reopen old wounds

idiom

: to cause people to think of things from the past that make them sad, angry, etc.

Telling that story will only reopen old wounds.

Examples of reopen old wounds in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

If emotions start to run high again, take a step back and remind yourselves of the goal—to connect and heal, not to reopen old wounds. —Mark Travers, Forbes, 9 Oct. 2024

Comforted by her two cats — who are also tattooed on her arm, hugging — two guinea pigs, and two chinchillas, plus an attorney and a longtime friend, Hill-Johnson begins to reopen old wounds and lay bare some of Mack’s faults and missteps. —Cheyenne Roundtree, Rolling Stone, 16 Aug. 2024

Might not such retrospection reopen old wounds and revive old, murderous struggles? —Orville Schell, Foreign Affairs, 12 Dec. 2017

Suzanne Hurt, a communications specialist for the city, declined to comment, citing concerns that doing so could reopen old wounds. —Will Lanzoni, CNN Money, 23 Sep. 2023

Conservatives, in particular, have argued that exhumations would only reopen old wounds. —Constant Méheut Samuel Aranda, New York Times, 18 July 2023

Is the issue really what these people did, though, or did the incident somehow reopen old wounds? —Tarot Astrologers, chicagotribune.com, 4 July 2021

The extra payment to Mr. Neumann could reopen old wounds with WeWork employees and investors, who were furious when the $185 million payout became public. —Eliot Brown, WSJ, 25 Feb. 2021

The pictures from the ongoing protests are reminiscent of those from the 1960s and the atrocities reopen old wounds that likely have never fully healed. —Aderonke Oguntoye, Essence, 9 June 2020