Something unkind which has stayed for you forever 😟

[Heartbrokenstill]

My grandmother who I never saw from year to year.. I was about 7 when my mam and dad took me to hers at Christmas (I never ever got a Xmas gift or card/birthday card/gift from her) I was a shy quiet child and she had a real Christmas tree in her sitting room and I put my hand underneath a beautiful tree toy just to look.. not taking it off the tree or anything and she smacked my hand away.. mam and dad was drinking tea and never saw she died years ago but I still feel the sadness of the little 7 year old I was all them years ago .. Don't know what I want from this post but lockdown really makes you feel low... I am nearly 60 no just to give you a idea how long ago it was

Oh, and then there was the aunt (adult) who told me, a 10 year old, that I caused all the trouble in the family and that it would have been better if I'd not been born. (after I "goaded" my drunk uncle into a violent rage and he smashed some plates and walked out of the house- I did this by "getting in his way").

My parents did go NC with this branch of the family later, but I don't think they ever knew about that comment!

A family member was saying what muffin flavour we'd all be (God knows why). My sister was blueberry. They said I'd be a double chocolate because of my generous muffin top. I was 13 and a size 6.

One of the nice things to brighten it up - me and my Grandma never spent much time together (she was v cold due to an awful childhood) but she always said I made the perfect cup of tea. Every time I made her one. Even when she had dementia.

I am blind in one eye due to a nasty accident when I was 4 years old.
I was very self conscious as a teen due to people always staring at me or asking questions. I used to follow people's eyes to my 'bad' eye and would want the ground to swallow me up when that happened. When I got to my teens I wore a fringe over one eye to cover up the hideousness of my scarred eye and in an attempt to stop the stares.
I worked as a waitress when I was around the age of 14/15 and an old man I was waiting on asked me why I was wearing a fringe over that eye. I explained to the man that I was blind in that eye and the man said "well if you didn't wear a fringe over it then maybe you wouldn't have gone blind".

It doesn't sound that bad to other people in the scheme of things but I was so taken aback and upset that I just didn't know how to respond

My story is nothing like as traumatic as those whose own family are downright cruel to them.
It was 1969 I was 13 and my best friend Bev and I had gone to separate schools after primary. She was at a mixed one and mine was an all girls. She had heard about this new teenage disco night at some club and asked me to go with her as most of her school had been previously. We were so excited thinking about the potential boyfriends we might meet there. Neither of us had one before.
I can clearly remember what I wore that night, money was tight and I never had any of the latest fashions, it was a dress my mother had made in some psychedelic fabric complete with a white lace ruffle , white 'pop' socks and patent shoes. My hair was short, auburn and very wavy.
When we set off my friend Bev looked great. It was the era of Tamla Motown and as I entered the room the DJ stopped to change records, two older boys looked at me and burst out laughing. One said really loudly "Good God, just look at WHAT they've let in here tonight." The whole room heard them.
All the other girls turned and looked, I swear every one of them was dressed in cute miniskirts or wearing cord Wrangler or Levi jackets, their long hair was perfectly straight with a centre parting. None actually joined in laughing but there were plenty of smirks.
I stayed ten minutes, told Bev I had a headache and left. Most of the girls were her classmates.
I didn't go to any event again where boys might be until I was 16

@Bibidy

I have red hair and was relentlessly picked on for it until I was probably about 18, when everyone suddenly switches and tells you they love it .

The way those other kids made me feel about my hair will never ever go away and to this day I still feel like I'm not like other girls as I've got this thing that marks me out as unattractive and different.

It's ironic because I love red hair myself and I even like my own now, but those feelings will never go.

I'm so sorry you were bullied. My partner is a glorious redhead and I'm obsessed with his bright hair. Luckily he says he was never picked on for it but I know several red friends who very much were.

I personally think it's learned behaviour (parents mocking ' gingerness' combined with inherent jealousy) which is why at 18 everyone suddenly admits how lovely it is.

My stepmother. She was and is cruel. I dont see my dad because of her. She was so nasty.

I wont go into the horrendous abuse as it triggers but I remember my mum picking me up late by 10 minutes once when I was 9 because she was stuck in a meeting. Her response "she deserves to be shot" who the hell says that??? To a child???

I adore my step children and I over compensate because of her. I'd never want them to feel the way she did. She ruined my childhood and I have many issues because of her.

And my dad is still married to her

I remember starting a new school abroad when I was 14. I was quite shy and awkward and found it hard to fit in. Eventually I made friends and settled and was really happy...till one day at the end of class as we were collecting our things to leave, I heard one boy say to another...”yea, the girl from England...the one that looks Down Syndrome”

I can quite honestly say that in the 25 years since then, there isn’t a day that it hasn’t replayed in my mind.

On a team building day with work we were given a list of items and had to say what we'd choose & why.

My boss said 'I'd take the gun & shoot iklboo with it. Because then we'd have loads to eat and wouldn't have to worry about food'. Then she started laughing & looking at my colleagues like she had said the funniest thing ever. I wanted the floor to open up & swallow me. Nobody said anything, not even the person giving the course. I pretended to laugh along but she just kept smirking at me the rest of the day.

I should have raised a grievance as it wasn't the first nasty thing she'd said but I didn't have the balls at the time - I thought I would get into trouble / sacked.

Mid 90s. I was in year one at school, so about 5-6. The class was taught by two teachers, and I even remember which teachers taught which days.
One day it was the turn of the awful one. I used to wake up dreading going into school on these days, she was truely an awful person.
We were doing times tables, and the task was each person had to stand up and answer a times table. They were all different ones (so somebody could be asked “3 x 4” and somebody else “ 2 x 7” etc)
I was awful at maths, and I specifically remember not being able to answer. The teacher then brought around a big tub of haribo sweets “for all of the clever children” and when she got to me she smirked, and walked straight past, not letting me take one. I remember feeling so ashamed.
I will absolutely never ever forget her. All through the rest of my primary years and early high school years, the teachers could never understand why I often panicked during maths lessons.
I still remember that teacher, her name, her face.
The thought of anyone making my child feel like that fills me with dispair!

I often torment myself over things I have said and done to other people, as a child and as a blundering idiot of an adult. I'm not a terrible person but I have made mistakes. Maybe the people who have been described in the previous posts feel just as awful as I do but never got the chance to apologise.

Another one for me was a female PE teacher at secondary school. One very cold morning we had netball first thing. I wasn’t particularly good at it and she must have got frustrated with me being unable to catch the ball. Anyway she called me out and stood about ten paces away from me, readied the ball in a ‘push out’ motion and absolutely flung a rock hard netball at my face as hard as she could. It hit me on the nose and my God did it hurt. Then she ordered me to throw it back and unbelievably she did it again! It hit me in the nose again and I thought she’d broken it. Everyone stood around a bit agog and the bullies laughed, naturally. She then sent me off to get changed. I wish I’d have had the courage to walk straight to the head of year’s office and report her or walk out of the school gates and go home but I was only 12 and a ‘good girl’ who wouldn’t dream of doing something like that.
She became the deputy head of sixth form by the time I was doing my A Levels but fortunately I was very close to the head of sixth form so didn’t have to go near her for anything. I think she knew she’d gone way too far because she never really spoke to me and left me alone after that day.
Sometimes she pops up on my ‘people you may know’ on FB and ironically her profile is a quote about “Be kind. Always.” I love to message her and tell her she wasn’t very fucking kind when she nearly broke my nose.

@Bibidy

I have red hair and was relentlessly picked on for it until I was probably about 18, when everyone suddenly switches and tells you they love it .

The way those other kids made me feel about my hair will never ever go away and to this day I still feel like I'm not like other girls as I've got this thing that marks me out as unattractive and different.

It's ironic because I love red hair myself and I even like my own now, but those feelings will never go.

I could have written this myself. I hated myself so much in high school because of the bullying I got for my hair. I dyed it the darkest colour I could to hide it.

Then I got to college, cut half of it off and let my hair grow out because the red hair got so much love attention and I learnt to love it. Now, I adore my hair. But I still remember that feeling of inferiority.

@Bambam2019

Mid 90s. I was in year one at school, so about 5-6. The class was taught by two teachers, and I even remember which teachers taught which days. One day it was the turn of the awful one. I used to wake up dreading going into school on these days, she was truely an awful person. We were doing times tables, and the task was each person had to stand up and answer a times table. They were all different ones (so somebody could be asked “3 x 4” and somebody else “ 2 x 7” etc) I was awful at maths, and I specifically remember not being able to answer. The teacher then brought around a big tub of haribo sweets “for all of the clever children” and when she got to me she smirked, and walked straight past, not letting me take one. I remember feeling so ashamed. I will absolutely never ever forget her. All through the rest of my primary years and early high school years, the teachers could never understand why I often panicked during maths lessons. I still remember that teacher, her name, her face. The thought of anyone making my child feel like that fills me with dispair!

This actually reminded me of an awful one in secondary school that I ended up reporting to a senior member of staff. I was spacing out in French class and didn’t hear what the teacher was saying. Then she called me out on it and said "I know a daydreamer when I see one." But I wasn't daydreaming, I was suffering with depression and was staring into space because I was having a total internal meltdown. She couldn't have known that, but I thought it was important that teachers maybe don’t taunt students when they don’t know the circumstances.

Lol I just started crying typing this. Still bothers me then!

My niece is a proper redhead- Merida like! It's so gorgeous, and she's 13 now and nobody (or at least very few) have said anything unkind to her about it.

I had a primary teacher too who is to this day the most vile person I've ever met. She is notorious in this town and had so many complaints made about her. She even our disabled student teacher cry when she told her she was crap and would never amount to anything! Horrible women. I still hear her voice in my head more often than I would ever like.

Oh gosh OP not daft at all. A little hand squeeze from over here. I remember everything! And think about things lots.

My Grandma (Dad’s mum) could be very cruel.

This thread is absolutely horrific. I am so sorry you have all endured this.

It’s no surprise at all that so many women struggle all our lives with issues affecting our confidence and self esteem, when it appears so many of us have received (largely misogynistic) abuse from family or at school. Appalling.

My grandpa used to always give my cousin money when we was on days out, bought her a car etc but never did me or my brothers get anything. Didn't bothered me one bit but I remember crying all night in the kitchen once how he gave her money for some sweets whilst we was out and left me out whilst in the car!
Was his funeral last year and that was in my memories. I didn't really bother with them much after he did this, I refused x

I have my Dr who collection going over to blu ray this year, also my Star Wars blu ray and yes I have 007 films on blu ray, I got my revenge beautifully for the 50th 007 anniversary sky fall came out, I grinned and said she’ll know I’m happy can’t do a thing about it I want to see Skyfall rule the world (it did and I saw it 6 times at the pictures)and then she can die. This is the aunt who made my life a misery growing up teen years and 21 22 years. She died six months later.

So sorry to read all of these

There’s a home video which I stumbled on in my late teens - it was Christmas Day when I was about 7 or 8. I am playing with my toys on the floor and my mum can be heard in the background complaining about me, saying I was a lazy child, never helped and I should be ashamed. She also used to collect me from friends houses, ask the friends mum how I’d been and then say, “She’s so lazy at home, bone idle!”. I could never work out why I warranted this, I helped when asked and always tidied up after myself. Later when I was a teenager, I shared the housework with my mum.

The theme of me being lazy carried on until my mum died when I was in my 30s, living the other side of the country and married. The last time I was “lazy” was when I should have made a special visit to help my mum wrap Christmas presents I haven’t told my DH any of this, he has already heard some of the tamer stories of my mum’s behaviour towards me and he was shocked.

What my mum said in the video has stayed with me. The video still exists somewhere, but I don’t want to see it ever again.

I had to wear glasses as a child and hated them.
I remember being in a shop and a man roaring at that "girl with the stupid glasses" when I bumped into something accidentally. As soon as I earned my own money in a Saturday job I overruled my mother and bought contact lenses.

This is sad to read. None of my grandparents was
ever unkind to me. In fact one of my earliest memories is having a terrible night coughing episode aged 2 and my grandma scooping me out of bed and giving me a cuddle and a teaspoon of her redcurrant jelly (repeat aged six but with Benylin).

@Casschops

I remember we were in the very early stages of our Foster to Adopt placement with our son he was four months old and despite being shattered (he had only been with us four weeks) we went to my MIL house to make her Christmas dinner (none of her other kids can be arsed). The great grandchildren were there and are similar ages to my son. She had bought them several presents each and bought my son a teether for a quid. She openly admitted that she had bought him less " in case he goes back". I was stunned especially as my husband is also adopted. My mum and dad made him feel welcome with lots of gifts, he was passed around the house and told how loved he was so that made up for it. Odd though coz my MIL is not at all a bad person she has brought his gifts in line with the others now and adores him openly. He doesn't know and I'll never forget.

I wonder if she was trying got stop herself from getting too emotionally involved in case he left and she would have been devastated and couldn't cope with it . Just a thought especially as she has been so adoring of him since.

When I was five years old, I have a very vivid memory of standing at the front of the line of children in Reception classroom ready to go home.
The teacher pointed at me and said to the TA, "Her Auntie's got cancer you know! She's only 24 and she's just had that baby".

I didn't understand what she meant and didn't think any more of it.
It was several months later that my Mum broke the news to me that my Auntie was going to die.

My dad calling me a nasty piece of work in an argument and really seeming to mean it, even though he was normally a very loving dad.

So, so many occasions of verbal bullying at school and even at uni over the fact that I was quiet and a bit 'quirky'. It would take too long to list them. It's given me lifelong self-esteem issues that haven't gone away even now I'm in my 50s.

And one that happened very recently: two people I had thought were close friends informing me that they 'weren't the right people for me to talk to' when my dad was dying and I was distraught. And one of said 'friends' informing me our 'friendship' was over, after my dad had died, because I apparently hadn't been taking enough of an interest in her life while my dad was dying.