Only a handful of situations are on the most watched film reel in my memory.

This situation, though, is over a decade old. I rarely let this voice loose, free to wreak havoc in my psyche.

The shrill, phlegmy voice of a 30something woman reacting like a child, blowing up at a simple question. This voice going so far as to use a racial slur on an 18-year-old girl, later calling her a "crack-baby.” This same voice the one who tried to make me believe she was "there for me," and “cared” about my well-being. This is the 1st voice that started a lesson that took years to sink in: everyone has your best interests at heart until they don't, until they can no longer profit from you.

It's easy to smile and be agreeable when someone is going along with you or otherwise not vexing you. The true test of longevity comes when you're no longer convenient, when you ask uncomfortable questions, or when you just simply can't (or won't) feed this person’s ego anymore.

Words have power, they can be poison or salve. Be mindful of the chemical properties your words carry as you weave them together for good or bad.

Thinking back to that memory playing itself out in my head again, it doesn't matter how many times I tell myself that she had a guilty conscience and chose to take an innocent question and turn it into a launch pad for an explosive yelling match for no reason. That voice is permanently etched into my mind.

This ugly voice comes out to play at the quietest of times. It sneaks in unannounced and most assuredly unwelcome. It tells me things, horrible things: I'm not worthy. I'm ugly. The habits of my parents, no matter how far in the past, define me.

So I beg you: think about what you're saying before spewing venom down someone's ear canals and permanently altering someone's self talk. Rachel Greene from Friends said it perfectly when she said, "Imagine the worst things you think about yourself. Now, how would you feel if the one person that you trusted the most in the world...thinks them too...." I want to take it a step further and say the danger lies in the fact that it doesn’t even have to be that “one person you trusted most in the world,” it can literally be a careless sentence flung from someone’s mouth like a newspaper delivery boy would carelessly throw a newspaper, not caring where it landed. The point is, regardless of how much you may 100% know you whisper falsehoods, it may not stop the voice from frolicking in the forefront your mind every now and again, forcing you to invoke every bit of positivity you can muster or risk find yourself in a slump.

The tragedy is that while the person spewing hate and toxicity around like a dragon breathing fire will in most cases forget those nasty words almost immediately, they're as sticky as a spider's web to receiver. It doesn't matter how hard you try to shake or rub it off, you'll continue to find new bits of web stuck on your long after you found yourself aimlessly plowing through it.