Words have power--to heal and to harm

The receptionist spoke in a hard voice. “Your son will be there, but you are not welcome at the appointment.”

“But he’s only twelve.”

“You can wait outside,” the desk worker stated without inflection

I felt my world shrinking, the walls of fear and ostracism closing in tighter around me. This wasn’t the first time I’d had this sort of reaction for no discernible reason. For years, reactions to me have become harsher and judgements of me more negative, even with strangers.

What had I done? I barely knew them. Sometimes it feels like there must be a sign emblazoned on my face, which I alone cannot see, declaring that I am a horrible person. My developmentally disabled child needed the medical therapy provided by this clinic, so I went ahead with it despite the humiliation and lack of clarity.

Creative commons by michael karrer

I took a deep breath and forced myself to stop thinking negatively, to focus on solutions rather than problems, to recognize that I’m doing what I have to for my kid with complex needs. I told myself it probably wasn’t me at all. Maybe they were having a bad day. I steeled my voice and words to remain courteous.

Afterward, I was careful not to dwell on the issue of being banned from my son’s medical appointment. I do meditations on gratitude, positive self-image and mental protection each morning without fail. I believe in that stuff—not slavishly—but I have seen that attitude counts for a lot and meditation provides vast reservoirs of self-mastery.

Yet, I suspect that it is the very laws of “positive thinking” that have been undermining me. There isn’t a sign on my forehead, but I have been absorbing a lot of negative energy—not by choice, but nonetheless.

I am, at the very least, living with kids who have undergone massive trauma which has caused significant psychiatric disturbance. A major symptom of that disturbance is that they spew insults and verbal abuse at the person in closest relationship to them (and that’s usually me). The children I adopted spent some time in Eastern European orphanages, and like many with that experience, they develop very conflicted responses to anyone who takes on the role of a parent.

The modern gurus of “manifesting one’s own reality” love to talk about how positive thinking can reshape even the hardest situations. They tell us to repeat affirmations three times every morning, in order to embody good qualities or to encourage good things to happen. If you repeat that you are loved and wealthy and successful, you will by virtue of “good vibes” attract a loving partner, make more money and have career opportunities showered upon you. Or at least you’ll have more of that sort of thing than you otherwise would have.

Both empirical scientific studies and a great deal of anecdotal evidence show that—mostly—it works. Whether you think positive thoughts, hear positive things from others or even listen to a recording of a stranger saying generalized nice things to you, there are dramatic health, social and sometimes even financial benefits.

Some people believe it works because of magic or “energy.” Others believe that a person with a positive self-image simply attracts positive reactions from others due to psychology. It’s science then… if subtle psychological science.

The weird, rejecting reactions I’m getting could be based on negative thinking. The proponents of manifesting reality say that people who think negative things create “self-fulfilling prophecies.” Maybe I am to blame after all in a round about sort of way. If positive thinking has real beneficial effects, then a person experiencing something negative probably just needs a more positive outlook.

Both scientists who study positive thinking and the affirmation gurus agree that negative thinking can cause detrimental health and social effects. If one is constantly pessimistic or under chronic stress, the immune system is suppressed, one is likely to appear less attractive or competent and one will have less motivation to do necessary things that promote physical, economic and social well-being.

The problem with this theory is that I have always been optimistic, motivated and self-confident. Early on, it might have been partly naiveté, but it was also enthusiasm and sheer belief. That positivity carried me through quite a few scrapes I had no right to glide through unscathed.

When I was a young journalist, I was dedicated and utterly convinced that if anyone could break into the Big Time of international newspaper reporting, I could. Physical setbacks and the industry-wide restructuring after 9/11 finally forced me to change my goals, but I managed not to take it as a personal failure.

When I wanted to have kids and the first warning signs of health problems arose, I sat in the waiting room at the fertility clinic overflowing with gratitude that I was only there briefly, that I wouldn’t have to suffer the long battles I saw so many of the other patients undergoing. When I failed to bear a child to term over a devastating six-year struggle nonetheless, I moved on to adoption with the unquenchable optimism of my fire sign. I knew that despite the perils, I would succeed here.

If solid belief in one’s capability and propensity for good fortune was truly the key to success, I should not have encountered so much hardship on my path. And when I did, instead of giving up or becoming bitter, I took up meditation and spirituality to carry me over troubled waters.

The thing no one wants to admit in positive thinking theory is the impact of negative statements from others. Just as listening to positive things said about you bolsters health and resilience, the reverse also holds true, especially with a lot of repetition.

We see that effect in advertising, which leads to poor body image and a host of health problems, even if one dislikes and distrusts advertising. And there the statements are subtle. It isn’t even saying explicitly, “You’re fat and ugly. Buy this if you want any hope of being worthy.” It merely implies that, and we have seen the social impact of that kind of psychological programming.

Still, it is rare that proponents of the theory of “thought created reality” acknowledge the influence of a consistently negative environment. It’s understandable that this is downplayed. After all, you can sell books and recordings with positive affirmations or even with warnings against negative thinking. You can’t sell a way to avoid a negative or abusive environment. But just as positive thoughts and words create reality, the constant drumbeat of denegration and ostracism can drive a person’s health and fortunes down.

And just as with those recordings of generalized affirmations from strangers, it doesn’t entirely matter if the negativity and verbal abuse comes from a credible source or not. One insult from someone deeply loved and respected could have a big negative impact. But even from a stranger, someone you don’t believe, or in my case, from a traumatized and immature source, a constant stream of insults takes a heavy toll.

A few months ago, someone did a straw poll in an international support group for caregivers of kids with similar disabilities, where verbal abuse of caregivers is one of the top symptoms, along with a need for constant supervision, rages and difficulty with empathy. Most of the parents and caregivers who had children with this type of disability for more than five years had developed serious chronic health problems that had not existed before.

The old childhood adage goes “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” But that turns out not to be as true as we would like. One word or two or even three certainly shouldn’t break the psyche of a healthy person. Positive thinking, meditation practice and other supports can all mitigate the stress of verbal abuse. But if they are relentless and constant, degrading words will wear away the most solid shield.

It isn’t all or nothing though. I had troubles before the verbal abuse began. Some of my difficulty in breaking into highly competitive field of international journalism stemmed from discrimination because of my disability and because I was a woman and because I wasn’t from a traditional publishing-industry family. But I was treated with respect and appreciation by most people, nonetheless.

My initial health problems were likely just a fluke of genetics. But there was a time when my adopted children were very young that some people close to me began to denigrate me with insults and prejudiced statements about my ability to parent with a vision impairment. This spread to others ridiculing anything I said about current events, because I was a mom with toddlers and no longer a somewhat successful journalist.

When my kids were little I was careful not to expose them to derogatory words, and that made it all the easier to tell when they repeated the words of those who derided me. And because of their trauma and developmental disabilities that pattern of verbal abuse grew and grew. It also grew because of the aura of negativity each successive wave of degradation wrapped around me.

Despite my fiercely positive attitude, this negativity wore away at my mental and spiritual defenses, until my health started to mysteriously deteriorate. Today, I can see the dramatic effects with complete strangers, like those at the clinic.

The automatic response of most people when I speak today is to discount and dismiss at the outset. It doesn’t help that my children’s attachment trauma affects only their closest relationships, and like many children with this kind of history, they put on an angelic mask around others. It is hard for outsiders to believe the verbal abuse is as extreme or as persistent as it is.

Several people working with my kids professionally have become staunch allies over time as they have seen the truth of the situation, through personal experience with us. And yet, there is something around me that picks up negativity, distrust and blame like lint in a dirty clothes drier.

I often feel the exhaustion and sickness creep over me late in the day and I berate myself for my thin skin. They’re just kids. It’s a symptom of disability. They don’t understand half the words they’re repeating. Neurologically, they can't imagine themselves in someone else’s place and understand how they would feel if these vulgar insults were hurled at them day after day.

And yet… it’s like affirmations, except in reverse. I can’t help but be affected.

In my positive thinking, I’m always trying to find some silver lining to bad situations, and throughout all this I have learned a lot. I’ve learned that words can be violence. Words truly can heal and words can harm. I feel powerless at times in the face of so much loss.

But it is worth remembering that words have power. As long as one can speak or write, that power cannot be entirely revoked.

Open letter to Trever Noah about the word "spaz."

Dear Trevor Noah,

I’m sure I’m probably not alone in telling you that your show is a balm for me, a respite from a despairing world and a healing draught of laughter in the face of things that hurt too much.

I’ve got two kids who I adopted from traumatizing orphanages in the Czech Republic. They were kids the authorities told me “no one would adopt” because they are from a despised, non-white ethnic group—the Roma.

We spent the first ten years of their lives living there in the Czech Republic. 2008, the year before my daughter was born, was the first year when Romani children were allowed to go to standard Czech schools. By the time she went to first grade, I didn’t need a lawyer or a police escort to get her into school, but it was nip and tuck there for a while.

My son’s preschool attempted to expel him when he developed a minor allergic skin rash, because he was non-white and their assumption was that he was diseased and contagious. They would have succeeded too, if his pediatrician hadn’t been progressive and feisty. That was in 2015.

I tell you this, because you need to know that I’ve seen a few things. I’m a white American, but I’m not exactly your typical white American. I’ve had “the talk” with my kids, ages eleven and thirteen, about police and brown people. I learned how to do it by reading Black authors, listening to you and talking to my Nigerian friend in Prague, who was distressed when I said we were moving back to the US to escape the rampant racism and the beatings my son was enduring at school.

“You’re going THERE to escape racism?”

I grew up in the US—in a particularly backward and monotone part of it, in fact. I have few illusions about things here. I told her that she was absolutely right. That we probably wouldn’t be going, if my children were Black. But they aren’t Black. They’re Romani, and the realities on the ground are such, that it’s safer here for them than there. She agreed that that was the best a parent could do.

Image of a dark-haired man drawing a picture of a female figurine with his toes.

Before I had kids, I lived and travelled in more than 35 countries, including several months in Zimbabwe near your homeland. I spent ten years working as a journalist, primarily exposing the quiet but lethal racism against Roma in Central and Eastern Europe. That’s my history, which I think may give you some perspective on what I need to say to you.

I am also pretty anti-celebrity. I’ve never really cared about a celebrity who was alive before, since the last one I liked at all was Bob Marley and I was five when he died. I know famous people have the same feelings and foibles the rest of us do. And so, it isn’t so much that you fell as a giant for me when you dismissed the concerns of people with disabilities. It is that I felt like I was betrayed by a friend.

That’s silly, I know. You don’t know me, but I don’t watch any TV, except for you. I listen to audio books or listen to international news. I watch Netflix on a tablet occasionally. But TV? Nope, except you when I exercise every morning, there’s nothing on there I care to see. And as I said, your ability to laugh in the face of the worst depredations of our world is really and truly medicine.

And I know that it is always only a matter of time before anyone, even the best friend, has a different opinion. That’s not the point. I have disagreed with you several times. No sweat. I don’t even entirely remember what the fine points were. This is different, because it strikes at the core of who you are. It is something that betrays all the work of bridging divides and empowering the disempowered and fostering empathy that you’ve done.

Yup, it’s about Lizzo. Now, I don’t know LIzzo very well. My daughter listens to her. I think I recall her listening to a song with the word “spaz” in it at one point. I noticed and mentioned it to her, explained that it’s a derogatory word that we don’t use in our house, because it is used as an insult against people with disabilities. We had the whole discussion about how it means something quite different in this music. I didn’t know for sure but guessed, even at that point, that its meaning might be significantly different in African American culture than it is for most of the country.

I wasn’t that mad. I didn’t forbid my daughter to listen to that music. It’s far from the only “bad word” I don’t want my kids repeating at school that they encounter in popular music. And no, just talking to my daughter about it, didn’t fix it. My daughter is developmentally disabled, essentially due to the horrific conditions Romani children endure in the Czech Republic. She has talents but she was injured by that system and part of that injury is neurological damage that interferes with her ability to understand abstract concepts, remember conversations or connect cause and effect.

So, I talk about these things with her, but she may well repeat the word “spaz” anyway. She’ll certainly hear it used as an insult against disabled children at school, maybe even against herself, though she works very hard to blend in and pass for average.

And that’s the thing, Trevor. I’m not mad at Lizzo. What she did was something that happens. Yes, I understand the argument that she was a bit dismissive about apologizing and changing the song with “spaz” in the lyrics, but as you said, she changed it. That is such a big step in the right direction, it’s worth recognizing.

People with disabilities have largely been left out of the “woke” wave to shield under-privileged groups from microaggressions. So many people would have completely ignored criticism over “spaz” or any other word insulting people with disabilities. You sound like you would have. Lizzo didn’t ignore us, and I’m not too picky beyond that.

If I was someone close enough to her to have a conversation, I might have said, “Please, stop on that a moment. Take a moment to empathize. It isn’t just about avoiding being publicly criticized. It really does hurt people, just like some words would hurt you.” But that’’s it. The basic thing was, she did what was needed. She apologized and changed the song.

Here are two other bits about my background, Trevor. I am a linguist by education, so when I say I’m looking at this not just from experience but also from a language development standpoint, there’s that. I am also blind—that is legally blind. I see about 5 percent of what you do. It’s not noting but it’s pretty minimal. I’ve been that way since I was born. Yup, I’m the same person who worked as an international journalist and hung out in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe as a lone white girl. I was also blind while I did that.

Here are some facts, you need to know about the word “spaz.”

1. I was called “spaz” as an insult every day for over a decade as a child, in the United States. It isn’t only a derogatory term in the UK and Australia, as you insisted repeatedly on television. It was and still is used as a vulgar insult in this country. You claimed it isn’t and was never used that way in the US. That was factually wrong and I hope you’ll retract it publicly.

2. I have noticed the linguistic migration of the word “spaz'“ over the past couple of decades. As I’m sure you’ve read, it started as “spastic,” relating to a type of muscle convulsion or cramp suffered by people with some disabilities, but it has been used to insult all people with disabilities, including blind people.

3. When Donald Trump made that motion with his arm at the reporter who was disabled, that was the motion that usually accompanies the word “spaz.” That gesture also refers to a “spastic” muscle contraction. People with spastic disabilities sometimes move their arms that way involuntarily. Donald Trump is obviously in the United States—not the UK or Australia. And that was not very long ago. Donald, as you’ve pointed out, doesn’t have a great memory and wouldn’t have remembered if this word was only used as an insult decades earlier or in another country. The fact that he used it is pretty good proof that it is a conventional American insult.

4. About fifteen years ago, I first heard people start to refer to “spaz” as just meaning “crazy” and overly emotional. It had migrated from just disabilities, to mental illness, and like the word “crazy” to behavior that is considered a bit too much. It then migrated further in some communities to mean something less negative as acceptance of “wild” behavior became more widespread.

5. But it is still used as an insult, NOT just in other countries. Here and now. And despite having a migrated and coopted meaning, I am sure you are aware that many other insulting epithets have undergone similar linguistic migration and we don’t excuse them. It is hard to imagine that with your American staff you weren't;t told the truth. There’s a word for knowingly obfuscating the truth and insisting that our lived experience is not real—gaslighting.

6. As an example, please try asking Siri (or Google) the definition of the word “Jip.” I believe you’re well-educated enough to know the connotations of that word and would never use it. But Siri says the origins of that word are “unknown.” While even Siri—and certainly a dictionary—would have told Lizzo the connotations of “spaz” had she checked, an uneducated person could not be blamed too much for using the word “Jip,” since looking it up isn’t very helpful. Yet that word is abhorrent and rightly shunned in woke circles. It is a racial epithet aimed directly at my children. But it’s used here in rural Oregon. I used it as a kid, until I learned better. Gip = Gyp = Gypsy = stereotypes about Roma being thieves. Words migrate linguistically, but that does not mean we give them a pass when they are still currently used as insults and derogatory epithets.

Here are some things, I am betting are true about you, Trevor:

1. I cannot imagine that under any other circumstances, you would deem it acceptable to use a word that is still used as an insult against a vulnerable group, if that group was a race, ethnic group, culture or LGBT+ group.

2. I feel very sure you have been told by people with disabilities whether in online comments or hopefully in person, that “spaz” is still used as an insult, including in the US. I wonder if you were told that before you went on the air dismissing us as people with valid concerns or only after.

3. I feel pretty confident that I’ve heard you say that it should be up to the given vulnerable group to say when a derogatory term used against them is “fair game” again. But you aren’t giving people with disabilities that agency.

4. You decided to state on your show and at great length with repetition, that Lizzo never did anything wrong. You criticized and condemned those members of the disability community who asked for an apology and a change to Lizzo’s song. That using the word “spaz” was legitimate in her circumstances because you believe “spaz” is only derogatory in the UK and Australia.

5. You have a diverse crew. I guarantee some of your staff know very well that that your statement is blatantly untrue. Either they told you that and you ignored them, or they are so afraid of crossing you, that you have got much worse problems than marginalizing people with disabilities.

Trevor, here’s the thing. Lizzo goofed. But it was understandable. We don’t check every word we use for its connotations in the next neighborhood over. It’s possible that in her subculture, “spaz” really hasn’t been used as an insult in her generation. She was told, and she fixed it.

Some people apparently weren’t happy with her quick and unreflective turnaround, feeling that she was only doing it to avoid criticism. That’s what I saw you get upset about. I’ve noticed that you often seem to feel protective toward the African American community. Nobody’s perfect and every time the Black community in the US makes a mistake, they get just as little leeway as a Black teenage male committing the usual sins that white teenagers regularly get away with. I get it.

But you went a step further and a step too far. You insisted at length that the facts are not the facts. You gaslighted us, telling us that what we know is reality isn’t reality. And you did it because the group you were dismissing is the one group you have never included in your work of bridging divides. I wonder if it is only that you have little experience with people with disabilities.

I have always loved your work because of all the good things in it. I have vaguely noticed that you never include anything about people with disabilities, but I didn’t realize, until now that this is a real blind spot for you. (No, that’s not a problematic term for me. It isn’t used as an derogatory term against blind people.)

Frankly, it isn’t just you. The woke movement is often dismissive of one particular group they should naturally be allied with, and that is people with disabilities. Sometimes we’re included as an afterthought but often we’re left out entirely, as we’ve been left out of your work in bridging divides and making healing out of humor.

Maybe for you that’s partly because people shy away from making fun of anything to do with disabilities. I guarantee I could introduce you to some people who can get you rolling on the ground laughing about disability issues. We are sometimes a bit too much, but I’m sure some of our self-styled “gimp humor” could be made accessible to the rest of the world.

Trevor, you said people often get mad at a celebrity who does something that hurts them and that’s it. They’re done. That’s cancel culture. That’s not my way. I mean, maybe if I heard someone I respected and admired had bragged about grabbing women by the pussy. I guess, I’d probably actually boycott them immediately. But this isn’t like that.

I notoriously can’t hold a grudge. But I haven’t been able to watch your show for the past month. I thought I’d just get over it, but it hurts. When I see you going on without any concern for the hurt this caused and when I saw that it is virtually impossible to send you a letter you will actually get, I can’t listen to your voice without hearing that jeering, derogatory insult against me and my kids.

But I don’t want to give up on you. You’re one of the best we have and I think you can see past this prejudice and accept people with disabilities as part of the communities. you fight for. I’m hoping that enough people will tell you that your dismissal and gaslighting of us hurt and that you’ll listen. Because while I know you’re human, so you can have prejudices and blind spots like the rest of us, I think you—like me—have seen a lot in your life. And that kind of experience gives us the ability to stretch and grow past those prejudices.

So, I still hope that some day I’ll see you retract the untruths about the word “spaz” and affirm that people with disabilities are valid, that insults against us are not okay, that musicians can and should be aware of that in their language, and that Lizzo did the right thing after being justifiably criticized.

But because I do believe in your talent for healing divides, I also hope against hope that you’ll be one of the first to break through the lockout of people with disabilities from the woke movement. I think you’ve got it in you, and when you can laugh at the social systems that cause the vast majority of difficulty that people with disabilities face (the actual physical or neurological problems are minor by comparison), you’ll discover a whole new area of healing humor.

Your voice is strong right now, very strong across this country and especially in progressive communities. I believe that if you are introspective and real and honest enough to look back at that thing with LIzzo and admit you were wrong and that your words hurt people, it would matter a great deal. It could be the moment that turns the tide and makes the woke movement fully inclusive.