To ask what's the most tactless thing anyone has ever said to you?

[Squirrel78]

I've had someone come up to me today gushing "I didn't know you were expecting again?!" I'm not. Don't know who was more mortified - her or me! My stomach has grown over the last few months probably because I don't exercise enough. Now I'm tearful, depressed and embarking on a diet and the only thing that can cheer me up is s bit of shared misery!!

'I don't want to talk to you - you're like a horror story!

Said by a pregnant radiographer carrying out an MRI scan when I was five months post-delivery and couldn't walk as a result of hip damage sustained during pregnancy.

'Would you like to meet up? There's no one else...'

Said by a 'friend' during the summer holidays when we were both 18.

Sil when pregnant had blood test showing high risk of Down's syndrome so was going for amniocentesis test. She phoned to talk about it with me during the conversation she said well if it has it I'll have to have an abortion. I mean a disabled kid, who wants that?
My eldest daughter has cerebral palsy.

I said something really tactless to a colleague. She had been off sick for a week or so and, for various reasons, I suspected it was a miscarriage. She had never said she was pregnant so there was no reason for her to tell anyone, and of course I didn't ask. We went out to lunch and we were talking about a project and, completely unthinking, I said "well, it's your baby isn't it" - referring to the project she had initiated. She looked down at her bowl and I will never forget the look on her face. I couldn't even say sorry or acknowledge I'd done something wrong, because she obviously didn't want people to know it had been a miscarriage.

I've had plenty from my mum, who isn't cruel but who I suspect had post-natal depression. She told me casually last week "I think I would have killed you if it hadn't been for your nan". She's made lots of comments like that, which bothered me a lot when I was a child.

Receptionist at the hospital to a severely anorexic DD1 (she had known her at secondary school): "But you were much chubbier back then!"

On my first day back at work after miscarriage, my PA told me she was pregnant (she was fully aware of my situation).

Can't fathom why she thought the timing was a good idea - they hadn't even told her PIL yet and was off for a week after that day. SURELY it could have waited? Sobbed my way through congratulating her and then went and sobbed in the park for an hour.

Loads of fun watching her pregnancy progress while I had a further 2 MC's too.

Thanks everyone for your stories - they've made me realise that some people are just tactless bastards and it (probably) wasn't personal.

I was unintentionally tactless to a friend when we were students. She was tall and attractive, slim but not skinny. Unbeknownst to me however she had had serious body image and eating disorder problems when she was younger. She had bought a vintage dress from a charity shop and came to show it off. I said "Gosh that's lovely and lucky you for finding it because most vintage clothes tend to come in sizes that only fit really tiny skinny people". She told me years later that she went away and sobbed for hours. Until then I'd never have realised that what I said was in any way inappropriate.

I think the point being that you never know what issues someone else may be hiding inside and what seems normal to you could come across like a knife to the heart to someone else.

"Haha is that how you dance? What are you doing?" Said to me when I was 16, at my first social event that involved dancing and wishing the ground could swallow me up! I know now that I have Asperger's syndrome and dyspraxia so I didn't have much chance of being a good dancer.

"You always wear tops that show your tits." Said to me by a boy I had a massive crush on at university. Not in a nice way either. I was slim but curvy and very self conscious about my hips and boobs. I always tried to dress in a way that didn't show too much so I was quite upset when he said this.

Both of these moments come back to haunt me when I'm having a down moment! It's silly because they are so trivial and I've been through much more traumatic events but these have really stuck with me.

I am sitting reading this with tears streaming down my face for lots of you.

I'm not going to post any of mine as they seem so trivial now, but to you all

I just remembered another one.

When I made a clumsy suicide attempt in my teens - a cry for help really - the triage nurse I saw in A&E frowned at me and said "what did you do this for?". I looked down and mumbled something. She snapped "what does that mean?" and, when I didn't reply, she tutted and shook her head. Once she left the room I snuck out without seeing the doctor, ashamed and in tears. If it wasn't for the kindness of the 999 operator I'd called earlier, I think I would have made a proper suicide attempt after that.

I have always hated how I look in photos. Once aged 15 I was at Guides and was looking at some pics with our Guide Leader. "Why do I always look so awful in pictures?" I whined.

"Well, the camera never lies" said she. Still remember 25 years later how much that cut to the quick.

When a 'friend' at work found out about my fledgling romance with my DP she audibly gasped and said 'how the hell did you manage that?! He's gorgeous!' I asked what she meant and she said 'Well bread, this just proves that not all men are into looks. Quite lucky really and you have an amazing personality'

Luckily I am not easily offended and laughed quite a bit at this. Other people also found this funny as she definitely wasn't a looker either

"You have a face like an elephants arse." But she was only joking

My parents both died within a year of each other. I loved them so much and couldn't have asked for better parents. I miss them terribly and think of them every day, even 8 years later.
I am adopted and the amount of people who asked me if I was going to find my real parents was unbelievable.
So thoughtless, callous and it upset me so much because obviously the people who were asking were friends and family.

DH's GM, 2 days after I miscarried our second baby in 6 months: "Is that Welshcakes? You've put on so much weight I hardly recognised you."

Same GM, on being told that we were (successfully) pregnant with DiddyDragon: "Well whose is it?"

DH was particularly pissed off about that one.

My DGM after the miscarriages: " You want to hurry up and have a baby you know."

I rang my DF and told him what she'd said and he tore her a new one. I love my dad.

Mother of a friend of DD1, looking at DD2, who she knows can't walk, in her wheelchair: 'My friend has a son with CP [not the condition DD has]. The doctors said he'd never learn to walk, but the parents were very determined, so they made sure he walked.'

I cried for the rest of the day. Now the recollection just gives me the rage.

maybe your daughter is so difficult for you because you didnt bond for the first few months. Its bound to have affected her (had PND and 2 babies in one year)

When dd was first born a woman looked in the pram and asked whether I knew if she was going to be normal. Ds is autistic. She then compounded things by commiserating with me that it was a shame they couldn't spot it (autism) on the scan so that I could "do something about it"
My patience exhausted I replied "it's a good job the scans aren't in colour because had it shown any of mine had ginger hair and freckles like yourself and your child then I'd definitely have done something about it"
Not my finest moment to be fair but felt she deserved it tbh.

You're a millstone round my neck . My DM to 19 year old me.

How long will it be tho? Is this going to go on long? Tutor when i asked for essay extension after DF terminal brain tumor diagnosed, with prognosis of 3months to live. I should have complained. B**d. Oh and this was after he used brain tumours as an example is some lecture on cognitive learning. I sat there numb and cried all the way home.

Oh I have loads of these!

The month before our wedding dh's charming grandmother told him 'it's not too late' and claimed that our wedding was putting dh's brother under financial strain (exactly HOW is still a mystery to me today)

More recently - my own parents could win a prize for this - after a 7yr struggle with secondary infertility and several unsuccessful treatments I very unexpectedly got pregnant last year, we were beyond thrilled. Sadly had a MMC at 11wks and in the waiting phase from the scan to the MC itself my mum phoned and told me it was incredible that I had managed to get pregnant at all (was 44 at the time) and now that we knew it could happen we'd want to start taking precautions to ensure it didn't happen again as we wouldn't want that........her timing was shocking! AND she cornered dh and said the same to him. I think it was only the shock of the entire situation that prevented me from telling her to fuck off and mind her own business.

Then 2 mths after the MMC my sister announced her pregnancy and my parents 'decided' that that was enough grieving time and I needed to 'get over' it and that my sister was now the one who needed the support and i needed councelling if I was still sad after 8 weeks....

My dad texted me to tell me not to be sad, that it was never a real baby anyway, it would have had something wrong with it and anyway now my sister was having 'a real, live, healthy baby and we could all celebrate that,and our dd would not need a sibling as would have a (10yr younger) cousin instead.

I cried for days over that text.

I have not forgiven them and will not. I simply cannot imagine ever being that insensitive to my dd. I pray that I never will be.

I haven't read the full thread yet, but here are mine

Mil said to Dh in a very loud voice on my wedding day as we sat at the top table " newshoes sis looks so beautiful today, I bet you wish you married her instead now"

Mil 4 hours after I'd given birth. "Oh you've got so fat"

Mil after my miscarriage "if you weren't so greasy and insistent on working you would had that poor baby. "

Needless to say we don't speak now

DF after having a dd born with a condition requiring 8 hours of surgery at 18 months old 'perhaps it would have been better not to have her'.

She is 8 years old and no longer has any medical issues!

Also a lady I don't know ( friend of mil) congratulating me on my pregnancy 3 weeks after I'd miscarried while I was in the local supermarket. Only our parents knew and she was asked not to tell anyone as we had history of miscarriages

Still feel bad about busting into tears in front of a stranger

When I was 14 and in hospital for a fortnight with chronic psoriasis of the scalp...I had lost all of my hair and was feeling very low indeed.
An old lady called over to me in the communal dining area, "So what's your name dear?" I told her, "Xxxx." "Oh!" she exclaimed, "when I think of the name Xxxx, I picture someone who is slim and pretty...nothing like you at all!"

"it's a good job the scans aren't in colour because had it shown any of mine had ginger hair and freckles like yourself and your child then I'd definitely have done something about it"

Reminds me of the time someone said to me "If I do have a ginger child I'll just dye its hair brown". I pointed out my own Titian locks. "Oh, it's just that BIL is ginger and he's so grumpy I don't want a ginger child". My response "oh well, it's better than being a boring, brown-haired cunt". I may have been in a bad mood that day