Learning to Validate Myself

 Whenever I was punished as a child, my feelings were never acknowledged.

My father would take out the belt and, in his rage, strike out at us children. No one talked about what had happened afterward. No one asked how we felt. No one offered comfort.

My mother often initiated the punishments, then disappeared. Her explanation was always the same: It was done out of love.

But there was never any acknowledgment that my father had lost control. There was never an apology. Never a soft place to land.

I realize now that something in me has been searching for that comfort ever since.

These years of living with chronic pain have brought that little girl to the surface once again. She has wanted others to understand how hard it is. She has longed for validation from doctors, friends, and anyone who might finally say, I see your suffering.

And yet, no amount of reassurance from outside ever seemed to ease what she was truly searching for.

Perhaps because what she needed was never simply validation of her pain.

She needed comfort.

She needed tenderness.

She needed someone to say, What happened to you mattered. Your feelings matter. You did not deserve to suffer alone.

Today, I am learning to give her what she never received.

I sit with her gently. I listen. I validate her feelings. I remind her that she is safe, loved, and no longer alone.

My language around pain is beginning to soften.

There have not yet been physical changes, but something inside me is changing.

And perhaps that is where healing begins.