been thinking about the topic of validation and I still think one of the most effective things you can do to make other people feel at ease with themselves is to be open about your own, similar experiences. talk about them as perfectly ordinary parts of your own life, with everyday language. it's all well and good to post affirmations for xyz - sometimes people need that spelled out explicitly - but I think it's one thing to be told that xyz is real and valid, and another thing to see people like yourself just existing as part of the world.
(I think this is also the most effective way to normalize (for lack of a better word) these things for outsiders - to really communicate that folks with these experiences are real people living in the world, instead of some kind of detached floating internet concept)
