It's Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People

by Ramani Durvasula

simple as the narcissistic person not listening or contemptuously dismissing something you say (“That’s just ridiculous, nobody cares about what you are saying”). Over time this can feel dehumanizing because anything you bring up is written off as unimportant or is simply not attended to, and it can slowly feel like you do not exist. The experience of dismissiveness and invalidation can occur gradually, and what initially may feel like a difference of opinion can evolve into a large-scale brush-off. Dismissiveness often foreshadows contempt and an absolute disregard and disdain for you and anything that matters to you. Invalidation is not being seen, felt, heard, or experienced. Where the dismissiveness is a brush-off, invalidation is a negation. Dismissiveness is ignoring a concern or need you may be having; invalidation is having your needs chronically shamed and denied (“Don’t be a baby and make me waste a day sitting at your doctor’s appointments, I can’t change your disease by sitting there, and I can’t stand hospitals”). Over time the invalidation steals your voice and ultimately your sense of self. In the early days, you may furrow your brow and wonder, Did they even hear me? If you grew up with a narcissistic parent, invalidation is familiar to you; not only were you inconsistently