| EQI.org Home | Invalidation Don't You Have a Home to Go To? This is what a librarian said to my partner and I when a library was closing one day in New Zealand. I quickly felt resentful about her comment. To me it was what I would call a "smart ass comment." It is still bothering me 20 minutes later so I am writing about it. I asked myself what the more specific feeling was... the first that came to my mind was "unwelcome." Now I realize I also felt judged and underestimated. I knew what time it was. I was very aware of it in fact. I was rushing to type in the rest of a page from Emotional Fitness. I felt even more stressed by her comment. I felt pressured and afraid she would come back again. I am scared of authority. I resent the abuse of power. I would call what she did an abuse of power. At the time, I just smiled. What could I say? She walked away too quickly anyhow for me to reply. But I am thinking of telling someone tomorrow, or at some point, how I felt. I can anticipate her reaction. She would almost surely say, "I was just joking." In other words, she would invalidate me, or someone else probably would. This is an example of indirect communication -- She didn't say how she was feeling. Was she afraid that we were going to cause her some inconvenience? Perhaps make her stay an extra two minutes to lock the door behind us? What are the chances she would tell me the truth if I asked her how she felt? Not having a home is an issue for us. We were staying in the local campground, but to her we might have looked homeless. We have been in non-English speaking countries for most of the past 2 years or so, so it was nice to spend a lot of time in the library. The librarian had no idea of our actual situation. She had no idea how much we had suffered in other countries or in hers. This is one reason I felt judged and resentful. I could understand if someone who really were homeless would think about it all night long, getting angrier and angrier - more and more resentful and hostile. I could understand why someone could snap and say, "That's it. I've had enough." I could understand if they would go back the next day and "act out their feelings" in some way or other I could understand if someone were to say to themselves, "I am sick of being treated this way. That was the last straw." Who would understand why someone would react so strongly to such a seemingly small remark? Maybe only someone else who has been judged, underestimated, rejected, persecuted, discriminated against, and abandoned over a period of many years. I think of Cynthia Morton's book. I wonder what she would do. |
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