Words can hurt us

Maybe we are a society based on invalidation when I think of the words in that well worm rhyme many of us heard as children :

sticks and stones may break my bones

but words will never hurt me.

Bullshit!

This is just a thought that came to me after reading of the experience of an African American woman C C Carter who was body shamed for a lot of her young life and ended up with crippling depression. The toxic impact of what was downloaded into her over years hurt her deeply. Luckily she had a grandmother who later in life found a way to help her using poetry which empowered her to give back the shame and move forward out of depression. It is yet another story told in Kim Rosen’s book on the healing power of poetry : Saved By A Poem : The Transformative Power of Words.

C C’s grandmother gave her a Maya Angelou poem to recite in front of the mirror daily, a poem entitled Phenomenal Woman. Reciting that poem literally saved C C’s life and later she went on to found an inner city poetry, rap, hip hop slam where victims exposed to violence, hatred and misogyny at the hands of abusers could come to read their work or just find a voice for their struggle.

This story shows the honest truth : that the words spoken to us when we are young and vulnerable go in deeply as does the twin arrow of toxic shame. Sadly the old poisonous pedagogy says parents and religious institutions have the right to say and do as they please to children. In this regard I think of my mother who was so isolated with her own mother after they lost her father in around 1931 when Mum was only 7. At that time the Nuns just used my mother as a cleaner and domestic servant and she was left alone or they made her stand in the corner, face to the wall a punishment for not completely homework.. Did they even know she was left alone by her own mother each afternoon and evening? Later in life she often said she felt incompetent with things but the fact was she was never parented. Sadly that was passed down to each of us in some way. The one sister who tried to take her power back got demonized in the end, a lot of the favor fell onto my older brother in a masculine dominated family. That, too, was not my brother’s fault but it left him wounded and later in life more likely to devalue his two remaining sisters.

It is inspiring to read that those kind of things downloaded into us by people and then denied with platitudes can be reversed. This was the case for C C and not only did her abuse end up empowering her, in the end it enabled her to help others and pass the healing on.. So it is with the dark things we face, if we can call and name and understand them as not being personally about us, then we are in a better position to claim our freedom from them. The healing for the wound LIES INSIDE THE WOUND BY OPENING IT UP TO RELEASE OR FREE THE TOXINS.

It is never wise to stay silent or have the hurting of painful words denied, something that happens when another individual who has not a clue tries to gaslight or deny the real pain that hurtful words caused us or others.