The Language of Healing: How the Words We Use Shape Recovery

The words we use with ourselves after trauma can either deepen our pain or open a path toward healing. I learned that firsthand after surviving an emotionally abusive relationship. Here's how negative self-talk can hold survivors back and how choosing healing language can become part of recovery.

The Impact of Negative Language

When I was 17 years old, I entered a relationship that would impact me for many years to come, and in some ways, the rest of my life. My slightly older, teenage boyfriend was kind on most days, but entirely manipulative and toxic when it came to the more intimate and physical sides of our relationship. I was often pressured, guilted, and forced into doing sexual acts with him. It took me a long time to accept that the man who was otherwise so sweet to me, bought me gifts, took me on dates, and had met my friends and family, could really be hurting me so deeply. 

I went through a difficult time when my language turned negative… about myself.  My words were not compassionate or supportive, but were instead accusatory and dismissive. I told myself I was being a bad girlfriend, it was just a phase of me not craving sexual intimacy as much as him, that I needed to fulfill his needs, I should just enjoy it, and that “it wasn’t that serious.” Over time, I realized how powerful this language was, and how much it was costing my ability to leave the relationship and heal.

According to Sutter Health, “a traumatic experience can powerfully affect your internal dialogue, causing it to become distressingly negative.” 

After a traumatic sexual experience, it can be easy to fall into harmful thinking patterns. Your mind will often come up with negative interpretations about your experience, the trauma reactions, and make you feel worse about yourself and how you’re handling it. The painful experience is unfortunately powerful in shaking your self-talk, making you feel fearful, depressed, or angry instead of keeping you calm and focused on recovery. 

Many survivors of sexual trauma struggle with the idea that they’re guilty in some way, or entirely the cause of their own traumatic experience. You may feel as if what you did or didn’t do before, during, and after the trauma is what caused it or that you didn't handle it properly. 

Learning to recognize these patterns is the first step toward changing them. Once you can name a negative thought as it appears, you can start to challenge it instead of letting it control your recovery.

Here is a list of some of the negative thinking patterns: 

• Jumping to conclusions: Forming a belief about a situation, idea, or person even when the evidence is lacking or contradictory

• Exaggerating or minimizing the meaning of an event: Blowing things way out of proportion or shrinking their importance inappropriately. 

• Catastrophizing: When a person focuses entirely on the most negative things that could possibly happen. 

• Disregarding: Ignoring the important aspects of a situation, choosing to think about or see only specific moments or ideas. 

• Oversimplifying: A very “black and white” approach where someone labels events or beliefs as good or bad, right or wrong, with little to no information on the subject. 

• Overgeneralizing from a single incident: Viewing a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. 

• Mind reading: Assuming that people are thinking certain things, especially negative thoughts, about you when there’s actually no evidence of this. 

• Emotional reasoning: Only basing your reasoning on an emotional reaction rather than taking other facts into consideration. 

It’s extremely important to understand and recognize the power of language and the words we use in daily life. The Blue Knot Foundation states that these harsh internal thoughts can feel completely true, but that healing begins when “we start noticing those thought patterns instead of automatically believing them. Self-compassion is not pretending everything is okay when it isn’t.” 

The path forward is being honest about your experience, the pain you’ve gone through, and offering yourself the same compassion that you would show a loved one if they were in your shoes.

How to Fight Against Negative Language

Recognizing negative thought patterns is an important first step, but healing does not stop at just identifying the ways in which we may speak negatively about ourselves. You also have the ability to change the language entirely, focusing on positive self-talk rather than guilt, shame, fear, and anger. 

This does not mean forcing yourself to be positive, pretending that everything is okay, or ignoring the very real pain that comes with surviving sexual harm. Instead, positive self-talk can mean learning how to speak to yourself with the same understanding, patience, and compassion that you would offer to someone you love. 

One powerful way to do this is by changing the words you use to describe yourself. For example, the word “survivor” carries a very different meaning than the word “victim.” The word victim can sometimes make survivors feel as though they are defined by what they went through, what was done to them, as if they were passive and powerless. 

By referring to yourself as a survivor, you’re acknowledging that something happened to you but it does not make the experience the entirety of who you are. You survived something that never should have happened to you. But you can continue to heal, grow, find joy, build relationships, and live a fulfilled life afterward. You are not only what you survived, but are the person who is still here, fighting for your healing journey.

Another important way to challenge negative language is to develop your own personal counterarguments to the thoughts that try to blame, shame, or demean you. Those pesky and intrusive negative thinking patterns will continue to haunt you until you can push back against them. 

For example, when your mind says, “It was my fault,” try to respond with “What happened to me was not my fault.” If you think, “I should be over this by now,” remind yourself that “There is no timeline for healing, and I am allowed to struggle.” 

Responses like these may be difficult and unfamiliar at first, feeling faking to your own mind. You may not believe them right away, and that is okay. The goal is not to magically make the painful thoughts disappear, but to slowly give yourself another voice to listen to that will eventually override the cruel voice that came before it. 

My Journey to a Language of Healing

For me, language was incredibly important for my own healing journey. In the beginning, and even for a while after that, I would speak to myself as though I was the one to blame. I questioned my choices, my motivations, whether the pain was imagined or me being dramatic, and continuously minimized my own emotional well-being. 

Looking back, I never would have spoken to anyone else the way that I spoke to myself. I never would tell a friend that they were a bad person for struggling, that they deserved what happened to them, or that they should “get over it.” Instead, I would listen, believe them, remind them that they are worthy of love and support, and that what happened was not their fault, no matter what. 

All survivors deserve to receive that same support and compassion. That is the treatment that you must give yourself. 

Phrases to Use for Healing

The Wellness Society has a long list of healing trauma quotes and affirmations, all of which are incredibly important and relevant. Here are just a few of the many positive statements that can help reform the way you see yourself as a survivor and guide you toward a language of healing:

• You are worthy.

• You are allowed to struggle.

• You are allowed to talk. 

• You are not alone. 

• What happened does not define you. 

• What happened was not your fault. 

• You deserve to take up space.

• You are safe. 

• Be kind to yourself.

• You are allowed to ask for help.

• Give yourself grace. 

• I will be patient and love myself as I heal. 

• It’s okay not to be okay all of the time.

Finding Hope in Your Healing Journey

Healing language can be reminding yourself that there is a future beyond the pain that you are experiencing right now. Trauma can make the world feel incredibly dark and overwhelming, and it can be difficult to imagine ever feeling differently. But healing is possible! 

There is a light beyond the darkness, even if you can’t see it yet. Remember that you do not have to feel okay right now, or tomorrow, or three months from now. It’s okay not to have everything figured out. 

You only have to give yourself permission to keep moving forward one day at a time, and to acknowledge that those bad days where you are not okay do not mean that you’ve taken a step back or failed. Instead, they are simply a part of your healing journey. It is difficult and tiring, but you are not alone in this. Join the Our Wave community to share your story and connect with survivors who understand, or browse our Survivor Q&A for answers to the questions you may still be sitting with.