Ryen Slaughter

11/19/2025

 

Words have a unique way of being powerful to others, whether that be

from a harsh insult or a metaphor used in a different type of manner. Words

can show a sense of personality and way of expressing yourself to others.

Words can shape meaning when it comes to the context of words you can use.

For example metaphors is a good way of playing with words in a enjoy full

yet clever way. For example when someone says ‘’I’m so hungry I could get

a horse’’ is implying a sense of that they are so hungry that they could eat a

horse. Even though that it not humanly possible, it’s a play of words being

used to describe feelings. Words dont only carry a definition they carry

emotional weight for us. For example when it goes to us having inner thought

saying negative words can impact our performance for example, if i say,

‘’I’m totally going to fail this test’’ the word fail is used in a negative word in

my thought which can result in my actions upon myself and how I view my

own well being/self.

In my own experience with being gaslighted, I was in a relationship with

my boyfriend at the time. Over the months we were dating everything was

doing fine until I caught him cheating on me. He was texting another girl on

his phone, I had no idea who she was. I stepped to him and confronted him

on the situation and he replied saying ‘’don’t worry about it.’’ ‘’I stoppedtexting her’’ ‘’All I care about is you’’ ‘’I love you,’’ this truly made me feel

unheard and like i was being taken as a joke. I felt like he was not owning up

to his actions and apologizing to them, and when I started to get heated and

mad. He replied saying ‘’why you got to make such a big deal out of this’’

meaning like he’s saying that I was overreacting without necessarily saying

it. which showed that he believed he did nothing wrong which clearly he did.

Words encouraged me in many senses for example I can remember the

time that I had to do a presentation at my current internship at The American

Folk Art Museum and i can remember how neverous i was, i made sure to

plan ahead and have my papers ready to go and printed to read off of it. I told

my mom about it saying that I was nervous, and i felt like I wasn’t going to

do such a good job on it, and she responded saying. ‘’No, don’t say that, I

know you’re going to do well.’’ ‘’ You’re smart and a beautiful girl’’ ‘’You

got this’’ This boosted up my confidence even more and made me even more

ready to go along with my presentation and get it over with. Of course I was

nervous while I was doing it, but I kept replaying what she said in my head

over and over. I did well on the presentation and it went really well. This

shows how using words like ‘’you got this!’’ And ‘’you’re smart’’ really

uplifted me and shaped my confidence in myself by reminding myself not to

be so negative and be more positive.

In conclusion, Gaslighting is a way of harming someone or how they speak

to you in a different light. You don’t know what’s true nor what to believe.Using words of empowerment can heal your inner negative thoughts. Maybe

a good solution is to gaslighting using empowerful words instead of being

around the bush and saying what you actually want to say. But including

empowerful words shows the listener that you’re listening and not trying to

be seen as a negative light. Words can be seen as negative and positive, it’s

good to practice more positive ways of speaking and thinking to improve not

only your mental health but your well-being upon oneself.