When you look at the animal Kingdom the two things that help the animal in the face of prey or predator are to either lie or to hide. Telling the truth in most cases is not conducive to good health. If it is a truth that hurts a person then it has really nothing to do with the person that speaks it. It could have been from anyone.
I don't think words spoken by a person can hurt anyone but the person who speaks them. Not in this world. Maybe somewhere else they do, like in heaven or hell. When I was young I thought at first that words here could hurt. Rejection certainly hurts inside the body or the soul if you let it, but realize the rejection that Jesus (pbuh) faced. I find that words always reveal the people who speak them. Not necessarily the other way around. The sin is when a person lies, misleads, or looks the other way for their own benefit.
I see that there is a written record in this world of every thought, word and action that has ever been made in perfect detail. All history has been recorded. I don't see that history, but I see that everything requires energy. I certainly regret some things I have said, but I do not regret anything that anyone has ever said to me. Is it not the same for any of you? Words, lies, gossip, propaganda, secrets may have all misled, but no words spoken to me have ever brought me any real harm. Any lies told are still a truth that reveal something in the person who tells them. That too is a good thing. How else can you know to rebuke them?