There's a huge difference between getting social and moral support when suffering from poor mental health and invalidating one's feelings. Often, those who feel their feelings are invalidated are more than likely to commit suicide or resort to self-harm.
A new study reveals that teenagers who feel they have not been listened to, or their illness have been talked down, have a higher risk of committing or attempting to commit suicide, as well as hurt themselves like self-mutilation.
Shirley Yen, the lead researcher of the study, interviewed 99 teens along with their parents. These teens had just been admitted to certain psychiatric centers because of increased risk of suicide and self-harm or a suicide attempt and successful self-mutilation. Of the 99 participants, 23 were boys and the rest were girls. They were initially interviewed and asked questions, some of which involved around validation like "Were there times when you did not feel accepted by your family?"
Six months after, Yen and her team made a follow-up where they discovered that 21 of the girls had tried to commit suicide or had an increased suicide risk while 25 of them self-mutilated. On the other hand, 15 boys resorted to self-mutilation while 14 tried to commit suicide or were believed to be in an increased suicide risk.
There's also a marked difference in gender when it comes to their definition of invalidation and their behavior toward it. Boys tend to commit suicide while the girls self-mutilate. The latter are also more vulnerable to high negative perception about validation from their families.
Yen suggested that the study differentiates the nature of support and validation. It's possible for a teen with a problematic mental health to receive social and moral support while being invalidated at the same time. For instance, parents who tell their depressed children that they don't have any reason to feel such way is already a form of invalidation.
