The Twisted Win in Validation
So after years of being invalidated…not only by my ex-husband, but also by my parents (which is probably why I allowed it with my ex-husband), I have been 8 years in the making of healing and recovery. Some days I know I can have my own valid, intelligent thoughts. Other times I question every strong feeling or opinion I have.
I am not a dummy. I am a highly educated, successful working-mom. What I know is that I am fully capable of understanding things, processing those things and then coming up with valid opinions and am also capable of making good decisions. I have endless curiosity and want to understand the why of everything. I am willing to ask questions. Willing to say I don’t know. Willing to go the distance for whatever it is that will bring clarity and light into our life.
But BOOM…do you know how many times I question even the most mundane things, because I was so beaten down and told my “feelings didn’t matter”…so here I am left to unravel this torture and mind-fucking that occurred over years. I am healing and I am stronger and my pursuit to believe in myself is emerging.
Luckily, I am given many opportunities to hone my newly re-emerging skills because, my ex-husband (father of my beloved kiddo) gives me so many chances to DO BETTER! It has been a very long rode and for anyone who “gets it”, you know without me having to say much more.
The latest chance I had was, as it often is, through the ongoing pursuit to advocate for my child. My kiddo is tremendously wonderful. He his joyful. He is happy and beautiful and filled with light. I can honestly own that now, along with my current husband…we have helped to foster and create that despite the darkness all around our co-parenting nightmare.
With all that said, my kiddo struggles in school. We recently discovered that he has dyslexia and executive functioning difficulties. All things we can support and conquer for and with him and we will do that. However, super-wonderful biological dad refused to incur any cost to uncover these issues and will go to his grave asserting there is “nothing going on there” and all the efforts to discover were unnecessary. He actually said, our child is “just a bad test-taker and needs to be taught process of elimination”. Then after being told by a highly accomplished and experienced clincial psychologist that our kiddo is smart (his IQ is actually higher than his bio-dad’s), super wonderful dad said, “we should move him to a slower public school so he doesn’t have to work so hard”. Huh? Yes, let’s dumb him down…that’s the right answer!
My point here is that I was told (projection) that I am a bad mom, conspiring with professionals to diagnose our kiddo with something he doesn’t have and that all efforts to help him are unnecessary. Then the teacher and learning specialist validated my concerns. Our kiddo’s therapist validated my concern. Then the clinical psychologist validated my concern. And there were others. It turned out that my son’s super wonderful father even lied on two separate questionnaires that would help the professionals determine how to help our kiddo. He lied on forms to help understand how his child learns.
All in all, it is absolutely bittersweet that my kiddo struggles to learn in some ways. But if all parents could understand and support he would be best suited for success. In our world, his two most loving and rational advocates will go great lengths to do all he needs…but there is one hole in the tire who will go great lengths to make sure that he is pulling in the opposite direction and while doing so continuing to invalidate every breath that I take.
My biggest point is that I had to get numerous professionals to validate what I knew about my child in my gut, so deep down in my gut that I would not stop until we got answers…but the “I am a good dad” dad fixes his gaze on me and any way to stop me, any way to hurt me and way to terrorize me. I win because of the support and rational people around me, but man it should not take all that.
This win will help me next time, when I have to make the next big parenting decision and my opinion is shredded and used against me legally and through emotional and psychological abuse…but each time I win through valdiation I get stronger. I just wish I could beleive in myself from the start! Maybe some day I will get there.
