Have you ever been told you’re too hard on yourself or that you suffer from chronic low self-esteem? These tendencies often stem from repeated experiences in which those who are important to us, such as family members, friends, or peers, make negative comments about the things we say or do or about how we look. Over time, many of us internalize these experiences and those critical voices become a part of our internal dialogue; we continue to criticize, invalidate, and question ourselves and our experiences in our minds long after those who criticized us are gone from our lives.

How Repeated Invalidation Erodes Self-Esteem

While a certain amount of constructive criticism is a normal part of life, repeated invalidation can have a long-lasting impact on how we feel about ourselves. This is especially true if there is an absence of validating experiences (experiences in which others communicate that our thoughts, feelings, and sensations are valid or “make sense”). When a person’s emotional experiences are invalidated repeatedly, especially if from a young age, they may begin to view their painful thoughts, feelings, and emotions as untrustworthy, unpredictable, or even dangerous. They may also feel as if their emotional experiences are abnormal, leading to a perception that something is “wrong” with them¹.

Chronic invalidation often leads to low self-esteem, a sense of disconnection from others, difficulty regulating emotions, and emotional detachment. Fear of difficult emotional experiences can lead to attempts to avoid negative feelings in ways that interfere with a fulfilling life. Common ways people avoid difficult emotions are excessive use of social media or TV, “staying busy” with many activities or tasks, frequent use of alcohol or other intoxicating substances, and avoiding people, places, or situations that could lead to negative emotions.  For example, someone who has experienced pain in past romantic relationships may avoid dating entirely or becoming emotionally close with romantic partners. They may fill their time with activities so they don’t even have time to think about romantic relationships.

Problematic Patterns Associated with Chronic Invalidation

Chronic invalidation can also result in other problematic responses, such as dissociation (i.e., emotional detachment^3-4) and inaccurate emotional expression (i.e., expressing emotions as less or more intense than they are experienced). While these responses can be necessary to survival in a chronically invalidating environment, they have long-term costs that can interfere with having a fulfilling life.

Dissociation

Dissociation occurs as a protective response when emotional pain reaches a level that is experienced as dangerous or unsustainable. This extreme form of emotional detachment often develops because constant, intense emotional pain can interfere with the logical thinking needed to stay safe in emotionally or physically dangerous environments. Unfortunately, frequent dissociation can lead to dissociation becoming habitual way of coping with strong negative emotions. Habitual dissociation can interfere with more effective coping strategies that could provide longer lasting relief from emotional pain. Over time, frequent dissociation can disconnect people from important emotional information, interfere with positive emotions, and disrupt meaningful social connections.

Inaccurate Expression

Minimizing or suppressing emotional reactions is one way many people learn to avoid invalidation. Unfortunately, minimizing emotional experiences can lead to intermittent emotional outbursts when an individual’s capacity to suppress emotions is exceeded. The event that triggers the outburst becomes the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Emotional reactions can also be expressed more intensely than they are experienced internally. Consider a situation in which you are trying to get a restaurant server’s attention to make a request. You speak in a normal tone of voice, but they don’t acknowledge you. Most people in this situation would speak louder and louder, until they obtain the desired response (the server’s attention). Expressing an emotion more intensely than it is felt is the like increasing the volume to increase the likelihood that that need is “heard.” This happens because communication of emotional needs has not been heard at a more proportionate volume in the past.

Why Does Inaccurate Expression Occur?

People who express emotion inaccurately do so in response to repeated invalidation of accurate emotional expression². In other words, inaccurate emotional expression is a way to get emotional needs met or to avoid invalidation in a chronically invalidating environment. While inaccurate expression often obtains the desired outcome in the short-term, it often leads to problems in the long term. Habitual inaccurate expression can lead to the emotional equivalent of screaming for every need, despite the importance, situation, or urgency, or walking around with a broken leg and telling everyone you’re fine. The Dialectical Behavior Therapy team at Rutger’s University has created this helpful handout that explains inaccurate expression.

How Can I Recover from Chronic Invalidation and Rebuild Self-Esteem?

A combination of mindfulness, acceptance, and validation of emotional experiences can repair the damage done by chronic invalidation and allow you to rebuild self-esteem. For suggestions on how to identify invalidation or validate yourself and others, click here. For more information about how emotions work or the natural continuum of emotions, see my past posts here and here.

In addition to the above-mentioned strategies, another component for recovery from chronic invalidation can be to invalidate the invalid. As noted previously, people who have been chronically invalidated by others often begin to invalidate themselves. It is incredibly important to interrupt the cycle of invalidation by validating yourself and stopping self-invalidation. Examples of self-invalidation are telling yourself you shouldn’t feel a certain way or you should feel differently, negative judgments about yourself,  or ignoring your emotional or physical needs.

Professional Support for Recovery from Chronic Invalidation

Recovering from chronic invalidation and rebuilding self-esteem can be challenging to do on your won. It is often helpful to have help from an experienced professional. A psychotherapist trained in evidence-based treatments such as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and/or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can help you build a better understanding of your own and others’ emotional experiences. Psychotherapy can also help you build confidence in the validity of your experiences. Understanding and validating your emotional experiences creates the foundation for accurate, effective emotional expression. Effective emotional expression increases the likelihood of healthy validation from others and healthy relationships with others.

If you’ve experienced chronic invalidation, it can be tough to trust yourself. You deserve to feel heard and understood. I have many years of experience guiding people through the process of healing from chronic invalidation. I would be honored to help you rebuild trust and confidence in yourself and your emotional experiences.

If you would like to learn more about me or are considering therapy, it may also be helpful to learn more about me, my credentials, the types of individual therapy and couple therapy I offer, or read my FAQs.

Please note that the information provided in this blog post is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional therapy or mental health treatment.

1. Linehan MM. Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. New York: Guilford Press; 1993.
2. Dissociation. APA Dictionary of Psychology. Published online. https://dictionary.apa.org/dissociation. Accessed April 12, 2025
3. Lyssenko L, Schmahl C, Bockhacker L, Vonderlin R, Bohus M, Kleindienst N. Dissociation in psychiatric disorders: A meta-analysis of studies using the Dissociative Experiences Scale. American Journal of Psychiatry. 2017;175(1):37-46. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2017.17010025.
4. Cavicchioli M, Scalabrini A, Northoff G, Mucci C, Ogliari A, Maffei C. Dissociation and emotion regulation strategies: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Psychiatric Research. 2021;143:370-387. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2021.09.011.