Needing validation (general thread)

So a lot of people hereabouts seem to have various hangups with needing or wanting validation, but feeling like they "shouldn't" or not wanting to need validation. Understandably, this makes it difficult to start threads about needing validation, in case that also feels like needing validation, so I thought I'd just short-circuit the whole damn thing and make a thread for people to talk about it so they don't have to make one for themselves.

I'm thinking this thread should encompass both talking about how you feel about needing validation and just going "hey I really need validated right now."

 

I don't need validated! Wanting attention from other people is bad! You don't need other people to feel good about yourself! Don't boast about your accomplishments, even if people compliment you on them don't talk about it at all! You're not talented, just average, so you don't deserve to be validated! Asking to be validated straight up, even if it's what you need, will just make people uncomfortable! Instead you should make passive-aggressive comments! And if people don't respond to those, you'll feel even more like crap, hooray!!!​

Heavy sarcasm. I'm actually trying to get over my (BPD-ish) passive-aggressive tendencies and actually ask for what I need, and sometimes what I really want is someone else telling me I'm not a total piece of shit. Because sometimes I get compassion fatigue for myself--yeah, I believe it, but I'm worn out, y'see, and so my mental self-care gland is on hiatus. But I'm just bombarded with all this stuff, all those comments come from my parents basically, and then my self-esteem is crap anyway and depression kicks in all "you sorry waste of breath, why do you even think people care about you" and bleghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

The worst part is, I've been feeling "need validated" for like two weeks now, and even being validated (by enbyfriend polymates, no less) isn't helping fix whatever's making me feel that way. I'm thinking it's low self-esteem in general, probably depression/dysthymia on top of it. A delightful shit sandwich.

(@Wiwaxia I feel like I manipulated you into starting this thread because I was too much of a chickenshit to do it myself. I'm trying not to do that. God damn it.)

 

That is exactly the opposite of what happened. I saw your post and got the idea to make the thread, I just didn't want to start it without checking in with you first.
(I was actually worried about being inappropriate/boundary pushing by starting it for you, so.)

 

Okay, I'm just freaking out because on top of the other needing-validation issues I didn't need to be doing that to people. Thanks.

 

... I'm kind of amused because my validation issues go to the other side of the scale - like, not 'you're not awesome, you're normal', but 'you're not normal, you're literally the worst'.

Just... centered around being the worst person ever, and bothering everyone, normal people don't need to deal with your shit. Obviously you're just manipulating everyone into thinking you're in the right, you're just crazy and manipulating everyone and blowing everything out of proportion and you should never talk to anyone again that's the only way to not bother them with your horrible horribleness.

And by you I mean me. Just in second-person because I always parse it as yelling at myself. Ugh. Trying to be less insecure about it, but getting over gaslighting is so hard. I don't know how to trust my own reading of events anymore, especially since I'm probable-sperg and I don't always read things right. I know, I'm repeating myself, I've been beating my head against it because I don't know how to fix it.

For what it's worth, though, you seem totally awesome and not at all bothersome. :)

 

Funnily enough, it's taken me maybe three, four years to get to where I am. I have a really hard time accepting compliments, to the point where they make me physically uncomfortable and make me scream at people not to "put me on a pedestal." But at least now I can say, well, I'm average and maybe not a complete potato.

Totally get the bothering-people thing too. I feel like I'm bothering my polymates--you know, the two people in the world who have said that they are always available for me to brainweird at. For the manipulating-people thing I've actually started actually literally saying "I need validated, can you do that for me?" It helps because then I don't feel so... manipulate-y, just asking for what I need. Of course, I don't always have the strength of will/presence of mind to actually ask, and then I make passive-aggressive Tumblr posts saying "if only people wrote/drew my rarepair for me" which I find disgusting and delete the next day.

And from what I've seen around the forums you're kind and selfless and a very strong soul, fwiw. C:

 

I think it's kind of telling that, for example, people I've seen being generally cool about the forums are expressing insecurities about bothering people, and then when I expressed the same insecurities, I was told I didn't appear to be bothering anyone. That's the sort of thing I try to keep in mind to combat the worries, seeing other people with the same issues and going "well, I enjoy talking to them, so its possible I could also be not-terrible and not-annoying?"

I've actually been told straight-out by a therapist that I need a lot of validation. Also by someone else that I have some BPD-ish tendencies. (got a psych eval scheduled for a week from now, so some mysteries will hopefully be solved finally!) So I'm trying to be mindful of that. My biggest problem is that I'm indecisive because I doubt my own judgment all the time, so I constantly ask for second opinions on things that seem innocuous to other people.

 

fucking same tho
No, seriously, I have a pretty piss-poor track record of making good long-term decisions for myself. I don't trust my own judgment on a lot of stuff which triggers the "need validated" feel.

Hope your eval goes well--and don't freak if it comes up BPD. It doesn't make you a bad person, just susceptible to certain tracks of thought.

 

Aw. Thank you; I am totally blushing irl here. I do my best, anyway; makes me feel better about the existential state of the world if I can do good things, and I like being useful. :)

Yeah, it's a hard pattern to work through. BRAINS, why must you be so complicated?

 

Haw haw basically all the things here are me. Even the slightly contradictory bits. xP
Ehhh I have no faith in myself whatsoever, the self-esteem of a mangled lima bean, and I can no longer tell what's me being honest about things/actually needing or doing things and what's me trying to hopefully manipulate people into doing what I can't ask for. What is actually real problems and what is me trying to feel like I deserve attention when I have trouble not viewing comparing problems with, say, abuse survivors as 'competing' with them for some kind of bizarre finite pool of caring and resources that I simultaneously feel like I'm taking too much of and not getting enough from?

My brain: the only place where not having an abusive childhood is a bad thing.

 

i just realized that, for the last 2 years or so, i've been feeling really ignored on the net (my parents are good and pay attention to me but they don't talk about stuff i like often and rl socialization is more stressful, so i'm fine in meatspace), despite kintsugi, one of my old friends (well, actually an acquaintance right now 'cause we aren't used to each other yet) meeting up with me again, and my Longest Convo Ever at fanfiction.net.

so yeah, i need validation - and people to talk about norm the genie with. which causes problems when i interact with people that don't need the same thing i do. 'cause i give them what i want and it doesn't occur to me that they want something entirely different.

like, for me, people i know and love or like, caring about what i say and what i'm doing is a sign of love or liking - not if they are sjws lambasting me for being wrong on the net or homophobes telling me that the gay is wrong or family members inquiring into porn. just if i post something, or express that i'm sad, i want someone to talk to me or press "like" on it or reblog it. stuff like that. and i have a pretty open definition of "liking."

 

basically being me clingy fucks me and everyone else up

 

Part of this is unlearning toxic environments where you have to be the most X to ever X! (Tumblr, I'm looking straight at you. Don't pretend you don't see me. You know I'm talking about you, with your "more X than thou," "not X enough" attitude.) Also, realizing that there is no such thing as a limited finite pool of caring helps. Energy to care, maybe, but not about you as a person. Love begets love and all that.

Yeah, a lot of the time I feel like Tumblr is like shouting into the void. It kinda sucks. It's part of why I don't run a personal--so I can't get disappointed when people aren't interested in my real life. And talking to people about feelings, what's that? No one wants to hear about that! /myparents

 

and like i don't even post real life stuff there much, just fandom stuff
which no one gives a fuck about 'cause i'm most interested in my small fandoms
and i don't make the fandom sj-type posts that everyone loves (like character x headcanon as a yz)

 

...Yeah. Though the fact that I am very aware that people have a limited amount of energy-to-care available at any one time makes me afraid of pushing people into the 'oh shut up already' zone, because I a) can get pointlessly argumentative if I'm in a bad place and b) tend to circle round a topic for ages, repeatedly coming back to it even after we've apparently moved on, if it's still lodged in my head as a Problem. And I feel that I myself would be annoyed by this behaviour, so I assume everyone else is as well.
Even though I've actually proved myself to be fairly good at dealing with similar behaviours from others, and not holding it against them.
I don't know. I'm supposed to care endlessly about everyone else, but nobody else ought to waste their daily allotment of energy-to-care on me when there are people who deserve it more out there. So frankly, the knowledge that people can't care always all the time negates any benefit I could get from knowing that care is a regenerating resource.

 

@TwoBrokenMirrors You're lovely, don't worry. You're not taking too much, and your problems and feelings are worth our time and energy. And you're fun to talk to.

@unknownanonymous Have you considered making a General Chatter thread about Norm the Genie? It's a specific enough sperg that it's going to be hard to find folks who already know about it, as I'm sure you're aware, but this is a pretty sperg-friendly forum, and maybe you could convert people?

 

Mm... validation request, also. Is it okay to take sick leave, as opposed to vacation time, when one is overloaded to the point of nearly hyperventilating and going non-verbal?

(I'm on call this week, and just knowing that I may be interrupted at any time is really stressful, and I've already had four workdays full of people yanking me from task to task. And then we had a jackhammer immediately outside my window. For hours. Too much loud. No. Stop.)

I'm pretty sure it's legit, especially since I also had a headache from the hours of jackhammering. I just need to hear it from someone who's outside my head, because Mom always said 'you can only skip school if you're either running a high fever or actively vomiting, and maybe not even then', and I still feel like I'm cheating if I use my sick leave for anything but that. Including stuff like 'sprained ankle, can't manage enough walking to get to and from the office', which I'm pretty sure is silly.

 

Yes it is ok, and your moms standards of sick are messed up.

 

@albedo i guess i could. might get no one who cares on it and it'll just feel like a shithead for bringing up something that nobody else cares about. like, why the fuck couldn't i have a more normal, popular, useful or general sperg? why the hell does norm the genie and the show he's from, fairly oddparents, in general have to be my sperg?

and like, i've tried to develop better, more shared spergs but they either never take, i drop them or randomly drop in and out of them. none of those are fucking constant.

i'm the worst, most hipster sperglord EVER.

and i don't know what the hell i'd think of pity-comments/reads/likes. like, "oh i don't give a fuck about your sperg and don't want to but look at the cute sad baby! she wants people to care, so i guess i will put up a superficial front of it in order to make her feel better.

 

@pixels ah, yes. In my case I have a cycle of is anxious about everything-> starts to combat anxiety-> becomes more confident->does something impulsive bc anxiety is not holding me back and fuck up->becomes anxious about everything again.

I'm aware that the way to break this cycle is to not get as hung up on mistakes, but in practice...man, it's hard. When something goes wrong it really feels like the end of the world, especially if it's my fault :/ (or...perceived to be, I guess.) I also get frustrated very easily. Some times are easier than others.

I actually already had my little freak out about the possibility of BPD so...I think I'll be more prepared. It helped to read accounts of real people here and not just be going off the scary stereotype.

@albedo definitely, because even if it's not "illness" in the traditional sense, overload sorta needs to be treated like a cold, in that if you keep pushing yourself it will generally not go away and get worse instead. So treat yourself, I'd say.

@unknownanonymous idk if this helps but, I think special interests are great even if I don't share them. Like if I see something online related to someone's Thing I always wanna just send it to them, because seeing them get excited about it makes me happy. Idk. The one advantage of my overactive empathy, I guess.