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Original poster

What is something someone has said that is etched in your brain?

707 replies

WhiteNoiseMoreToys · 19/02/2023 21:49

Mine is when I was 17, pretty self conscious and just finished being intimate with my then boyfriend.

We decided to get up and go out and as I sat up to put my top on he poked my belly and said “Christ, you could feed Africa with that tyre” it baffles me now, how brazen it was to just come out with it. But I was a size 8-10 and honestly I think I’m still confused 😂

Its one of those things that ‘pop’ into my mind at random times ans it’s gout me wondering what others peoples ‘moments’ are when they remember something someone has said that might not have significance, but will always be remembered.

OP posts:
SchoolTripDrama · 20/02/2023 10:57

Oh no actually the worst was when I was 4 and I asked my Dad what I’d done wrong after he’d beaten me again and he got right in my face and responded with “BREATHED”

Wishimaywishimight · 20/02/2023 10:58

I was a very shy self-conscious teen, always wishing I looked like someone else, had different hair, different colouring etc. One day, when I was about 14, I was at my grandmother's house, an uncle said to me "you're growing up lovely". He was a man of few words but a nice man who I am still very fond of today. I was stunned and delighted. It was just a small thing, a few words, there were other people there but I doubt anyone else heard or noticed but it did really make me see myself differently and I still remember it 40 years later.

tattygrl · 20/02/2023 10:59

This thread is an excellent resource proving that the words we say to people have such a tangible, meaningful effect, positive or negative. Speaking with kindness and pointing out the positives in people really makes such a difference.

Twawmyarse2 · 20/02/2023 11:01

LadyChatterlysLover · 20/02/2023 08:12

Oh so many.

"You shouldn't weigh that much." Said by my Dad when I was 14, 5ft 8 and 9 stone. He followed it up by saying "you're a child and that's a full grown adults weight." His horrible girlfriend was tittering away and saying "you weigh more than me!" I was about six inches taller than her, with FF cup boobs, and she had AAs! How did they know how much I weighed? They made me stand on a set of scales when I went to visit them, as a "bit of fun." They also measured my hips and gasped with shock when there was a 10 inch difference between that measurement and my waist, exchanging looks of utter disbelief in this freak before them.

I can't step on scales. When I had to do it when pregnant, I would feel sick and tearful. I never wanted to know how much I weighed. Right now I am a size 16 and I feel so ashamed to be around my Dad because I'm no taller than I was when I was 14, I'm just heavier, but both of my sisters are very slim, which I know from bitter experience that he values.

Why the hell is this vile man still in your life??

Lostinadream24 · 20/02/2023 11:03

"You should take all your mum's tablets and kill yourself, because no-one will miss you. Everyone hates you because you don't talk".

Said to me at 15 by another 15 year old.
I had undiagnosed (at the time) ASD and struggled to communicate/ fit in with the others.

fadingfast · 20/02/2023 11:03

When I was 17/18 I had a Saturday job in a shoe shop and we often had to measure children’s feet for new shoes. One day I measured a small child (probably about 3 years old) and then said I would go and find some shoes for them to try on. As I was looking in the cupboard I heard the child say (very loudly) “mummy, doesn’t that lady have a LOVELY voice”!
I have a very ordinary voice but I’ve never forgotten that child’s comment. It really made my day (over 30 years so now!) Smile

Nsws2015 · 20/02/2023 11:06

"I've never seen him happier than he is with her"

Said by my friends ex about my ex husband and the woman he left me for........while I was listening to him whine and cry over my friend who had finally realised she deserved better and left him! I don't know what I was thinking agreeing to speak to him.

And my ex wasn't that happy as he left her a couple years later, after trying to get back with me numerous times. Fortunately by that time I had come to my senses and was over my heartbreak!

FoxInABox · 20/02/2023 11:07

My DF, I was 15 and had just walked in from school. I hadn’t even put my bag down yet and he was pushing his phone in to my face to say hello to his new girlfriend (who I had not met at this point). I said hello and then passed the phone back and went to my room, thinking nothing of it other than it was a bit strange. My DF then burst in to my room in tears because his new gf had apparently been upset that I wasn’t enthusiastic enough- he roared at me:
‘you can go and live on the streets for all I care, if you’re going to ruin my once chance of happiness’, before storming out the room again. This came off the back of years of neglect. To this day I wish I had had the courage to pack a bag and do exactly as he said.

Sunshine275 · 20/02/2023 11:07

Someone I was seeing when I was 22 said to me I said go to the gym because “yo body is worth in”.

I then dated someone else who told me I “tried to hard” in my relationship.

My MIL said to a few years ago “I’d have a lot to lose” - if my and DH split.

Very recently I was told that my mum and sister said that “she doesn’t realise how lucky she is” - in relation to my DH.

The last two have stuck worse because I’ve had self esteem issues from my previous abusive relationship, and when you’ve been through counselling to build yourself up as a person and start to value yourself then people imply your husband is too good for you, or that I’m the lucky one makes me sad.

Lostinadream24 · 20/02/2023 11:08

"Oh yes. You can tell he's got it can't you!"

My ex mother-in-law's first words on meeting her grandson for the first time.
My son has Down's Syndrome.

Mumhangingon · 20/02/2023 11:09

I remember I was about 18 and I would say I was about a size 16-18. I had a holiday booked with my boyfriend (now husband) and I had been going to this beauty place to use the sunbeds to try have a little colour in time for my holiday. The place was called "aspects of beauty". I had gone on my lunch from work and as I was leaving to go back to work a group of people walked past me, and one of the males in this group shouted "ASPECTS OF BEAUTY AND THAT WALKS OUT". They all laughed and it absolutely destroyed me :( it was a town centre so there was loads of people about. This was 12 years ago and it still hurts.

BeSmartLikeEthelButKindLikeMildred · 20/02/2023 11:09

At school I was the ugly duckling and bullied mercilessly for it. One of the kids from my school also lived in my street. I was walking past him and his friends one time and he threw a pile of 2ps at me and told me to "buy myself a boyfriend as it's the only way you'll ever get one." What hurt the most, was that this boy was morbidly obese and would have been teased himself, yet I always stood up for him.
I became quite attractive once I hit my late teens/early twenties and got into promotional work for a few years. I was working at a club one night when said bully asked me out. I said no. He then propositioned me for sex whilst thrusting a wad of £20s at me🙄Obviously I declined, but the irony wasn't lost on me

CraneBoysMysteries · 20/02/2023 11:09

tattygrl · 20/02/2023 10:59

This thread is an excellent resource proving that the words we say to people have such a tangible, meaningful effect, positive or negative. Speaking with kindness and pointing out the positives in people really makes such a difference.

Absolutely yes to this.

All the negatives came to mind when I saw this thread title.

I really had to dig deep to remember the positives (of which there have been just as many if not more but I brush them aside)

SlippinKimmy · 20/02/2023 11:10

This is a really stupid one compared to some here, but I was about 12 at my school disco, really enjoying myself on the dancefloor and having fun. Two of the popular girls in my year came up and tapped me on the shoulder and were all smiley. They leaned in and said 'we think you need dancing lessons'. I was absolutely mortified and ever since I've been really uncomfortable dancing in clubs, events and so on. I rarely do it, and if I do, I think that everyone must be looking at me thinking how crap I am. It's ridiculous that a silly comment I'm sure they don't remember making robbed me of something I really enjoyed (though I'm quite happy to dance around on my own at home!).

Manthide · 20/02/2023 11:10

HappyKoala56 · 19/02/2023 22:06

Coming home from collecting my GCSE results very proud with 7 B's and 4 C's. Happily told my dad the news. He says 'what, no A's?'. Really rained on my parade

Something similar happened when I received my O' level results in the post. I phoned dm at work and told her my results 4 As, 4 Bs, 2Cs and a D in German. Her response, so you're not that clever you failed one! No congratulations or anything.

Neverknowinglysensible · 20/02/2023 11:11

“I think of you and it relaxes me.”
DH explaining how he gets over his bashful bladder. I think he meant it as a compliment…

MishaBukvic · 20/02/2023 11:12

When I excitedly told my dad that I was pregnant, his words were
"oh dear. Well, ducky, you aren't the first and won't be the last".

He was referring to the fact I was unmarried. And this was in the 2010's, not 1950s!

It still stings 13 years on.

katseyes7 · 20/02/2023 11:14

My mother, talking about a neighbour, when l was 15.
"Well, if she's managed to get a man, there's hope for you...."

CatMattress · 20/02/2023 11:16

ExH, after 15 years - "I don't love you. I don't think I ever really loved you."

DF, to teenage me during an argument when i was struggling with life and friendships - "that's why you've got no friends"

Someone I don't even remember. But I remember her words - "your smile just lights up your face and anyone who sees it"

DP about a month into dating "you have about 4000 different smiles and I'm going to learn every single one"

DP, when I was ill, helping him clean his flat at end of tenancy, looked down at me during a hug - "you haven't had a shower in 2 days, you've stolen my tshirt and the lighting in here is particularly unflattering but I don't think you've ever looked prettier"

I fucking love that man and the disgustingly romantic things he says.

CryInToYourCornflakesNicola · 20/02/2023 11:18

Every woman I have ever spoken to has a tale to tell of being fatshamed by a man - or boy. And most of the time they were not a single ounce overweight

Yup, my cousin, hadnt seen in an age, came to my house randomly. Said I really dont like your hair blonde and good god you've put on some weight.

Until this point I had been severely underweight for my entire life. I lived on my nerves, because my childhood was shit. So I've finally overcome all these issues to be told I'm now fat. I wasn't fat but he was a tosser.
I was livid, I said I like my hair this colour and I didnt ask for your opinion cos I dont care what you think. Now fuck off and dont ever come back.

I've not seen him again. Sadly I still remember what he said. He would be properly pissef off now I'm menopausal and gained a couple of stones.

PrincessHoneysuckle · 20/02/2023 11:19

Being called a big nose bastard by my school bully

FizzPrincess · 20/02/2023 11:20

My Dad - looking at the photo of me holding my new born son after a 36 hour labour with some complications and the first thing he says is "You look haggard". That really didn't help with the post natal depression.

FortheBeautyoftheEarth · 20/02/2023 11:20

Me age 22, new years eve, drank too much, behaved badly (emotional mess) and my then on again off again love interest said:

"I want to be with you, but just...a stable you."

Since then I've made it my life's mission to show that f**ker just how stable I am 😂 We're both married to other people and don't talk now now but I have him to thank for the determination to self-improvement I felt at this slight.

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 20/02/2023 11:20

When I was 17, DM -" it's a shame you're so ugly".

thekaratekid · 20/02/2023 11:21

At uni my friend told me that one of her housemates kept saying that apparently I always looked like I was "about to snap". I was very confused as I had only ever met this housemate in passing or in a group on a night out...certainly not in any stressful/emotional situation. Made me quite paranoid about what my overall demeanour and resting face must look like. Utterly bizarre. Years later my boss told me I had an unreadable poker face when in difficult meetings, so who knows what this housemate was on about.

Not sure why that comment has stuck with me all these years.