When I was growing up there was a saying that sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me. That adage supposedly was teaching that it didn't matter what someone said to you. Insults were only thin air. Yet day in and day out I counsel people who were damaged by what someone else said. Only it wasn't the words that were the cause but the interpretation of those words. I wonder what percentage of us really means our words to wound our loved ones or friends.When my daughter was seven, my marriage was in shambles. I had been miserable for years, but despite my misery I didn't consider divorce because of my two young children. Then one day I got a letter from my mother asking me if I needed money for a lawyer, and soon after my best friend also suggested a lawyer, and my sister-in-law told me that if I had to make a quick get-away I could count on her to take us in. I couldn't figure out why they were talking of divorce since it wasn't on my mind!
One afternoon, as I was watching TV with my daughter, she turned to me and asked if we were going to get a divorce. I was dumbfounded. I assured her that we were not. At that moment I really meant it. I had no such thought. I was so dense that I didn't get what everyone else knew. Less than six months later I had filed for divorce. I guess I finally realized that I couldn't stand the pain anymore. My daughter was very upset and angry with me for a long time after that.
About twenty-five years went by during which I married a wonderful man and had a happy life. Around then my daughter was in therapy trying to deal with her life experiences and was making great strides. One day she phoned me to tell me that she had spent her latest therapy session dealing with her anger toward me because I lied to her.
In that moment I knew exactly what she was upset about. She thought that I lied to her when she asked about our divorce all those years in the past, but the truth was that I wasn't lying at that moment. Since the divorce took place so soon after our conversation she felt as if I had betrayed her. For twenty-five years she had held that anger toward me. I felt awful when I realized what that one sentence had done to her. Even though she accepted my explanation it couldn't undo all the ramifications of how her belief that I lied led to unhappiness in her life. If only I had know what was going on in that little girl's brain so long ago.
In my line of work I constantly hear people recall the exact words that a parent, teacher or important adult said to them in childhood that were like knives turned in a wound. One woman who grew up in New York City asked her dad to meet her at the subway station near their house when she came home after dark, when she was in high school. He told her that no one would steal her, trying to reassure her that they lived in a safe neighborhood. What she heard was, that only things of value get stolen, and she wasn't worth stealing.
Some people are told they are just like their father. This could be interpreted to mean they are brilliant, handsome, and talented or perhaps they are a loser, alcoholic, or deadbeat. The problem is that the person who spoke those words never checked to find out how they were received. The person who was the recipient believed the negative spin she put on them to be the truth.
Sometimes that child grows up, holding on to the hurt that was done, remembering where the incident took place, and even what he was wearing at that time, but the parent has no clue that it ever took place since it started out as an offhand remark not really meant to harm. However, by that time the adult has so much invested in the grudge he has carried that it is difficult to let go of his version of the truth. How sad! Yet we all do this. Everyone who is reading this has many memories of words that were expressed in passing that have tormented him or her. Now is the time to re-think the occurrence and release the anger, pain and hurt of the past.
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