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

I've thought of a reverse time!

My DGran has hit the age where shes just rude and will happily speak her mind to anyone around her. She gets very lairy for no reason and will insert herself into other peoples lives. The amount of times I've nearly been knocked out in Costa when shes loudly shouted "Your children would never behave like that. Look at them! And look at their mothers top. Is it any wonder theyre like that". (for the record my children can be little sh*ts at times, just like everyone elses). We were getting her seen by the dr before lockdown as we feel she has dementia and this is so so out of character for her as she used to be meek and lovely.

Anyway so she came to my sons 10th birthday party. It was at a trampoline place with pizza to follow. They brought boxes of pizzas in and opened them to the 12 kids round the tables. One little boy took about 5 slices, really loaded his plate high. Most others clearly knew the "just take one then you can go back for more" theory. Anyway I didnt even see him, but I heard my grandmother shout loudly "Have you seen how much pizza that greedy little boys taken? 6 slices! I bet he wont eat it. The things people do when its a free lunch" . She wasnt shouting at the child and infact wasnt really shouting to anyone, just making her opinion known to the room. Everyone obviously looked the other way and ignored her. She didnt know these kids and that particular little boy comes from a "nice" family but all their money goes on themselves. He doesnt get treats and nice things very often and never has parties of his own. I have been on school-mum nights out with his mum and she sits knocking back cocktails while saying she cant afford to send him to football/swimming/whatever lessons like the other kids go to.

I dont care if kids over indulge, as its a party, and I will just go and buy more pizza. I dont want to be remembered as the mum who bollocked kids for wasting food at a party. Other peoples kids arent my monkeys and its not my circus.

So I went to the little boy and squeezed his shoulder and did a general "everything ok everyone? more juice?" then asked him if he wanted desert etc.

However 10 minutes later I hear "well he did it! that greedy little pig at SIX slices of pizza!". I asked her to come outside and bollocked her. I felt awful afterwards as she clearly couldnt help it, but it was just awful and I pray to god the child isnt haunted by it.

I was 14, siting in class and my then best friend was laughing with some other girls. I asked what was funny and she said her uncle said I was the ugliest cow he had ever seen.

I cried and this horrible girl asked why I was upset, it wasn’t as if I was a oil painting.

I still remember everything about that day.

I can’t believe someone who we supposed to be my friend could be so unkind.

We stopped being fiends but I still think about her and wonder if she realises how horrible she was.

Harry’s wife. That sort of nastiness from an adult can be really damaging to a child.

I don’t think you should allow this lady to come to parties where children are present.

I know it’s down to age, but children don’t understand that.

When we were kids my stepdad got carers allowance for looking after my sister, he always used a months money for gifts for my siblings and my mum each. I never realised to start with that I got anything different. When I was 10 my mum pointed out that he spent a lot less on my presents than "the girls". It continued for another 7 years or so, I'd usually get a present worth 10/20 quid whilst they were opening presents of £150+.
At 17 they stopped. My siblings were receiving big gifts up into their 20s. Every year my mum wound me up about it. About how it was so out of order, and I should ask him why I was treated so differently. He was actually a blood relation to me, but only stepdad to 2 of my siblings, and dad to youngest.
He reacted aggressively and she said nothing as I sat and cried about how it had always made me feel because I'd always been told by mum how I was treated so differently.

I don't know who was most unkind in that situation, but it makes gift giving/receiving awful.

@InTheDrunkTank

Kind of silly but I was quite a shy underconfident, awkward teenager and also a bit of a geek. Never messed around in class, always worked super hard (I actually didn't especially need to as I was academic naturally but I was convinced I would fail if I didn't revise loads). We had this awful Biology teacher who would just read out from a sheet in a monotone for an entire double lesson. I'm not sure why but I'd annoyed her somehow and she said

'InTheDrunkTank no one thinks you're especially clever, you shouldn't be so arrogant, I'm not the only one who thinks so, it's been discussed in the staff room'

It sounds ridiculous but both my parents worked really hard and weren't really around. I had an eating disorder that no one had noticed and I relied quite alot on positive attention from teachers at school so at the time the idea that teachers had been discussing how arrogant and unintelligent I was in the staff room was horrifying to me. I already felt like a fraud but that kind of confirmed it and really dented my confidence.

What a nasty cow that teacher was. I've had my share of horrid teachers too. Awful.

My friend once looked at me and another friend and said 'All my friends have big noses!' It's stuck with me even though since then another friend with a handsome profile has said I have a 'tiny princess nose'. I have no idea what my nose looks like now. This same friend also asked me if I ever wash my face and said I always look dirty round my mouth. It's just the way my skin pigment is. We were friends for years and years. Why?!

I have two that complete defined my childhood

The first was when I was 4. It was three days after my birthday. I committed the heinous crime of crying when my father was trying to watch the news. After the news he asked me which of my three presents was my favourite. I’d got new shoes from my maternal grandparents, a dress from my parents and a dolly from my paternal grandparents. My brother told me to say the dress, but I was too excited and said the doll, because i loved the doll.

My father pulled it’s head and arms off, then chucked it in the fire while saying “it’s not nice when people spoil things for you”. Meaning me spoiling the news for him. I learned to lie that day - if I liked something I had to show absolute disdain for it, never admit to being hungry or thirsty or tired and never, ever, ever make a noise if he was looking at the tv.

The second was about a year after I was taken by my Grandparents. I was 8 and slowly starting to believe that adults were actually good people and my parents were the exception. I had a squabble with another child because it was my turn to collect the window pole for the teacher and he was trying to steal my turn by asking if he could do it. It was nothing more than a few cross words between 8yo’s and the teacher told us both to behave. At the gate at the end of the day he ran out and told his Mum what had happened. As I passed she said “just ignore her Mark, she’s such a horrible girl even her own Mum and Dad don’t like her”. I realised that day there were lots of horrible adults in the world.

I was a child who went into foster care at a young age, its all I really remember of my childhood.

Once I'd got to 18ish, I used to stay at a friend's after nights out, her mum told her that I wasn't to be left alone in any room, or upstairs, as I was 'the child from foster care so likely to steal'. I went into care because I was neglected by my mother, and sexually abused by a relative. Not because I was 'naughty'.

Ive never been a thief, I'm an honest person, who has gone onto a very trustworthy profession. University educated. Its stuck with me for the rest of my life.

When my parents split and my mum and dad were discussing (in front of us) when my brother and I would next see my dad. My mum suggested the following weekend to which my brother replied he was away that weekend, my dad replied with no point in doing that weekend then. I somehow found the courage to speak up and say you could meet up with me.
It's stayed with me forever. We still don't have much of a relationship.

Always felt rejected by my father, he would always refer to me as not he's child, ( I would have believed him if I hadn't been a twin, and my twin was the golden child). On my wedding day age 20 he refused to walk me down the Isle, I felt so embarrassed in front of all my family and friends .(all I ever wanted was to make him proud of me ), and I can still hear my sister saying to him can you not make her happy for once in your life.Still has me in floods of tears and I'm now in my sixties.

@feistyoneyouare

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.

I’m so sorry. Your so-called friend sounds horrible.

The grandmother who always comments I’ve gained weight.

The ex who wouldn’t come near me when pregnant then commented how much my stomach had shrank in the literal days after giving birth and we should get back together.

My sister who cried I had made her fat when I lost weight.

My mother who was so gleeful that she weighed less than me.

The aunts who behave much like my mother and are gleeful I am ‘fat’.

The sexually inappropriate comments as a teen so I stopped being ‘attractive’ by not caring I was fat.

I’m shrinking now but still have huge pangs of anxiety at my changing body as every bit of stretch marked loose skin is, in a way, because of them. It’s taking me an awful lot to come to terms with how I am changing. That I’m not responsible for how others view themselves when I make changes about me.

I’ve cut them all off but oh boy the comments still sting. I wish I can get to a place where I love what I am because my body has done some pretty fucking epic shit and I’m angry all that is swamped by the torture of the comments about my weight

I've remembered some more.
I was given a yellow nightdress, it was really pretty, by a family friend. My mother said it made me look sallow, to this day (nearly 50) I won't wear yellow. She also criticised a tight dress i tried on. I wasn't fat, I was curvy. So again never had anything tight until married.
I've come to the conclusion that my sister was abusive and my mother was complicit. My sister lives 4 hours away and when ever I heard she was visiting I had panic attacks and self harmed.
When my mother died in 2014 I was very happy, I no longer have anything to do with my sister either

My bad berating me (so unkindly) for liking an umbrella and saying it was ‘corporate’ enough for my professional job (I meant it didn’t have huge motifs / flowers etc on it). He embarrassed and belittled me in front of my whole family (he thought i was being snobby I think which I wasn’t in the slightest). Made such an issue of it and nearly made me cry (he’s a verbally abusive dick).

Someone commenting ‘ah your mum is lovely, you’re really like her’ for someone else to reply ‘oh you don’t want to be too much like her’. We all worked in the same organisation (totally different professions / departments). The second person worked directly with my mum and I always picked up an undercurrent of mum being excluded (almost bullied) by this little cliche of people. My mum is absolutely lovely and it hurt me so so much. I was 23 at the time and didn’t have the confidence to pick her up on it. Still fantasise about addressing it with her now - many many years later!

Ooooo that was cathartic - thanks OP for posting and sorry for your hurt. It’s frightening how a quick, harsh word can cause such pain.

When I was a kid we used to go to a holiday park frequently, we knew the people who worked there and there was a kids club that me and my siblings would go to while our mum and dad went to the pub (early 90’s)
I remember one night they were setting up for a show and I was hovering around trying to get involved, I would have been about 7 ish, and one of the kids club leaders, a man around 40/50 nipped my hand really hard with his nails and told me to get out of the way. It really hurt and I remember being really frightened. Still to this day it unsettles me and I’ve no idea why!

“You know you look ghastly and really very odd without make-up”. My mother.

“Oh my God, we’ll pay for you to have plastic surgery” when I came down wearing a new top.

Wow some of these are heartbreaking. I was thinking about this recently - how small seemingly throwaway comments can stick in your mind and have a lasting negative impact on your life.
I had zero confidence as a kid due to being very pale with frizzy hair, glasses and 'puppy fat', as my mother put it. I was bullied at school and referred to as 'weird', 'ugly', 'fat' and 'pointless'. Looking back, even at 15/16 I was never bigger than a size 12.
I remember one boy, who was actually quite overweight himself, thinking it was hilarious to ask me if I was pregnant. I can still remember the day I plucked up the courage to reply, 'No. Are you?' and he was so stunned he just walked off.
I spoke to my mother recently about how I felt as child due to my expereinces at school and the little comments she made about my appearance. Her response was 'Don't be silly. You were never bullied'.

I’m so sorry. Your so-called friend sounds horrible.

Thanks @adeleh - being treated like that by someone who I thought would always have my back did hit me hard, I must admit.

@KnobblyWand

I was 9, in an after school science club, during which the teacher gave out a custard cream biscuit and a little cup of juice as a snack. I looked forward to this biscuit every week.

On this particular day, I was really hungry. I was always hungry, because at home, I didn't get fed. My mum considered the free school lunches we got at school to be sufficient until breakfast (a bowl of cereal, if she'd bothered to buy milk, otherwise nothing) the next day, and that was it. That's all we ate, unless we went round to the neighbour's house and she gave us stuff because she felt sorry for us.

There were leftover biscuits on the plate once she'd handed them out and I saw them, and I thought, that might be the last thing I eat today, I should see if she'll let me have another one, so I asked her quietly if I could.

She not only told me no, she shouted at me until she was red in the face and I was a sobbing mess, called me a 'greedy girl' and made me sit at the back of the class for the rest of the session.

Writing this has made me feel so ashamed, even 20 years later. She knew about my home circumstances, she was my form tutor and aware of social services intervention because of neglect

oh knobblyWand that is so sad. I'm so sorry. I can't help but comment.
There are some terribly sad stories on here. People can be so cruel.

I had a flashback to when l was little the other night and it made me sad for the child that l was then. I never had shoes that fit me, l had very wide feet and they made me wear hand me downs , my feet were continuously blistered and painful. We never had any toilet paper to wipe ourselves with and l had chubby thighs, my legs rubbed together and l had raw bleeding skin between my thighs it was so painful, they used to fat shame me all the time. My teeth were rotten because we had no toothpaste, l had to have my two front teeth crowned at the age of 12 and it was never heard of in those days to crown a childs teeth l am talking about the early 70's . The only reason l had them done then was because my cousin married a dentist and l think my Mother wanted to arse lick them. Really that is the truth. The temporary teeth they crowned me with were adults teeth and l looked just horrible with these adult bugs bunny teeth in. I had to put up with them for 4 months until they got the chidrens ones done for me l had just started comp and you can imagine the names l was called it was just horrific. They had to write away for permission to do the crowns on me because it was unheard of to do them on such a young child .I had long bushy hair and they never washed it or combed it for me. It was a mass of pugs. When they did get round to doing it they were so horrible to me , they were so rough, the pain was horrendous l was so traumatised by it. I complained about being deaf in my left ear for about 8 years , when the school mentioned it to my Mother she had to take me to the hospital at the age of 13 and they found out l had nerve deafness in my left ear, after not being believed all my life and being neglected my Mother had the cheek to say that she insisted l was taken because she went on and on to the Drs for years. It was just BS. This is just the tip of the iceburg it was all so horrendous.

@Heartbrokenstill Yes, it really does seem daft. I especially feel so after reading the other comments on here compared to mine. But there's a lot to be said about adults who are unkind to children. It's just awful.

I’m amazed, and not in a good way, at how many of these examples are of adults being incredibly cruel to children.

My primary school was a convent and the headteacher was the sort of nun you see depicted in films about Magdalen laundries and the like.

I was about 8 I think and it was the last week of term before christmas, so it was the day of the christmas party. We'd been told we could all wear our own clothes so I was all excited about wearing a purple skirt and what I'd now consider an unspeakable blouse but at the time thought was the bees' knees. We'd bought in crisps and toys and our lovely form teacher was planning a lovely day for us.

As I came towards the hall, Sister Martina, the headteacher, was standing in front of the girls' toilets and she started screaming at me demanding to know why I was wearing my own clothes and how dare I. I was so frightened that I knew I'd wet myself if I didn't get to the loo soon. She was standing in front of the toilet door and wouldn't let me in. I was crying and clutching my bladder and telling her I needed to use the loo and she said "Go to the downstairs loo."

I went from feeling happy and excited to absolutely ashamed and horrified as I wet myself on the way down the stairs to the loo.

That nun produced more atheists than the humanist society ever could.

There's a lot of unkind stuff I remember. So important to be kind to everyone, you just don't know how your words or behaviour can affect others mentally.

I remember in junior school, I had a group of friends, amongst them was one girl and everyone just followed what ever she did, she would whisper to the girls something and they then would walk away from me, wouldn't play with me. I remember trying to follow them on, and they would laugh and run away. I'd then just stand in the class line waiting for the bell to indicate playtime is over. I used to dread going to school because of her. I hated how all my other so called friends would just obey her. And even when she would let the others hang out wth me, she would say so many mean things about me and make everyone laugh at me.
I've never ever told anyone about this. Am a really strong person now, anyone that knows me wouldn't think I went through something like that and more. Best years of my life were college and uni, where I gained real friends, I was finally able to be myself, no longer the shy timid girl.
Funnily enough that's when my bully wanted to reconnect with me, I obviously didn't, she lost all her friends, oh how karma works.

Not a childhood one, but a highly influential thing which happened to me at university. In my first two years there, I had a very close friendship with somebody who, like me, was quite introverted, and we shared many confidences, including about not generally having had many friends. Then, in our third year, she quite suddenly turned on me, refused to associate with me, and made friends with somebody who lived in my corridor of the hall of residence, so I was seeing her around all the time, while she totally ignored me.

I finally confronted her and demanded to know why she was treating me like this. I was told that it was because I was clingy, and always trying to be wherever she was. I was shocked to hear this, and while I don't doubt it was true, I thought that as we were good friends in the first place, she could have explained that she needed space, and told me that she didn't like my behaviour, or even said that she didn't want to be friends any more.

As a result of this, I didn't make close friends with anyone again for a good many years after that, preferring to go it alone.