Words can wound

What makes these wounds particularly difficult is that the person who caused them may have forgotten them completely. They may not even have realised that their words were hurtful at the time. For them, it may have been an insignificant comment, an attempt at humour, an angry response during an argument or simply something said without thinking. For you, however, those same words may have landed at precisely the wrong moment and reinforced an insecurity that was already there. The result is that something which occupied only a few seconds of somebody else's life can occupy years of yours.

Sometimes the words that hurt us most are not the dramatic or obviously cruel ones. They can be comments that other people would regard as trivial, which is precisely why we sometimes find them so difficult to discuss. You may feel embarrassed about admitting that something somebody said many years ago still bothers you because you imagine that other people will tell you to get over it. Yet if the memory continues to influence the way you think about yourself, your relationships or your future, then it clearly wasn't trivial to you. It became part of the story you started telling yourself about who you were.

Perhaps somebody told you that you were fat, ugly, stupid, useless, lazy, a loser or slow-witted. Perhaps somebody laughed at the way you looked, the way you spoke or the things you were interested in. Perhaps you were constantly compared with somebody else and made to feel that you could never measure up. Perhaps somebody questioned an aspect of your identity or used a deeply offensive remark about your background, culture or appearance. Perhaps you were told as a child that you would never amount to anything, or that you were a disappointment. There are countless variations, but the common factor is that the comment found its target because it was personal to you.

This is why it is important to understand that the power of words is not simply contained within the words themselves. Their impact depends upon the person saying them, the relationship you have with that person, the circumstances in which they were spoken and, most importantly, the way you saw yourself at the time. Tell a confident adult that they are useless and they may dismiss the comment immediately. Tell the same thing repeatedly to a child who is already uncertain about themselves and you may help create a belief that survives long after the child has grown up.

Children are particularly vulnerable because they do not yet possess the experience to question everything they are told. They often assume that parents, teachers and other adults know more than they do, and therefore they can give enormous authority to the opinions of people around them. If a child is repeatedly told that they are not clever, not attractive, not capable or not good enough, there is a danger that those comments become incorporated into their understanding of themselves. Eventually, the original person who said them may no longer be present, but the voice remains.

That is perhaps the most important point to understand. The person who criticised you may no longer be saying those things, but you may have learned to say them to yourself. The bully who made you feel stupid at school may have disappeared from your life, yet you may still hesitate to speak in public because you are frightened of looking foolish. A parent who constantly criticised you may have completely forgotten the things they said, while you continue to feel that you have to prove yourself. A former partner may have told you that nobody else would want you, and years later you may still struggle to believe that you are worthy of love.

At some point, you have to begin separating the person you were from the person you have become.

You are not the child who was bullied. You are not the teenager who was rejected. You are not the employee who was humiliated. You are not the partner who was told that you were not good enough. Those things may have happened to you and they may have influenced you, but they do not have to define you. You have lived an entire life since many of those events took place. You have learned things, experienced things, survived disappointments, formed relationships, made decisions and developed qualities that the younger version of you could never have known existed.

So why should somebody's opinion of you from twenty, thirty or forty years ago still have the authority to determine how you see yourself today? It shouldn't.

Why should this matter

This can be particularly difficult when the person who hurt you was one of your parents. Many adults carry the effects of childhood criticism without ever recognising just how much they are still seeking the approval of the people who raised them. You may find yourself continually trying to prove that you are successful enough, clever enough, attractive enough, wealthy enough or responsible enough. You may have spent years trying to become the person you believe your parents wanted you to be, even though they may have no idea that you are still trying to obtain their approval.

This is not about blaming your parents. Most parents are doing the best they can with the knowledge, experience and emotional resources they possess at the time. They can make mistakes just as everybody else does. They can say things in frustration that they later regret, or repeat beliefs that were passed down to them by their own parents. The important thing is not to spend the rest of your life trying to establish who was at fault. The important thing is to recognise what you are carrying and decide whether you still need to carry it.

You may also find that old hurt has turned into anger. When somebody has wounded us deeply, it is natural to want justice. We may imagine confronting them, telling them exactly what we think of them or seeing them experience some form of punishment for what they did. Sometimes we spend years replaying an old argument, thinking about what we should have said or imagining how different things would have been if only we had responded differently.

The problem is that this can give the person who hurt you an extraordinary amount of control over your present life. They may have forgotten what happened, moved on completely or be entirely unaware that you are still thinking about it, while you continue to give them space in your mind. In effect, they have taken something from you once and you are allowing them to take it again every time you replay the experience.

This is where forgiveness can become important, although forgiveness is often misunderstood. Forgiving somebody does not mean saying that what they did was acceptable. It does not mean forgetting what happened, excusing abusive behaviour or inviting somebody back into your life when they are likely to hurt you again. It does not even necessarily mean telling them that you forgive them.

Sometimes forgiveness is simply the decision that you are no longer prepared to allow what happened to control your future. That is a very different proposition.

There are, of course, situations where words form part of an ongoing abusive relationship, and this needs to be treated differently. You do not have to be physically assaulted for abuse to cause serious damage. Constant criticism, humiliation, intimidation, manipulation and psychological control can gradually undermine your confidence and sense of self. If somebody continually tells you that you are worthless, incapable or lucky to have them, the answer is not to become better at tolerating their behaviour. Sometimes the most positive decision you can make is to remove yourself from the situation and seek appropriate support.

But there are many people who are not currently in abusive relationships and who are nevertheless living with words that were spoken long ago. Perhaps the relationship has ended. Perhaps the person who hurt you has died. Perhaps you haven't seen them for decades. Perhaps they have completely forgotten what happened. In these circumstances, you may have to accept a difficult truth: you cannot change what they said, but you can change the power you continue to give those words.

One useful exersise

One useful exercise is to identify one of the phrases that has stayed with you and examine it properly. Ask yourself who said it, how old you were, what was happening in your life at the time and why that person's opinion mattered so much to you. Then ask yourself a much more important question: was what they said actually true?

It is surprising how rarely we challenge these old beliefs. We simply accept them because we have been carrying them for so long. If somebody told you when you were twelve that you were stupid, why should that automatically remain true when you are forty-five? If somebody told you that you were unattractive when you were sixteen, why should their opinion still determine how you see yourself today? If somebody told you that you would never succeed, what evidence does your life now provide that supports their prediction?

You may discover that there is very little evidence at all. In fact, you may discover that you have spent years trying to disprove something that was never true in the first place.

This is one of the reasons I continually return to the importance of taking responsibility for your own thinking. You cannot always control what other people say to you, particularly when you are young, but as an adult you can begin to decide which opinions deserve a permanent place in your mind. That does not mean pretending that hurtful experiences didn't happen. It means refusing to allow somebody else's judgement to become your permanent identity.

There is another useful question you can ask yourself. If somebody had said exactly the same thing to a child you loved, what would you tell that child?

If you saw a young child being told that they were stupid, useless or unlovable, you would probably want to reassure them. You would tell them that the person saying it was wrong. You would explain that one person's opinion does not define them. You would remind them of all the things they can do and all the qualities that make them special. Why, then, do we find it so difficult to offer ourselves the same kindness?

Some of the things you say to yourself today may not have originated with you at all. They may simply be old recordings that you have continued to play. "I'm not clever enough." "I'm no good with people." "Nobody will want me." "I'm useless with money." "I'll never succeed." "I'm always going to be like this." When you hear those thoughts, stop for a moment and ask yourself where they came from. You may find that they belong to somebody else.

Once you recognise that, you have an opportunity to replace them with something more truthful. You do not have to fill your head with unrealistic affirmations or pretend that everything about your life is perfect. Positive thinking is not about lying to yourself. It is about refusing to allow an inaccurate and outdated belief to dictate your future. Perhaps you made mistakes. That does not make you a failure.

Perhaps you have struggled. That does not mean you are incapable. Perhaps somebody rejected you. That does not mean you are unlovable. Perhaps somebody underestimated you. That does not mean they were right. Perhaps you have not achieved what you wanted yet. That does not mean you never will.

The distinction between "I have failed" and "I am a failure" is enormous. The first describes something that happened. The second attempts to turn an event into an identity. One can be learned from; the other can become a prison.

This is why the past needs to be understood rather than continually relived. There is value in examining what happened to you because it can explain some of the beliefs and behaviours you have developed. Understanding the source of a problem can help you deal with it. But there comes a point when repeatedly revisiting the past stops being useful and simply becomes another way of remaining trapped inside it.

You cannot go back and protect the child you once were. You cannot prevent the words from being spoken. You cannot rewrite the conversation. You cannot force somebody to apologise. You cannot make another person understand the damage they caused. What you can do is decide what those words mean now.

If you feel that speaking to the person who hurt you would help, and it is safe and appropriate to do so, you may choose to tell them how their words affected you. You might be surprised by the response. They may genuinely have no idea that their comment stayed with you and could be horrified to discover its impact. Most people are not particularly good at understanding the consequences of everything they say, especially when emotions are running high.

Avoid confrontation

But do not make confrontation a requirement for healing. Sometimes the person will not listen. Sometimes they will deny what happened. Sometimes they will respond with more cruelty. You do not need their agreement in order to move forward, and there is little value in manufacturing another confrontation simply because you believe you need the other person to acknowledge your pain. Some people are simply not worth another conversation. Learning to accept that can be liberating in itself.

The ultimate objective is not to forget what happened. It is to reach the point where you can remember it without allowing it to control you. You may always remember the words. You may even remember exactly where you were when they were spoken. But the memory can eventually become just that: a memory, rather than an instruction about how you should live.

You can reach the point where you can say, "Yes, that happened to me. It hurt me. It influenced me. But it does not decide who I am today." That is what moving forward really means.

And perhaps this is where you need to be particularly careful about the words you use yourself. Having been wounded by somebody else's criticism, don't become the person who continues the process by criticising yourself every day. Don't allow somebody else's cruelty to become your internal dialogue. You have enough challenges to deal with in life without carrying around an additional voice telling you that you are not good enough. Choose your words carefully, particularly when you are talking to yourself.

You don't have to tell yourself that you are perfect. You simply need to become fairer. Instead of saying, "I'm useless," ask yourself what went wrong and what you can learn from it. Instead of saying, "I'll never change," ask what small change you could make today. Instead of saying, "I'm not good enough," ask who decided that and what evidence supports it. Instead of describing yourself as a failure because something went wrong, recognise that you are a person who experienced a setback.

Words can wound, but words can also change the way you see yourself. The words somebody else used against you do not have to become the words you use against yourself.

You have already given enough of your life to those old comments. You have already spent enough time trying to understand why somebody said them, what they meant and whether you could somehow have prevented them. There may be lessons worth taking from the experience, but you do not have to take the pain with you.

The past is part of your story, but it is not the whole story. You are not the person you were when those words were spoken. You have changed, grown and experienced an entire life since then. The person who said those words may still have an opinion of you, but that opinion is theirs. It does not have to become yours.

Perhaps it is time to give those words back to the person who spoke them. They were theirs. Your future is yours and you are allowed to decide what happens next.

Frequently asked questions about this story

1. Why do hurtful words stay with me for so long?

Hurtful words can become deeply embedded when they are spoken by someone whose opinion matters to you, particularly during childhood or at a vulnerable point in your life. Over time, you may begin to repeat those words internally and treat them as facts. Recognising where the belief came from is an important first step towards deciding whether it still deserves a place in your life.

2. How can I stop someone else's words from defining me?

Start by separating what somebody said from what is actually true. Ask yourself whether you would give the same importance to that person's opinion today. You have changed since the words were spoken, and your experiences, achievements and relationships provide evidence about who you really are. You can acknowledge what happened without allowing it to become your identity.

3. Do I need to forgive someone who hurt me?

Not necessarily in the way you might traditionally understand forgiveness. You do not have to excuse harmful behaviour, forget what happened or reconcile with somebody who continues to hurt you. Forgiveness can simply mean deciding that you are no longer going to allow the person's actions or words to control your emotions and your future.

4. Should I confront the person who hurt me?

Sometimes talking to the person can help, particularly if they are capable of listening and taking responsibility. However, confrontation is not essential for healing. If you believe it could result in further hurt, hostility or manipulation, you may be better served by creating distance and working through the experience without involving them. Your healing does not depend upon receiving an apology.

5. What can I do when an old hurtful comment comes back into my mind?

Don't immediately accept the thought as truth. Stop and ask yourself where it came from, why it affected you and whether it accurately describes the person you are today. Try replacing the old judgement with something more realistic and compassionate. If the memory is particularly painful or continues to affect your relationships or everyday life, speaking to a qualified professional can also help you work through it.