boils down to this....no experience, is a waste of time...no experience is for nothing..especially not the bad ones. The level of learning that is achieved through bad experiences is rather spiritual. Always find the lesson.
For example, my ex husband was a wife beating asshole. Now, that was a BAD experience...but, I wouldn't change it because of the things I learned from having it. Why? Because I can't see any way that I would have ever learned those things and in retrospect, some of those things are really good to know.
Make sense?
Post a Comment