The thin line between Ignorance and Validation, and how to differentiate it?

Emotional situations drag us human into a search for empathy. That is just how our psychology works. We look for our closest humans to tell us nice things that will cheer us up. This is because our minds are constantly in search of positivity. Not only is this phenomenon natural, but also, it’s very difficult to tame our thoughts to think otherwise. But why is this topic very important nowadays? It is because of the number of rising cases of emotionally distressed people, with majority of them teenagers.

This phenomenon of looking out for a positive response for times you vent out is called Validation. Everyone seeks positive validation in times of emotional distress, and that’s natural. What’s surprising is the rate at which people have started venting, it’s because the teenagers nowadays are more emotionally dependent on the society than ever before. They seek validation in every emotion they possibly can. This is because the peer pressure has put an invisible burden on them today that is hard to get rid of. If you don’t wear the latest trends, you’re the lamest child in school. If you’re not funny you’re termed as a loser. This “trend” has become a very dangerous thing for people especially the teenagers. Instead of lifting each other’s spirits, society has now started demeaning each other more than ever before. But this “validation” often gets confused with ignorance, not letting one to understand the real issue and pertain to it. Mental health aren’t being even brought to a point to be understood or taken care of, the stigma of suffering from mental health has been undervalued by people, thus making the situation more miserable and hard to cope up with.

When we fail to get a response from someone that we expect to get a positive one, that is ignorance. They may have their own reasons to not respond, or probably as simple as they are caught up somewhere. But due to incredible over thinking skills of people today, this has become a reason for emotional distress today, and the worst part is, that it’s often confused with validation. The major difference lies in the perception. We need to understand that getting an invalid response is different from getting no response at all.  Owing to this perception, a lot of people end up overlapping both of these phenomena and thereby doubling their emotional distress. The most common thing that people do to overcome is, they reach out to their close family/friends or their partners. And sometimes, it backfires, thus making people more cautious while sharing. Having a good ear is important but not all have that, one person in their life.

Hence, a new trend that has started is venting online. People use anonymous venting websites to let out their emotions. They are completely anonymous and often connect you with strangers who may have been in the exact emotional situation that you are, right now, and may even respond exactly what you need to hear! What’s the most interesting part is, some these websites actually “reward” you every time you post on their anonymous posting boards and that basically builds up your morale, hence inculcating positivity in you. Positivity has its own place and people are deprived of it due to multiple instances. This is a superb initiative and more and more people should avail this to overcome the unavoidable situations in their life. Venting websites may be the exact thing we need to curb both of these problems, once and for all.