trigger words and changing their meanings

[Twisted Sister]

Speaking to a friend today. She reacted badly to a word I used to her.

It was like a mirror of me and I understood in a momentthe new meaning the word had been hammered into her .

I explained the positive wayit was intended as completely different from the negative and only meaning it had for her!!

I have since been reflecting on my personal bank of words that came to have only one meaning as being a negative used against me.

Am I making sense here. Does this ring bells for others and if brave enough wondering whether listing these powerful words would help to challenge them.

The word in question was ‘challenge’ 

[Twisted Sister]

She was always blamed for being a challenge/challenging, so when I used that word because her actions were challenging what I thought about something in such a good wayand helping to open my thinking! So very far from negative such a positive thing which iI explained.

Another one, for me, is control

[Peaceful Pig]

Over sensitive = empathetic
Serious = responsible
Gullible = kind & trusting
Stupid = thinking the best of people

I can live with being that kind of person. Apparently there’s a native American thing where they turn dark arrows into light arrows with this kind of thing.

Thanks KS, good post. It’s made me feel more positive 😊 xx

[phantasmagorical]

This is really interesting and has got me thinking.

I got the over sensitive one as well, I guess that’s also a way of reframing my empathy.

Irrational (whenever I tried seeking clarity and he kept changing the story, so I didn’t know what to think and would lose my train of thought, and because I never really knew where he was coming from I’d feel defensive at any number of possibilities hence the irrational title).

Paranoid (me being perceptive / intuitive about something he was concealing, or about an eventual outcome)

Insecure (lasting hurt from his behaviour and attitudes)

There’s another one that doesn’t really have a specific word but he would sometimes joke about how I’d make a good lawyer because I had a scarily accurate memory and I think this threatened him. Now my memory is all messed up and has been for some time. Funny that.

[Twisted Sister]

Thank you!!

Reading yours have been really helpful for me to seetoo .

Ridiculous (always anything iI said or approaches to anything that disagreed withhim .) = basically a word to replace his lack of words in the face of reasonableness. Can this really be true? doing thesewords for me is way of challenging the very real meaning theae words had for me and seeing the possible other meanings (than his) isstill a challenge but one i I know I definitely need to rise to!
Warmest wishes. KS

[Twisted Sister]

And. … Digusting – his inability to accept normal female biology of periods and blood.

Or of any kind of mess, withchildren/food etc . Otherwise known as just, well, normal, really.

[Author]

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