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Original poster

Insults/comments that have stayed with you

155 replies

hellocats · 06/05/2023 08:26

Has anyone ever said something so mean and cutting that it's stayed with you for years and years?

A boy at school said I looked like a man, this was between the ages of 12-14 so very sensitive age. It ruined my confidence, and even now when I'm in my early 30s, it's still there in my head. I don't believe any compliments if I receive them, and I've had very low standards in men because quite frankly I've been amazed a heterosexual man would be attracted to me in the first place.

No amount of therapy or reassurance from others will eradicate it from my head.

OP posts:
tregunamekoidestrecorumsatisdee · 06/05/2023 11:01

When I was about 10 a girl said 'I don't want to invite you to my parties, nobody likes you but my mum makes me because she's friends with your mum' that has stayed with me for over 30 years and really affected my confidence and ability to make friends.

FatAgainItsLettuceTime · 06/05/2023 11:08

About 20 yrs ago a guy at work said 'you know you look quite nice when you make an effort and put make up on'.

Twat!

ColinRobinsonsFart · 06/05/2023 11:11

When I was 18 I found out I was pregnant. I was single and had just started university. I had to leave ( this was the 1980s) and I was sent home.

my father said no man would ever want me now.
I married the first bloke who showed interest- a marriage without love or attraction.

a loveless marriage that lasted 8 yrs and produced another child.

again my father said I would never find a man who would take on two children now

I have been with the present DH for 20 yrs.

my dad has apologised

would like to point out I have never thought my life was incomplete without a bloke. I was quite happy ( eventually) without a man but then the lovely present DH burst into my life and ……

FirstnameSuesecondnamePerb · 06/05/2023 11:12

My mum.
I was going out with people from work. Mid 30s, rarely did so. I bought a new top and thought i looked decent. My mums comment. "You look nice. That top hides your fat back.".

barbarahunter · 06/05/2023 11:20

Mum: You count for nothing
You're a jinx

Dad: Hold your fat stomach in

Boy at school: You'd be alright if it wasn't for your big nose

I suppose they were different times, and I have nothing but disdain for the bloody lot of them, I refuse to let them define me.😀

Pennyplant19 · 06/05/2023 11:21

When I was in infants school (5 ish) we were allowed to take it in turns to sit next to the teacher when she read us a story. When it was my turn she said 'no, not you, I want one of the pretty girls'
I'm 55 now and it's never left me.

Moomo1 · 06/05/2023 11:31

@Fourpeasinapodcast something similar has been said to me on a few occasions over the years. Il never feel comfortable.

UnDruidlyWords · 06/05/2023 11:38

When I was young and foolish, cuddling up to bf and asked him why he was with me, hoping to hear something sweet. He said 'Because you're available'.

TragicMuse · 06/05/2023 11:42

Good god some of the adults in this thread are just fucking awful.

When I was around 14/15 I had a group of 'friends' at school until two of them sat me down, listed everything 'wrong' with me and told me that they actually all hated me and no one would speak to me or be my friend till I changed. This was stuff like my laugh. And the way I said something was 'sooo funny'. It's not like I had actual personality flaws.

So from then on I had no friends. At all. I spent every break in the library, the only time anyone spoke to me was if a teacher asked me a question. Other people in my year did shit like tipping bins on my head. It was fairly hellish really. I'm not quite sure how I endured it. In 6th form i made a couple of new friends which was nice, but 4th and 5th year were awful.

I still regularly think all my friends hate me and am very insecure in a lot of friendships.

And then in 6th form my English teacher bullied me and told me I had no personality and would be a failure all my life. He was just a twat experimenting with psychology tbh. I got my revenge!

ChristmasJumpers · 06/05/2023 11:49

Another one, when I was about 14/15, my school friend made a new group of friends (2015 moshers). She said I should hang around with her and them at the weekend. "The boys even go out with ugly girls, so you'd be fine!".
It actually took me a long while to realise how horrible this was to say to me and it was totally out of character for her but still awful and has stayed with me.

neverover · 06/05/2023 11:54

'You need to understand that men just don't find you attractive' (from a man).

I've had 'you shouldn't laugh with a set of teeth like that', 'you've got a witch's nose', 'you're fat', 'you've got piggy eyes' etc etc all my life, but knowing that no matter what I do I'll always be unattractive really hurts. It was two decades ago and I think about that comment every day.

ChristmasJumpers · 06/05/2023 12:00

Oh and accused of being anorexic regularly as I was naturally extremely thin as a child up to about 18 years old (I was a UK size 4 as a teenager and gated it so much). It all caught up with me and I'm now trying to lose a little weight so that one hasn't so much "stuck with me" but it affected me so much at the time. People think it's fully acceptable to comment on skinny, they don't even realise its rude, unlike calling someone fat which people fully well know is horrid!

And I have a lazy eye which was pointed out by my dad, who once asked me "are you looking at me or over there?!" 😭

sunsoutagain · 06/05/2023 12:01

A teacher at secondary school said on my report sunsout is vague and lethargic - I think I was bored with her lesson. A boy said I had "workman like" hands - I thought my hands were nice with long slim fingers

ArseInTheCoOpWindow · 06/05/2023 12:05

A teenage boy called me ‘fat and foul’ at 16.

3 years later l was on the catwalk and in magazines. People would stop me in the street. But the hurt from that comment 43 years ago had never gone.

Sometimes l feel a sweet taste of revenge though.

blahblahblah1654 · 06/05/2023 12:06

Being constantly called fat by my ex despite being a size 6-8 at the time. I've had a complex for the last 20 years.

FictionalCharacter · 06/05/2023 12:10

DustyLee123 · 06/05/2023 08:28

When a teenage boy says something mean to a teenage girl it’s often because he actually likes her.

Absolute nonsense. Another example of the way men and boys are given excuses for mistreating women and girls.

UnDruidlyWords · 06/05/2023 12:13

Re being asked if you're anorexic, I used to get that and it went on till my mid-20s, even though I ate like a horse. People who saw how much I ate thought I was bulimic. The one time I fired back was when someone asked 'Why are you so thin?' and I replied 'Why are you so fat?'.

TwinkleSprite · 06/05/2023 12:13

Well, Mn is still addicted to the more general ‘If someone behaves in a less than friendly way to you, they’re just jealous’ mantra, which is almost as ridiculous.

Not jealously but I think if someone is hyper fixated on criticising something like weight, they are insecure. Most people don't go around noticing other people's bodies- they're too busy living their own life. ^
^
So if someone's constantly criticising others for being too skinny or fat, I'm going to assume you have internal battles going on. ^
^
Not jealousy but something is up with you, some kind of insecurity or fixation. So there's some truth to it. Obviously not true for a boy bullying a girl- that's just misogyny and nastiness.

putalidonit · 06/05/2023 12:14

Needanewnamebeingwatched · 06/05/2023 08:33

My exhusband said I had "piggy eyes" and it knocked my confidence so much...

My father said, when I was 14yrs after he found out I kissed a boy " you don't want to be known as buck toothed and easy"

Although he had a fiddle with me!! I had very sticky out teeth and I hate anyone being mean to people with teeth that stick out.

Your father 'had a fiddle' with you? You mean he sexually assaulted you? He's a paedofile?

neilyoungismyhero · 06/05/2023 12:32

My headmistress asked me if the muck I had on my face was meant to hide my spots because if so it wasn't working..total witch

LadyMargaretDevereux · 06/05/2023 12:41

When I was 11 or 12, I had taken part in a modern dance thing at school, sort of interpretative dance to a poem, then to a song. I was so pleased with myself and I had loved performing in front of an audience. Saw an older friend (maybe 16) after and she said how good I was and then 'you looked so cute with your little pot belly!' She was someone whose judgement I really valued, she was my leader at Guides and our parents knew each other, so that really stung.

HalliwellManor · 06/05/2023 12:44

I'd just given birth to my son the previous day,2 of my friends came to the hospital and brought me a box of Roses chocolates,my ex partner looked at them and said "I don't know why you've brought her those,don't you think she's fat enough?".
Another occasion,same partner,I jokingly asked him if he thought I was beautiful,he said "well,you're nothing special".
Same partner also said I should be ashamed of myself as I was the fattest woman on the street.I was a size 16.
I'm pleased to say he has been an ex since 2001 and is still sad and single as no woman puts up with him,even his own children don't want to know him 😆

defi · 06/05/2023 12:45

My white mother called me a coconut because I a mixed race child who lived in a predominantly white area had no black friends

sweetcomicvalentine · 06/05/2023 12:46

Queuing up for school in 1999, aged 7 - ‘why can’t you just be normal?’ from my classmate.

It’s never, ever gone - I hear it most days in the back of my mind and shy away from other people as I’m scared she was right and there’s something wrong with me.

Messyhair321 · 06/05/2023 12:50

I broke up with a violent ex, who was arrested & bound over to stay away from me. My mother said to me 'what did you do though?'
She's an old bitch who's never once was able to support me. Fortunately I have low contact with her & I've learnt to protect myself.