Things that stay with you.

About 15 years ago now Dh and I went to a 'big brother' party. There was a diary room and a video camera and we had to do a set of challenges/answer questions etc and then the next morning we watched the videos back. All great fun. there was another couple there who had been together since school and are still together now. One of the questions was 'have you ever been in love?' And the man in the couple looked straight at the camera and said 'no'. All of us (including him and her) watched the video playback and you have never heard such an excruciating silence. Was awful. Every time I see them now at social events I think of it and wonder how on earth they're still together.

Marvin, UptownFunk and Open

Thank you, but it has been true so far and was part of a lifetime of verbal/emotional abuse which boiled down to those two statements and a belief that I'm "not good enough". I don't believe that I'm bad, just not 'good enough'. I have believed it for so long. I've tolerated abusive relationships thinking I didn't deserve any better, and the first time I tried to reach out to, unfortunately, the person who said it, I was just told I was lucky anyone was prepared to take me on and not to rock the boat or they'd end up dumping me and then where would I be? So I put up and shut up. And continued to do so.

I've had abusive/bullying 'friendships' that I haven't even thought to question because they looked like every other relationship.

It's gone on for too long now. I've been trying to address some of this, but it's too overwhelmingly difficult and I've ended up shutting down on it and I know that it means it is true and it will continue to be true because I don't know how to make it any different.

I've remembered something else. My ex partner saying to me that he could see himself getting married just not to me. Very very shortly after I broke up with him and chucked him out. We're friends now surprisingly enough, we should never have been together, but it's always stayed with me.

I had just moved into our first flat with DH and phoned my parents, excited to be putting together flat packed furniture.
My DM said three words she hadn't said to me in more than 10years, since she had suffered the first of many strokes. "I love you". It made me so happy but took me by surprise so I stupidly started talking about the 2nd hand settee we were picking up that night. After the conversation I cried as it was such a momentous thing for our family. For a long time she hadn't even known who I was and she had to relearn how to talk etc.
That night she died. I often wonder if she knew that it was her time to go which is why she said it. I will always regret not acknowledging it at the time.

Such sad posts. hoping all the lovely women who posted them know that what some ass says about you isn't you. As someone said wonderfully up thread "you are your thing".

My lovely boss/friend said to me once "there is no such thing as a part time alcoholic" this about sums up alcohol problems for me-it isn't part time, it is full time. wouldn't you rather do something else full time.

Said in a school assembly
'You're the star of your own show'
Don't know why but it's really stuck with me.

A billboard I saw in the late 80's:

"How you feel tomorrow depends on what you do today".

Still a wee manta for me when I feel blue.

Me; "mum am I pretty?"
Mother "well you're no oil painting"

I was 10/11. :(

"You disgust me".

Another gem from exh.
I had put on weight with anti d's.

Oh this is a heartbreaking thread. :(

A few things exdh said to me.

On why our sex life was rubbish "I just look at you and I think...fuck" in a disgusted tone with a sneer on his face.

On his mistress "she's a better mother than you'll ever be" (to our children)
And "she's ten times the woman you are".

NC for this.

My art teacher at secondary school made my life a misery.
This is just one of the "poems" he wrote about me.

*SadThread the foundation queen
Biggest nose you've ever seen
Face like pastry
Hair like a flame
If you've seen her once you won't want to again
*
my real name

I had rhinoplasty thanks to that twat!

I've cried a lot at this thread to you all.

A card to me at work "we speak of you often, and to others you are just a voice, but that day and now, you are our hero"
They sent it with chocolates and I wish I had got to meet them

I was in the queue at a small supermarket during my lunch break about 10 years ago, waiting to pay for a sandwich and drink, when an elderly woman in front of me offered to let me go first. "Oh that's very kind, are you sure?" I said. "Yes dear, I've got nothing to hurry home for" she replied. There was something so heartbreaking about how she said it - I've never forgotten and wish I could go back and ask if she wanted to go for coffee or something. There is so much loneliness in the world.

I got pregnant and then miscarried very early on in my relationship with my ex. We'd been at a family party (his family) and three separate people had asked us when we were going to have a baby, it was about 6 weeks after my miscarriage. I silently sobbed all the way home, and when we got back my ex put some music on, and we danced in the kitchen and he said 'our baby girl would have been beautiful, and I would've loved her, just like I love you'. It was the first time he'd told me he loved me, and the first time he acknowledged the miscarriage effecting him.

Not long before we broke up, we were on holiday and had had a bit of an argument. Ex had gone to bed and I was in the bar, we'd gotten to know the barman quite well over our previous nights there. He stood watching me for a few minutes and just quietly said 'so, are you the future Mrs (ex's last name)?' I think I just nodded and said 'I hope so' and he replied something about it being obvious how truly in love we were. And we were truly in love, and I so badly wanted to be his wife, and I never have been and never will be. But a feeling like that doesn't just go away.

Went to a gig as a teen and as we got there early, we got chatting with lots of other girls who were waiting by the doors. There was one who wasn't there to see the main band, but the supporting act, LostProphets (you see where this is going :(). She was absolutely obsessed (not unusual in itself of course) and followed them to gigs all over the country, like every single gig, and she was only around 13. In the gig, Watkins spotted her, he knew her by name and got her up on stage, hugged her etc.

When the news about Watkins' crimes came out, and especially when they said how he'd manipulated fans and got access their babies, I thought of her, and wonder if she was one of them. She would be about the right age I think. :(

sh77

Midnight - I am so sorry you feel this way

My god there are some appalling, unfit parents in this world. I'd like a time machine soI could go back and either gag them all, or slap them immediately after saying these hideous things.

My dad died in front of me
On bad days I still hear his ribs crack as I performed cpr
Later that day my mum had a heart attack (she recovered)
A few days before his funeral my aunt told me that I should "get over it"
I haven't spoken to her since

Honeyandmarmite could you write it down for your therapist? Email to them? I've done that with the really tough stuff.

"The day I left home at 16 and felt like I could finally breathe." For me I was 18 (just). I suspect there's rather a lot of us on mn especially on certain threads.

to those with similar experiences and also to those who have experienced loss and trauma.

'be kind to yourself' by my 2nd cpn. It's a much maligned and belittled phrase especially on mn but for those of us who find this particularly hard, it's important.

Midnight I don't know much, but I know that's not true

Oh, and despite knowing I don't actually have to justify myself I feel the need to add that I was 17 at the time had been with my boyfriend for a year before losing my virginity to him. I was also nursing what felt like a catastrophically broken heart when said comment was made.

"You're a cheap tart who had sex with the first boy who swung his willy at you"

• my dad.

I'm in counselling atm actually and I've alluded to his past abusive behaviour but no idea how I'd even get those words out to try to discuss it. What's weird is we have a good relationship mainly, these days. I can't quite get my head around that.

Nearly crying reading some of these.

Some truly disgusting things some people who are supposed to be friends and family have said.

I used to clean once a week for a lovely, jolly, vibrant lady in her 80s.
One time I knocked, she answered the door & we said hello etc but she had a really croaky voice so I asked her if she was feeling unwell - she said no, I've not used my voice since you left last week
I was stunned, she hadn't spoken to or seen anyone to speak to in a whole week
That's stuck with me, she's passed now but I think about her regularly