Your Feelings Are Valid, but That Doesn't Make Them True
“Your feelings are valid, but that doesn’t mean they’re true” is a phrase I learned very early in my mental health journey when I struggled with validating my own emotions.
Emotional validation is a very important part in a trauma survivor’s healing journey. When we’re taught from a very young age that our opinions, feelings, and perspectives are not valid, or we’re gaslit and lead to question our reality, it’s hard to accept, honor, and even sometimes feel our emotions as we get older. (Source: VeryWell Mind) As Allie Burke pens in Psychology Today, “Our feelings are valid because we feel them.” That being said (and I do completely agree with her), it doesn’t always mean that my feelings and reactions to the situation are true.
At first glance, I do understand how that sentence can read and feel as if it’s gaslighting you, the reader. How can I say “Your feelings are valid,” in the same breath that I also emphatically say “but that doesn’t mean they’re true.” Doesn’t the latter negate the former?
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