Comments that stay with us

[whatacrapusername2306]

DD came home one day last week and said someone at school had called her ‘greasy hair’ She hasn’t btw, I am a hairdresser and wouldn’t allow her hair look a mess. She is still talking about this comment a week later. This has really flagged up some emotion in me from my school years. I remember every single nasty comment that was made to me. It can still bring me to tears when I think about it. Mostly comments on my appearance, size (I was small and thin) trampy clothes, squinty eye, nobody fancys you etc etc. It’s stupid I know, but has anyone else had a comment stay with them into adulthood?

When I was on my lunch break from work, a man with his mates passed me on the busy high street and, apropos of nothing, pointed at my face and said 'You're ugly'

I went to an all girls school. Still in therapy for it at 31.

In my mid teens my mother yelled at me during an argument that I should have been drowned at birth. That one has really stuck with me and she never apologised.

not me but a friend, and i think of this often. Her surname had a shortened version (think Sherrington shortened to Shezzy). Unfortunately this rhymed with Lezzy. She wasnt interested in boys and was very emotional and childlike. She would shriek with happiness and had a very shrill and loud voice (even in our teens), which brought attention. She was an only child so got a lot of attention at home, quite sheltered and would run off crying a lot and was emotionally younger than everyone else. She spent years being called a lesbian (due to her rhyming surname) and told she wouldnt have children and would die alone. She was an easy target as she was loud and wouldnt fight back. This was a daily thing for her.

We went through school age 5-16 together and then I moved away and we lost "real" touch. We are now in our 30s and I see on facebook shes married, has had several eating disorders, is extremely frail and cant have children of her own. Recently her husband left her. My heart absolutely breaks for her.

'What's wrong with your face' - I had made a mistake about the timing of one of my A level exams and had rushed into school with no makeup on to get there in time. I wear makeup every single day now.

'Fat arms' - said by a friend's flatmate on a night out at uni. He readhed over, squeezed my upper arm, and said that as I was dancing. I'd love to say I told him where to go, but actually I made my excuses, went back to my room in halls, and sobbed. I still dislike my arms to this day.

I’ve had mean comments. Pancake chest was one! I later found out that the boys calling me that wanted to go out with me?!

An Ex said I should seriously consider if I was actually a lesbian, because I didn’t give him enough sex.

My family called me uptight and bought me a mr uppity mug. When I was 9. At the time I was propping up my mothers mental health, and looking after my little brother each day after school by myself. No wonder I was uptight. Thanks family!

My exes when they said they didn’t love me. I think they did, but used it to hurt me, but I could never get over it.

Having said that, a lot of very positive comments stay with me too! Like the man I saw after Ex who told me I was the best shag he’d ever had (yeay take that Ex, I’m not a lesbian, (not that I would have minded if I was))0 you are just crap in bed mr Ex) ho ho.

A different type of comment, but when I was about 14 or 15 I overheard my mum's beautician and another girl discussing me and saying how lovely I was. It surprised me because I was a fairly unobtrusive and studious type, and wouldn't have thought anyone would notice whether I was lovely or not!

Heart goes out to the people who've been so affected by negative comments. People can be so cruel. None of you were ever any of the awful things you were called.

Not nearly as serious as some - but I have curly hair and was called Bush Head endlessly at school. I'm nearly 40 and wore my hair down for the first time since I was 12 last November. Still feels like an act of subversive bravery.

My 2 sisters, their husbands and kids arranging a once in a lifetime Disney holiday and not asking me and my kids to come too as ‘it’s for families, and you’re not a proper family any more, are you?’ a year after I’d left my husband due to severe domestic violence

My mother and I had come into London to shop, we were walking along the Kings Road when some workman went by in a truck and shouted out, VERY loudly ‘OI BIG BUM IN THE BLUE TOP’. Everyone turned to look at me. I was 14 and utterly mortified.

I love my big bum now

I'd misunderstood an instruction that my primary school teacher had given the class so I'd not done the task she'd asked of us. She told me off in front of everyone including telling me that I was so silly that if I'd had porridge for breakfast I'd probably have poured it all over my head. I was mortified at the whole class laughing at me - I was only 5yo. Bitch.

First day if secondary school some older girls in the toilets laughed about my hair and said it looked like a bush, been paranoid about it ever since, I never leave the house with my hair down.

That no one would ever marry me (comment when I was 9 or 10). They haven't, although I've had two proposals (I ran away from one and the other ran away from me). But I always think about that.

Foxandthehound
How awful for you. My brother made me feel this way about myself. It was like I was a non person. He didn’t call me by my name but a vile acronym meaning I had no breasts and hadn’t reached puberty. My mother let him do it and he didn’t do it in front of my father. He called me this name in front of all his mates. I imagine you struggled a lot with friendships. I had friends. But I copied them as I didn’t know how I was supposed to act.

My mother was also in on the act. She’d crow on and on about how I didn’t need a bra and only bought one for me when I was about 14, which I wore til I was maybe 17 I bought myself another two.... in a different size. I do need a bra for suspension purposes these days.

I still look at myself in the mirror and I see the parts of my brothers face in me and think I don’t look feminine. I recently read what facial feminisation involves and I try to think of that by looking at those features.

pumpas
Children are terrible. Dd is in primary school. An adopted child in dds class was treated like this. The boys made up a rhyme. Dd told me and i emailed. The school stopped it. I hope you know what they said about you wasn’t true.

A girl called me chicken legs when I was about 14 because I didn’t shave my legs. She was one of the in crowd, who liked to send people to Coventry. I was taught very little about self care and it hadn’t even hit my radar hairy legs were bad. With my body image so poor this deeply affected me.

I was bullied especially in the last year of school. Live fags thrown at me. A girl put a rumour out that she’d seen me at the vd clinic. As an adult I see how ridiculous her comment was - if she’d seen me there, what was she doing there?! She named the family planning clinic, which didn’t have a vd clinic. I was so upset by the allegation I even phoned the place to check.

I wasn't a skinny teenager (size 12/14). I was in a science lesson when I was about 15 and realised I'd forgotten my lunch. Turned to tell my friend and the science teacher overheard. He then said, very loudly so the whole class could hear, "well missing a meal won't exactly do you any harm!" I wish he could realise the damage that that one comment has done to my relationship with food and that it still impacts me over 20 years later.

So many, mostly from school. Used to be called fat and ugly all the time. Remember one girl pushing me over and forming a ring around me with her friends, chanting “fat, fat, fat!” and doing chubby cheeks impressions, while I lay there and cried. I was a size 8 at the time and all through school, however have always been convinced I was fat. I am now; I guess it was like a self fulfilling prophecy,

Not helped by my mother calling me Thunder Thighs when I was 12, or telling me (aged 6) that I ran like a “ruptured duck” - to this day, I won’t run anywhere.

And a boyfriend at 18 who looked at my friend and said, “Has she always been this fat?” (Again I was not fat). I slapped him, but I was more hurt than he was.

Fat has been a label I’ve worn all my life, even when I wasn’t. I suppose I felt I might as well actually be fat. I now cannot ever imagine being anything else.

From my mother when I was 6:

Your ears aren't only big, they are floppy too. I never wore my hair up after that until at least my mid 30's.

My mother and father when I was 8:

If you were as pretty and slim as (name of pretty girl in class) we wouldn't mind spending money on nice dresses for you to wear.

I was telling them that she'd been bought a lovely long dress for a birthday party and how nice it was. I've had so many problems with eating since. I wasn't even fat when I look back at photos.

A stranger (adult male with his friend) at the beach when I was 13:

"Look at those fucking massive tits bouncing everywhere"

I had changed from a day at the beach into just a T-shirt to walk home with my friends. I was mortified and didn't take my bra off in front of anyone until my mid 40's, used to wear a T-shirt to have sex.

to all.

It's adults saying things about kids that makes my blood boil. Don't be such a twat, that's a CHILD.

Was told by many people that I was fat (I wasn't), looked pregnant (I wasn't), am disgusting, laugh too loud, talk too much, and am ugly.

Exes have said I'd be "nicer thinner", "It's ok, I like big noses" and "Oooh, jelly belly!"

Pretty much been reviled all through school, then spent the last 20 odd years being miserable and down on myself. I am not good looking, but as I get older I try not to mind so much.

What I've taken from it is that if ever i notice someone looking good, or smelling nice, or doing something kind or some good work or whatever, I always comment on it.

I hope school teens have moved on, kinder with their words. DM has been depressed and disorganised for most of my childhood. I was scruffy looking in primary one girl told everyone if they stood beside me they'd get a disease, it stayed with me through most of primary.
Even now if I am scrubbed up and look well, I still revert to my child thoughts. My DC always look well but they also know never judge anyone with less than you, if I heard my DC insulting or bullying they'd be sorry.

After a squabble with my two sisters when I was 13, (not so Dear) Mum told me I must be nicer to my younger sisters as when I was older, I’d need to take (aka date) their leftovers. Ironically they both take after my mother and have rocky relationship histories. I celebrate my 13th anniversary in March, and still love my DH.

My high school boyfriend dropped me just before our prom and took up with my best friends little sister as “She’ll look hot in the photos” See Instagramable was a thing, 20 years before Instagram As an added bonus, Dad had paid for the limo for my birthday present so I got to watch them maul each other all night.

Worst was a middle aged man in front of me in a queue at a supermarket commenting on my food and said it's no wonder I was so fat. I was early 20's. I was fat but that hurt tremendously. He also commented I must have a good memory as "elephants remember everything" I'm over 40 now and still remember the shame and I politely laughed at his "joke".

Best, a lifeguard watching me swim and when I left he said he'd never forgive himself if he didn't tell me I had the most beautiful eyes and smile he had ever seen. I'm smiling now writing it!

Quite a few by my mum, which is weird as I also know she really loves me and would drop everything to help me if I asked her... The time when I was changing into my ballet leotard aged 6 and she said loudly in front of everyone else in the changing room that I had a really big bum, the time I was singing away in the bathroom aged 10 and she knocked on the door for me to open it and told me I had an absolutely dreadful singing voice, the time when I was 17 and she had come dress shopping with me for a party I was going to and pointed out loudly that I shouldn't get a short dress as I didn't have the legs for one, the time not so long ago my first year at uni (when I had been depressed and suicidal and self harming and drinking a lot) came up in conversation and she said I'd treated that year as a gap year. Hmmm.

When I was little (maybe 7?) I was having a great time running around at a friend's birthday party. I heard her mum say 'of course DareDevil isn't exactly slim is she?'

I'm 51 now and I have struggled for years with binge/restrict eating and yoyo dieting for decades. I was an energetic, fit lively child and photos form the time show me as perfectly normal and slim.

I wish I'd never gone on that first diet as a teenager because I was gorgeous and it was that kind of remark that precipitated it. It's stayed with me my whole life thanks to that unkind, thoughtless woman.

This happened just last week but I know it will stay with me forever.

My 7 year old, sitting in the shower and crying say "I don't want to be fat".

That's I discovered his friends have been bullying him

He's not overweight. He's at the top end of the healthy weight in his BMI. And very active. But his friends are all skinny.

Fortunately school came down hard on them and this week seems better.

There was not one particular thing because - like many others on the thread - I had nasty comments - from people at school, (kids AND teachers,) other kids in the neighbourhood, and extended family, (about my weight, my average academic ability, my curly ginger hair, my very white skin.) Fat, ugly, ginger cunt, stupid, always be a virgin, no-one will ever want you fatty!

But what really hurt was when I was about 9 y.o. I started hanging around with a gang of kids in my neighbourhood (6 girls and 4 boys.). They were all 10-13 y.o and they didn't like the fat ginger girl (ME) and they took the piss, but I still followed them about and hung out with them. Half because I was scared of them, and half to see if I could make them like me.

We went to a woodland 2.5 to 3 miles from home that the ringleader took us to, to play hide and seek. (A long way when I was 9 and had never been further than the park - half a mile away - without my parents!) 5 of us hid in different places, and after 2 minutes, the other 5 had to come and find us. I ran off and hit in an abandoned shed on my own (about 50 yards from where we left them.)

I waited, and waited, and waited, and no-one had found me. It went deadly quiet, and I emerged from the shed after about 10 minutes, and everyone had gone. 😢😢😢

I walked around for about 15 minutes getting more and more lost in the woods. Dark started to fall, and I started crying. 3 miles from home, in a place I didn't know, in a fairly big wood.

About 45 minutes after I figured out everyone had gone, a woman and man came into the woods with 2 big dogs, and saw me walking along a little pathway, and I shouted 'Hey hello, can you help me PLEASE?!' 😢

They looked shocked to see a young-ish child on her own in the woods when it was nearly dark!

They walked me back to their house (about 10 minutes walk from the edge of the wood, and 25 minutes walk from where we they found me,) and I rang home and asked my dad to come get me from this couple's house.

Even now - 40 years later, it still pops into my head when people talk about bullies and horrible kids. Thank God that nice couple were there. God knows what would have happened if I had not met them.