Stop Telling Me "Your Feelings Are Valid" — It Doesn’t Help, and Here’s Why

If it's empathy only because the manual told you so, I'm good.

“Your feelings are valid.”
It’s everywhere.
Therapy offices. Instagram stories. TikTok loops with soft piano music.
Even well-meaning friends and my sister say it now, as if it’s the gold standard of empathy.

And honestly? I want to scream.
Not because validation is bad. But because the phrase feels so template, so disconnected from my actual experience, it might as well be a sticker on a banana: harmless, but weirdly out of place.

It’s like offering someone drowning a pamphlet on swimming.

Part I: Why It Doesn’t Land

A. Because I wasn’t raised with emotional vocabulary

Try telling “your feelings are valid” to someone whose childhood emotional equation was:

• Cry → snapped at
• Angry → punished
• Confused → silenced
• Too happy → dial it down

You’re speaking fluent Emotional Language to someone who grew up in silence. You’re handing me a key to a door I didn’t even know I had. No wonder I just blink and nod politely.

B. Because it feels like therapy cosplay

It doesn’t always feel like witnessing. It feels like closing the tab with a nice line.
It sounds more like:
"Here, I said the empathy line. That should do it, right?"

But my emotions aren’t copy-paste. And I’m not a form to be filled out.
So it lands flat. Or worse, it pushes me further into emotional shutdown.

Part II: What Happens in My Body Instead

When someone says that phrase:

• My brain nods logically.
• My chest? Still tight.
• My jaw? Still clenched.
• My body? Still numb.

Because the issue isn’t that I don’t know I can feel.

It’s that I don’t know how to.

I’ve been emotionally offline so long, I forgot where the switch is.

Part III: What I Wish You’d Say Instead (Or Do)

Here’s what I actually need when I’m emotionally glitching:

• “That sounds heavy. Can I sit with you while you unpack it?”
• “You don’t owe me coherence.”
• “Take your time. You don’t have to explain it perfectly.”
• Or just... “I’m here.”

You don’t have to fix it. You don’t have to know what to say.

Just be there while I slowly reboot.

Presence > Permission.

Bonus Round: Dear Kalcered Friend

Look, I know you mean well. You repost about boundaries. You have the therapy buzzwords memorized. You say all the right things like "holding space" and "emotional capacity" like they came straight off a moodboard.

But sometimes, it sounds like you’re reading from a script you printed off Pinterest.
Not because you're fake. But because you haven't lived through the messy, unfiltered parts of those words.

Real empathy is clumsy. Awkward. It stumbles. It asks questions. It sits with silence.

So if you're trying to sound smart or progressive by using a neat phrase like "your feelings are valid," but you check out emotionally the moment things get unpretty—you're not helping. You're giving me a vibe, not a presence.

And it shows.

I don't need a polished phrase. I need presence that doesn't try to teach me something or tie my pain with a bow.

If you're not sure what to say, say that. It's more human than anything you memorized off a podcast.

And for what it’s worth? I really do appreciate genuine effort. Way more than polished language or borrowed lines. If you're trying—really trying—I see that. I respect it. Just... keep your inner TED Talk at bay.

Part IV: The Real Issue — Not You, But Me (And Also... You, A Little)

I know you mean well. I really do.
But sometimes, empathy scripts hit me like a Google Translate version of support.

Because my system doesn’t trust that phrase yet.
And not because I’m difficult, but because I was trained to invalidate myself before anyone else had the chance.

So what I’m unlearning is deep. And slow.
And hearing “your feelings are valid” before I can even name those feelings?
That’s like giving me a graduation speech when I just learned the alphabet.

Part V: TL;DR for the Emotionally Curious

If you say “your feelings are valid,” I won’t bite your head off.
But don’t be surprised if I just blink, change the topic, or respond with a weird meme.

Because for some of us, emotional fluency is a second language.
And we’re still in beginner class.

Bonus Commentary: I Read Brené Brown So You Don’t Have To (JK, You Should)

I read Atlas of the Heart twice. I know the chart. I can label things now—disappointment, resentment, longing, regret.

And yet?

I still can’t name what I feel in real time.
It still takes days. Sometimes weeks.
And when someone says “your feelings are valid,” I still feel like a fraud.

Because knowing the word is not the same as feeling the thing.

No one tells you this part:
You can be emotionally intelligent and emotionally unavailable to yourself at the same time.

Welcome to the glitchy middle. I’ll be here with snacks.