The Damage of Words
A memoir from Katrina Collier
Healing narcissistic abuse and shifting from self-loathing to self-love, care & compassion.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.
What deceitful words to tell a child
What nonsense to grow up under the pretence that sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. I was told this so often I believed it. How could I not? I was a child. Surely the words would just flow off me, like water off a duck’s back. If only that were true because how those words hurt.
She used words as a weapon. She wielded them at me, and they stung long after the sting of her hitting had passed. The words stayed, deeply embedded in my psyche. Deep down in my subconscious, repeating back to me, like a broken record, for decades after they stopped.
Bringing up children believing that words will never hurt them is a lie. What pain they can inflict. What cruelty. What trauma. What damage. Who is anyone to ever tell us that words can never hurt?
She used them to damage. The words were intentional. They were carefully selected. She maximised the impact with the words she chose. Later, I said them to myself repeatedly because I believed them. I was too young to know differently.
Those words created such self-loathing. Pure unbridled self-hatred.
I am baring my soul.
In The Damage of Words, I share my experiences overcoming narcissistic abuse, which was both emotional and physical, and complex-PTSD. And I explain how and how life-changing it was to move from utter self-hatred, to self-love, care and compassion.
Though I am well-known professionally in the recruitment community and as the Author of The Robot-Proof Recruiter, few know my personal history. But it is time to share it with you finally. I am opening up about the self-work I have done on this life, past lives, and my DNA, and what it is like to live as a highly sensitive person and empath. I am also coming out of the spiritual-closet, where I have been hiding my claircognisance and clairaudience for far too long.
I felt called to write, like something deep down inside was desperate to escape the confines of my body. Words that must be penned because of the great healing they will create. If I can inspire you to take one step, you will inspire others to take one step. If I can normalise some of the more unusual healing modalities, then more healers can step into the light and be visible. Then even more people can be healed.
The Damage of Words is for those who have trauma to heal. My words are for those souls who aren’t believed and feel like they’re howling into the wind to be heard. These words are for the hurt, the insecure, the unloved, the lonely, the sad, the vulnerable, the scared, the down and out, the… insert whatever drew you to this book/page.
Your healing is your choice. It is your life. Proper self-care is a wise investment.
It all starts with one step.
👣
If you would like to know when The Damage of Words and podcast publishes?
Pop your info in below and I will let you know. (This list is only for this book/podcast i.e. no spam)