Internal dialogue can be a good thing. It can motivate you to keep going, encourage you to pivot without giving up when things are not going right and can allow for giving yourself a silent high-five and word of affirmation. I have two voices in my head. The one that gives me the “You betta go with your bad self, Bridgette” encouragement and the one that admonishes me when I do something I think is dumb. That one usually starts with “Look here, silly broad—get it together.” We are always the first to hear the words we say as they process through thought to the language function in our brain. That process is so fast! A thought can solidify before we have even fully thought it through.
I have learned over time to be careful how I talk to myself and how I say the things I say to others. Language is a choice.
Similar, but subtly different, is the process of listening, or the external dialogue we engage in. Whether it is reciprocal conversation or just listening, I think we often hear with our emotions first, then the words process into understanding and thought. Think of it like this: If someone is talking to you and they say, “I love…,” you’re already feeling the warm and fuzzies before you process the rest of their words “…cinnamon red-hot candy.” It’s a bit of a letdown (unless you love them too), when you realize it wasn’t “I love you,” right? Emotion before meaning, you get me?
I’ve learned to be careful of how I listen to what people say to me and how I take it in. Language is a behavior.
It may well be that I think too much, but I spend a lot of time considering language and words. I love them both. I love the combinations of tone, diction and cadence that can make the same sentence sound (and feel) distinctly different coming from two different people. I think about the range of emotions words can put us through. From joy to grief, anger to laughter or pride and shame, words have power. I genuinely love the way some words taste on the tongue and feel in my brain. Governance of my own use of language can control the kind of morning I have, or how my day ties up. The consideration of how others use language and their control (or lack thereof) of the words they choose can determine how much emotional weight I take from them. Having said that, I have a series of words for you to consider. Before I give them to you, make a conscious effort to see how you hear them, how you process them and how they make you feel.
Words have power, but they don’t have to control you.
Stigma. You deserve what you got. AIDS. How can you expect anyone to love you like that? Shame. It’s your own fault. I’m HIV. Sick. Maybe you should only date your kind. Dirty. You should have said that before I went out with you. Isolated.
Words have power, but they don’t have to control you. Some of those words caused me pain, or anger or to flinch and shrink at one time or another. It wasn’t all of them, nor was it all at once. But gradually, as I learned to process others’ use of language and my way of how much I take in, those words lost their power. For example, “You deserve what you got.” That is correct. I deserve the growth, the wisdom I’ve gained. I deserve the love of a community of people living with the same life process that I am going through, my acquisition of HIV. I would not be the same woman without getting what I got. See what I did there? While I have you here, may I gently, but firmly, suggest you take the words “I’m HIV” out of your lexicon? It’s an unconscious form of self-stigma. By phrasing it that way, you give the virus power over your identity. We are not HIV; it lives with us.
Stigma holds the power you give it and the emotional weight you grant it. Take in what you need. Leave the rest. Choices and behaviors. They are after all, nothing but words.
Be well. You matter.
Bridgette Picou, LVN, ACLPN, is a licensed vocational and certified AIDS Care Nurse in Palm Springs, California. She works for The Well Project-HIV and Women as their stakeholder liaison. Bridgette is a director at large for ANAC (the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care), and a sitting member of the board of directors for HIV & Aging Research Project-Palm Springs (HARP-PS). Bridgette’s goal is to remind people that there are lives being lived behind a three- or four-letter acronym.