the cost of careless words
When Cruelty is Disguised as Conversation
The Invisible Weight of Words
There are times when someone’s words land like a stone — heavy, sharp, and impossible to shrug off. For those of us living with chronic pain or disability, these moments can feel all too familiar. What may have been intended as casual curiosity or even concern can instead come across as judgment, dismissal, or intrusion.
Our words matter. They can either affirm someone’s dignity or diminish it. Often, the difference lies in pausing to ask ourselves: Is this kind? Is this mine to say?
For anyone living with chronic pain or disability, dignity often depends not only on how we care for ourselves, but on how others speak to us. Casual remarks can cut deeply. It’s not because we’re “too sensitive,” but because they reveal something undeniable: a lack of respect. “People will always show us who they are,” as the saying goes.
What feels like “just a question” to the speaker can feel like a blow to the one on the receiving end. Words can act as carriers of goodness or of violence, and the harm doesn’t vanish just because they weren’t meant maliciously. To me, malice doesn’t lie solely in the utterance of harmful words, but in the minds that are capable of thinking them in the first place.
When Curiosity Crosses the Line
When we encounter someone else’s visible or invisible differences, it’s natural to be curious. But curiosity does not give us permission to pry or assume. Someone’s health, their body, their limitations or resilience — these are not ours to dissect, analyze, or speculate about.
To assume we can “read” another’s experience or reduce it to the pre-formed categories of our own belief system, is not empathy. It’s intrusion. True empathy begins with respect — honoring what someone chooses to share and leaving untouched what is not offered.
There’s a difference between inquiry and intrusion. Asking someone to justify their disability, speculate on the “real” cause of their illness, or suggest their suffering is self-inflicted is not concern. It’s meanness disguised as conversation.
No one has the right to frame another person’s body or pain as a puzzle to be solved. Doing so reduces a whole human being to an object of speculation. That’s not conversation or curiosity — it’s disrespect.
The Manners Divide
People move through the world with very different baselines of courtesy. Some are thoughtful with their words, others careless. Some take care to honor boundaries, others don’t notice them at all.
We can’t control this difference. What we can control is how we respond. Do we explain? Do we disengage? Do we remove ourselves from the situation altogether? These choices belong to us, and reclaiming that agency is its own form of power.
Too often, when someone speaks carelessly, others rush to soften the remark: “They didn’t mean it that way.” “There’s some truth to what they said.” These responses only deepen the harm. They erase the fact that the words were inappropriate in the first place. Excusing disrespect doesn’t make a community stronger; it normalizes rudeness. After all, cruelty wrapped in curiosity is still cruelty.
Basic respect means not questioning someone else’s pain. It means not speculating about the “real reasons” behind their disability. It means not presuming to know better than they do about their own body. Anything less is not “just conversation.” It’s a violation.
So what do we do given this divide? I come back to a few questions: What has this person shown me in the past? Do they seem motivated by kindness or by judgment? Would my response reach them? Where is my own willingness to offer compassion at this moment? More and more, I’m reminding myself that when someone has been disrespectful, it’s my comfort that matters most.
Extending Grace Without Excusing Harm
There’s a fine line between extending grace and excusing harm. Someone’s words may come from ignorance, but once they’ve been made aware of their impact, it’s on them to change their behavior moving forward. Talk is cheap, and an apology without a shift in behavior is meaningless.
Respecting yourself means refusing to minimize the impact of cruelty. It means acknowledging: This was not okay. And I deserve better. At the same time, it means refusing to carry their lack of courtesy as a burden on your spirit or something that you need to absorb.
Grace and forgiveness are gifts, not a guarantee. We can sense when someone genuinely intends to learn and do better. But when harmful patterns repeat themselves, withholding grace isn’t petty or vindictive — it’s wise. Our focus shifts to self-preservation, self-honoring, and a honed sense of discernment.
In such moments, we might lean on this: No one has the right to define what’s true for us or tell us what we should feel comfortable with. How we choose to respond or not respond is completely up to us to decide.
Choosing Where We Stand
Some things can’t be unsaid, and not every situation calls for confrontation. Sometimes the wisest response is silence. Other times, dignity looks like naming a boundary or walking away.
Each of these choices holds value. Each says: I get to decide how much of my energy is spent here. That act of choice is in itself pure resilience and resistance to cruel behavior.
We don’t owe explanations for our health, our limits, or our worth. And we certainly don’t owe silence when someone crosses the line. By their actions, they forfeit their claim on courtesy and respect.
We didn’t choose our pain, but many of us might choose it a thousand times again over living a life of comfortable cruelty and disrespect toward others. I know I would.
We can all ask ourselves from time to time how we intend to move through the world. If we choose kindness as our compass, we don’t have to tolerate anything less in return.
People will vary in their standards of decency. We can expect that some will be kind and others careless or mean. But we can decide the level of respect that we embody toward others, and most importantly, toward ourselves. Calling out cruelty in whatever way we deem right is an important part of that.
In that choice, we reclaim something powerful: the right to decide how we dignify ourselves and where we place our energy.
What we don’t need to do is pretend their words are harmless. They aren’t. And we deserve better.
With you on the journey,
Julie
*How do you navigate moments of disrespect and intrusiveness? In what ways would you like to feel more confident in your responses?
*chronic pain self-respect dignity intrusiveness