Is there anyone who holds an incorrect belief about you, which you can never put right?

[Gingervitis]

Partly inspired by the revenge thread, is there anything in your past that people believe about you which isn't true, and which you'd like to put right? Or something inaccurate that was said which you've never had a chance to correct?

Mine is from a 4 year relationship I had in my early 20s. We bought a house together but weren't married, and unfortunately things didn't work out.

To that guy I'd like to say, "You thought I was cheating on you, but I wasn't - I had binge eating disorder and when you mentioned in a row after we split that you had noticed the extra plates and bowls in the washing up, and that I must've thought you were stupid, I thought you were referring to my dysfunctional eating. That's why I didnt defend myself. But I wasn't having men round, I was just stuffing my face on my own and I was mortified when I thought you knew!"

I have no idea why this still niggles at me 20 years later, I'd just rather he went to his grave knowing I wasn't a cheating trollop, just a greedy bastard.

Are there any wrongs you'd like to put right (reasonably lighthearted)?

Then I'm afraid you're not managing to make yourself look very good here Katinski. It is a racist stereotype and using the name Stench to refer to a POC who actually wasn't suffering an odour problem at all will inevitably make you look racist.

Ironically, this latest exchange is a perfect example of how misconceptions about people can arise. At least we have the opportunity to clear this one up!

Damntheman I really don't given a flying f**k what randoms on the internet think.

And I'm honestly OK with that

The thread is moving too fast for me... It's also a demonstration of how people sometimes want to believe the worst when there's no reason to!

Don't worry Katinski, I think it should be obvious to most people that you were not being racist. but this is an interesting example of how people sometimes like to think the worst, perhaps because its more fun than accepting a rational explanation and moving on? Cool self-referetial thread anyway!

self-referential, sorry.

That I can't be helped mentally. Some professionals seem to hold this view. Thankfully my therapist doesn't agree.

My mother is a narcissist

Corkers include

I got on a college course against the odds and started passing exams-so of course I’d sucked the nobs of all the tutors-let’s ignore the fact they are all female

I’m lucky enough for my in laws to buy us a house-and we rent it from them-so I must have been shagging my dp’s dad-hes happily married and closest I’ve got to him is a hug

I’m a hooker,wino,druggie (who’s scared of tin foil and needles in real life) and my fella is my pimp

She’s a top nanna and I cut contact to be spiteful cos she refused to fund my lifestyle-she never funded anything-she enjoyed watching me struggle I cut contact cos it was either her or me

Many more-but it does niggle that people believe this twaddle!

Being autistic as a kid with no one caring enough to actually help teach me/diagnose me.

Recently I was a witness in a safeguarding issue, which wasn't dealt with well. Person who was dealing with it, was reprimanded and has told everyone a highly embroidered tale about how it wasn't her fault and how it was everyone else's fault etc etc. Actually she only told anyone anything about it after it came out how badly dealt with it was.
She knows I know so has spent the last two years telling lies about me to try and undermine me.
I think most people suspect she's lying, but she's such a nasty bully no one wants to stand up and say so.

More lightheartedly. My family believe I am a very fussy eater. My siblings eat anything. I believed it for years. However the actual fact is my parents fed us a very basic English-food type diet. Roast dinner (with mashed potato), sausages (with mashed potato), fishfingers (with mashed potato), cottage pie (with mashed potato in)…. or brown bread sandwiches.
I really can't stand brown bread of mashed potato. Other than those two I eat almost anything. My siblings will only eat very standard traditional food.
I think actually I am much less fussy than them. Just it never showed as a child because I was always asked to eat the same food which I didn't like.

Roast with mashed potato is just criminal Witchend! :o

I'm pretty sure my first ex thinks I'm a horrible person. To be fair I was immature and probably quite horrible at the age of 19. He was a lovely guy and I ended up dumping him and getting with someone else very quickly out of our 3 year relationship. I did try to reach out to him a couple of years later and expressed an interest in getting back together, which he quite rightly turned down. I hope he now knows that I was immature rather than cruel but I don't suppose I'll ever find out - although oddly enough we're still friends on Facebook.

@sproutsandall

My name is Anna, but a lot of family friends have called me Hannah my entire life, even to this day I get birthday cards as a Hannah!. Even some work colleagues call me Hannah, I have never corrected them and I don’t know why 😂

My parents have constructed the narrative that I did badly at university and now work in a really menial job, wasting all the potential I had. In reality I graduated with a 2:1. My first job out of uni was a low paid office junior type role but that’s because there was a bloody recession and the number of unemployed graduates was well documented on the news. It was also a job in an office which was directly related to my field of study. I worked up in various roles and companies, got some additional professional qualifications and am now a senior manager in a specialist/professional area of work and well known and respected in this field of work. This would be bad enough but the legend of me as family failure has rippled across the family so at any weddings, get-togethers etc, I’ll always end up in a conversation with an aunt or uncle giving me the sympathetic head tilt and telling me it’s a shame that things didn’t work out for me. I was once told by a relative that they use me as an example to their teenagers of what not to do – apparently I went out drinking every night as a teenager/student and now I’m dealing with the consequences of not working hard enough. Even my own brother believes it.

Even more bizarrely, in addition to this narrative, my parents also tell people that I was terribly homesick when I studied abroad for a year and would constantly call them up crying because I wanted to come home. This just didn’t happen. I had an amazing year, mostly forgetting to call them at all because I was having so much fun!

Much older sibling thinks I'm the spoilt hot-headed one with no tact and diplomacy. I wasn't the one who had a blazing/borderline fisticuffs row with our dad in the middle of the high street.

Also, no matter how old I get and no matter how much experience I gain in my field of work people always seem to view me as a ditzy little girl. I don't think I am and I do ask a lot of questions but it's because I'm a bit of a perfectionist rather than clueless.

White people have often used the word STINKER to describe an unpleasant white person.

There was even a Roald Dahl story using the word as a play in the surname Tinker.

Katinski was quite clearly doing the same thing when she described the
man as Stench as a play on his surname Tench as he was an unpleasant person and was in no way inferring that a person with black skin smells, it was his stinking personality she hated.

Anyone making it into something it isn’t need to check their own silly agenda.

The stinker

headhuntershorrorhouse.fandom.com/wiki/Tales_of_the_Unexpected:_The_Stinker

Friends at university all thought I was the reason the relationship I was in at the time ended. My ex told them all I'd treated him really badly. I did stay friends with them all (and my ex) but things became awkward between us. I never told them anything as it felt wrong to badmouth him to his friends, and assumed he'd treated me with the same respect.

It was only years later when I met up with one of them who told me ex's next relationship had broken down and why - because he was very jealous and controlling of her. I said that it didn't surprise me as he'd treated me the same. Mutual friend was shocked, and did apologise to me for simply having believed ex and not checked with me.

My mother and my sister both think I'm a teenager, though I haven't been one for twenty years. The last few Christmases and birthdays have been all about unicorns, because I love them so much. I did, when I was 13. Not so much now.

My mum also believes I'm a really fussy eater. What I realised when I left home is that actually I'm far less so than she is. I don't like fish and seafood, but have been known to eat at least fish when necessary. She'll refuse to eat anything on a plate that's had gravy on it and has a number of other dislikes. I was obviously treated as the scapegoat so she could hide her pickiness.

IL believe I attended each hospital appointment with my FIL because I hoped to benefit from his will. They still believe they thwarted my plan.

Truth I went with him because he asked me to, that despite a dislike for each other he recognised I could offer a medical insight into his appointments that others couldn't. I could put aside our poor relationship to support him in his final months.

We spent hours talking about things he wouldn't say to his family during those appointments.

I got his final ever response before his passing, I know what I was saying and what made him open his eyes.

The IL blame and hate me so much to this day they will probably never know that because they don't care for what I have to say. Reality: what I have to say would probably give them much more comfort than his money ever has. Sad really

To this day three of my school friends parents believe that I was a bad influence on their children. That wasn't the case, it was just the fact that my parents didn't give a flying fuck where I was at any time from about 8 onwards! And obviously the only reason their daughters were underage and drinking, clubbing and taking drugs it must have been me, the unsupervised reprobate, that introduced them to this hedonistic lifestyle 😒

As it happens, I was the last of us to lose their virginity, the only one not dropping pills on a night out and the first to settle down as an adult. But even now, these parents make comments about how lucky I am to have turned my life around! Fuck offff. Nothing I say or do will ever change their minds. Probably be my fault when the divorces start.

apparently I went out drinking every night as a teenager/student and now I’m dealing with the consequences of not working hard enough. Even my own brother believes it.

I was on the verge of saying 'how can your own brother not know what you do for a living?' and then realised that two of my own siblings have no idea what I do at work or even the name of the company I work for. Random relatives certainly don't, and I very much doubt if my in-laws know either. It would be different if I worked for a huge company that they'd heard of I suppose...

My family think I am the world expert on Greek islands, because I went to Corfu on a 2 week package holiday almost 30 years ago.

My BIL is convinced I'm a vegetarian and has been for 20+ years. I've no idea where he got the idea from but have now given up trying to correct him.

About 25 years ago I had to temporarily cut out dairy for medical reasons, so switched to drinking bog standard supermarket green tea for a bit.

To this day I still get quizzed about my "funny tea" if I'm round relatives house and they offer a drink. Ffs, it was only green tea, not some mystical blend brewed on the thighs of virgins!

Oh where do I even start!!!!
Accidentally caught an acquaintance at my teenage Saturday job kissing her “friends” boyfriend. The acquaintance then began spreading all sorts of rumours about me to ensure anything I said would be discredited as the ramblings of a fantasist. I had only sneaked out for a fag, and although shocked at finding her kissing her mates boyfriend, I wasn’t even planning on getting involved! After about 6 months of nasty comments and being blatantly avoided, I caved in and left.
When I was about 13 I went to an under 18s disco with probably half my school. My mum was picking me and a couple of friends up, except one friend had disappeared when we went to leave. This was before mobile phones etc and we spent absolutely ages looking for “Jane”, asking anyone if they’d seen “Jane”, to be honest was quite panicked and my mum didn’t want to leave her in town presumably by herself at night. After over an hour of hanging around, in desperation we called the house phone of one of our other friends to see if she had seen “Jane” leave with anyone. The friends mum answered and said really angrily that she had given Jane a lift home as apparently me and our other friends had left the disco to go to the pub with some blokes?! Completely untrue, also worth pointing out at 13 I really looked 13 and would never have got in anywhere! I have no idea why this girl told her mum this bizarre lie, but anyway that mum always hated me and thought I was trouble, even calling my mum during our GCSEs to say she didn’t want me distracting her daughter from studying! So undeserved!

@isabellerossignol

yep, also my brother is older and had moved out before I hit my teenage years so he must have just believed our parents when they said "ooh Design is out partying every night" (reality - usually at the cinema or at a friend's house playing board games), then "Design is always out drinking in the student union" (there's more truth in this but it was balanced with studying), then "Design can't get a job because she screwed up her degree". To him it must all make sense. I don't blame him for believing the lies presented to him in this way. I do get angry that he still resolutely believes this and makes reference to my failures (we actually get on well otherwise) despite me telling him over and over again what I do for a living. In normal circumstances my job would probably never come up in family conversations but I do feel I need to defend my achievements. I don't really care if extended family members know what I do for a living or not. I do care that they look at me with disgust and pity and tell their children to be careful "or you'll end up like cousin-Design).

Of course the unintended additional lie that everyone believes as a consequence of all this is that DH is really successful and earns loads in order to "keep" me, pay our mortgage, take us on holidays etc. In reality I am the breadwinner in the family on 3x DH's salary. Again, this isn't an issue for me - I look upon it all as our shared money and know that both DH and I have made sacrifices and choices but the constant digs and put-downs about my failings do really take their toll.