Your cognition is spot on and you should be proud that you've been able to reflect on your usage of the word. When I decided to stop using "retarded", I chose

Your cognition is spot on and you should be proud that you've been able to reflect on your usage of the word. When I decided to stop using "retarded", I chose to replace it with "ridiculous". It was very easy to train my tongue. Since then, my vocabulary has gotten much sharper.