To hate the word terrified?

[ElspethBoomingHowsen]

To me, terrified is a very strong emotion of absolute fear. I have only felt terrified once in my whole life. This was when my baby was blue lighted to hospital, unconscious with sepsis. It was fear like over never felt.

it’s so over used on here! Either people have never truly been terrified or they are exceptionally dramatic.

The actual word itself makes me cringe too!

I've noticed it too. People are using terrified when mildly worried would be more appropriate.

But then I've noticed incredible, phenomenal and stunning being used when people probably mean 'quite nice'.

Stunning is the bugs me. Someone mildly attractive/conventionally pretty is always stunning on here.

Yes I agree.

It’s just a general cultural tendency to exaggerate, and, to be honest, it’s a lot less irritating than the widespread misuse of ‘mortified’ in completely inappropriate contexts — someone on here apparently thought it meant ‘shocked’ or ‘horrorstruck’ and said she’d been mortified when a friend told her a close family ,ember of his had died.

People do this all the time. Posters on Mumsnet are always "horrified", "shocked", "terrified" "amazed" "disgusted" etc rather than just mildly surprised.

Depends how your amygdala is programmed surely? You’re very fortunate to have only felt terrified once in your whole life. Why judge others who haven’t had such fortunate experiences and who experience more extremes in their emotions?

💯 Agree - who are you to tell me what is terrifying, mortifying etc 🤔. Some people are overly dramatic, granted but some people are more fragile than others.

I notice people saying eg. "We discussed why he needs to put his shoes on" about their toddler. It sounds very grand to have a discussion about it.

"Devastated" because the shade of Farrow & Ball you chose looks slightly darker on the wall than it did on the colour chip. Classic Mumsnet.

"Crying and shaking" at the first hint of adversity seems to be the norm now too.

@DockOTheBay Can we add grim and vile to your list. Cheers

You can hate it if you like but you'll be a bit busy monitoring people's use of terrified and justifying yours.

Hyperbole has become basic communication for people these days, to the extent that I find stating things simply actually has more impact.

For example:

I was terrified it would happen.
I was really quite concerned it would happen.

The latter sounds more serious to me, because as OP says, everyone is terrified/mortified/devastated, and their anxiety is through the roof.

Affecting my mental health. Well, maybe, sometimes but often it is just the normal worries and setbacks of everyday life.

Hyperbole is the norm on forums.

Imagine a poster saying 'My dh has just dropped dead...' and the responses all being things like 'I was momentarily saddened to read that'. That would seem insensitive and lacking empathy. People say things like 'devastated for you' and I think it resonates much more.