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

[WhiteNoiseMoreToys]

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.

"I'm not concerned with what others think of me, it's none of my business."

My grandmother said this, I was probably 12, and it was a revelation. I knew then not to care about the opinions of insignificant people.

'I would never let myself get like you.' My sister on my weight. I was a size 12 at the time.
'You look ghastly and really very odd without make-up'. My mother.
'I can't believe I gave birth to something as evil as you.' My mother.

I have the loveliest therapist in the world though.

"Thank you for sitting next to me"

Uttered by a fittie when mass was over the other day. I mean, my pleasure, I wanted to. Unusual to be thanked when you fancy someone 😊

That is so lovely!!

In my very early teens, I discovered I was actually related to a girl in my year at school. A few weeks later, as I was walking along the school corridor I passed her, I heard her say to her mate 'there goes my fat cow cousin.' I was painfully shy back then, so insecure, and that hurt me so much.

“People think you’re weird” - my ex
”You should get a job with computers, not with people, because you’re a cold person, aren’t you?” - my mother

Nice ones: some time after I left a job because the fixed contract ended, I met up with my former colleagues at a “do”. One of them said “You were the glue that held this place together”. Made me feel quite emotional.
A nice man I’d been chatting to in a cafe said my children were a credit to me.

For the record I had been a size 10/12 my adult life and went up to a size 16

Mine was said by someone when slightly tipsy and I think she meant it as a compliment but that made it worse in my mind. I told her I hoped she knew how pretty she was and she replied “aw thank you… you may not be pretty in a conventional way but you have an elegance about you.”

I’ve never felt pretty - always feel like the ugly one on a night out.

Negative:

Calling me quasi modo (Ihave curvature of the spine due to a childhood injury). A fellow seventeen year old in grade 12. Announced it to the entire class and he was immediately kicked out by the teacher.

Positive:

A friend who recently told me that I always appear calm and completely in control. I was gobsmacked in a good way.

"I didn't know you had a daughter! Only a son." - said to my father when we bumped into a colleague. The son was my younger half-brother.

"You have such a pretty face, the rest of you would look so much better if you lost weight." - my mother.

"Why did you go into his room? Are you stupid or something?" - my mother right after I was sexually assaulted when I was 10-years-old.

"She's stupid." - about me by one colleague to another on a day when I had to ask people to repeat their instructions because my ADHD was being particularly bad.

I can't think of anything nice that was memorable.

The HV’s first visit, on learning mine and my husband’s professions, she said “oh so you’re both quite logical, you’ll really struggle with a baby then.” We are both at the more analytical end of things but our jobs are fairly run of the mill. I was a nervous first time mum and it made me feel like I’d failed before I’d even started.

My parents would sometimes talk about another baby born at almost the same time as me in the hospital. Sometimes it felt as if I had a shadow sister I had never met.

They had an off and on again fiery relationship and we moved a lot from country to country throughout my childhood. My brother was the one in the home I felt I could depend on and we have always had a mutual pact through some truly odd and dysfunctional episodes. It took us some time to work out how weird our home situation was, but as it dawned on us we found ways to cope. He was more the pleaser, though he would say 'yes' and often not follow through. I became more enigmatic, retreated into books and would count to five before giving an answer to a tricky question. That last technique really annoyed them.

'Do you think we brought back [other baby] rather than our own?'

'[Brother]'s clearly my child, but I'm not sure about you'.

'What would it have been like if we had brought back [other baby] by mistake?'

It never occurred to me back then that most parents didn't repeatedly say this sort of thing. I did wonder who I was and what the other me might be doing.

It damped down, but didn't entirely stop for a while, after, as a young teenager, I told them that I was sure I was their daughter because I had inherited the worst traits of both of them.

Pulled up outside my late fathers house on hearing he had passed away.
"You can't drive the car as your not insured as your Dad's dead, ive looked it up and there is no period of grace"
First words out of that bitches ( sil)gob.
He'd died that morning and I had asked my sibling who had power of attorney to change the V5 for my dads car into my name ( very old low value car)of which I was insured, to be in my name as I couldn't afford to mot and insure my own car due to not being able to work as I was caring for my father etc. Was told they had more important things to deal with.

My mum told me, when I was 8, tjat I was 'well built'. I didn't know what that meant. She told me it meant a bit chunky. I was 8. I wasn't chunky. I was a perfectly normal size. I had never contemplated my body size until that moment. Led to years of binge/purge yo-yo dieting and horrible body image.

I had a couple of horrible relationships before getting together with my now DH. I knew he was a keeper when he said to me "Wow, you still really are waiting for the sucker punch, aren't you?"

I've got two "one day you put me down and you never picked me back up" late night text from my daughter at University, really happy childhood and struggling with being away (I also missed her dreadfully) Second one, at work when I was 23 and very ambitious from someone who was in their last years of work "make many friends, trust few, always paddle your own canoe" I should have taken more note of that one.

For all the talk of nasty men, on balance: it seems on this thread, that most nasty comments were by other women (a lot of mums). What is it that makes Mother's say nasty things to their own daughters?

My dad has complimented me every time we have spoken or been together. It really sticks with me. He also does the same to my mum, my husband and daughter.

I still feel intelligent, relevant and beautiful because of a lifetime of my dad telling me so.

Give your lovely dad extra hugs next time you see him!

On the flip side in primary school my friend told me she was being sexually abused. Her words were very explicit. I didn’t understand as it was so far from what I could imagine. I understand now and it has stayed with me.

My dad saying "if you looked like your sister you would be attractive" Wish he was alive so I could tell him to go fuck himself.

Went on a really romantic, lovely day out with my boyfriend at the time. We were living together and at the time it all felt really serious. He had taken me to see a theatre show, for a fancy dinner and then out for drinks. He said he had something to ask me after a few drinks and my brain instantly pinged ‘proposal’…he leaned forward and said
‘Do you know one of your eyes is higher then the other?’

It felt like I’d been slapped in the face. It was such an unexpected comment and said so matter of fact it took a moment for my brain to catch up and I think I was stunned. I went to the bathroom and burst into tears and made a nice ‘toilet friend’ who told me that no man should ever make me cry and that I was beautiful and my boyfriend was an idiot.

It still stings to think about to this day! He was very overweight with moons and had a huge nose! I wouldn’t have dreamed of commenting on either.

"Don't spend your life taking paracetamol for headaches that aren't your own."

That's fucking awful, reminds me of the time me and a friend were really high and realised people had one eye higher than the other . I can't see it now, but we were freaking out.

I was about 14 and some girls dared me to steal some chocolates from the Christmas tuck shop that had been put away in the girls changing rooms.
They said the would keep look out. So I've gone off with my "order" of what to get people.
I turn around and the PE teacher is stood behind me watching me.
She said "YOU THIEF!"
I dropped the chocolates and got in the worlds most trouble and I've never stolen since (I'm 42 now)
I can still hear her clear as day shouting that at me and I cringe still