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'm wallowing in a lot of self pity tonight. Mainly how my dm was so negative and critical of me and still is. too many things she said hurt.
Such and such (friend had said to her mum and passed It onto mine) you're boringshe never acknowledges anything I so but my cousin is beatiful and so and so it a lovely daughter to her mother

I am so withdrawn from her. I would never act like her around my children

I have had a lot of crap things said to me over the years from father, sister and colleagues but strangely one of the things that stayed with me was from a primary school teacher I really liked. She asked us to do a drawing of the Owl and the Pussycat, and I forgot about the beautiful pea green boat, and coloured it orange. When she was looking at them at the end she drew the classes attention to my drawing. I thought she was going to praise me, but instead she said to the class, look at Melange's drawing, what an idiot, because the boat was the wrong colour. She said it more than once. Came as a shock because she was normally so lovely. I grew up a bit that day, things were not always what they seemed on the surface.

So many awful memories for so many. I wonder what it is in people that makes them so cruel and nasty, particularly to children? Bitterness? Jealousy? Insecurity? Peer pressure? Power issues? It's a strange world we live in. People have so much capacity to be nice, I do struggle to understand how so many waste so much time being so nasty. I do hope that people expressing themselves here helps. Personally I find it oddly comforting I'm not the only one!

22:05Mrsmadevans

Do you still keep in touch with your nasty mother?

I remember a neglected girl at school who everybody laughed at and bullied - it's always the neglected children that get bullied - it's because people think if they're parents don't care we can get away with it.
I hate these parents that allow their children to be victims.

When I was in my first year of primary school I had the most horrible teacher. I remember drawing a picture of my mum and dad in pencil and I shaded the floor in. My teacher dragged me up to her desk and bollocked me for “scribbling”.

I actually have dozens of memories of that first year involving her screaming at me and humiliating me frequently. I’m absolutely certain it affected me more deeply than I knew. I don’t know why people like that ever get into teaching.

If I’d had a kind teacher in that first year I truly believe things may have been very different.

22:18Hopingformydb
Does you mum get racist abuse?
Has she tried to hide her half indian-ness?

Melange99 You have just reminded me of something similar. Some year's ago, my son said that his friend's first attempt at a Mother's Day picture was torn up by the TA because he had chosen orange for the daffodil and not yellow like they were instructed. They were about 6 or 7 at the time. My son felt really sad about it.

I remember saying his mum would have loved it whatever the colour, maybe more if his was a bit different because it was the colour he chose for her daffodil.

23timeforanother1

So the girl's mum was nice to you?
She stopped her daughter from hitting you?

My dad used to hit my sister over the head for not reading properly, she was a poor reader despite being older than the rest of us, but still I remember the rest of us used to be shocked and wondered how that would help her read.
My sister bullies my dad now - I don't like my sister she's awful, but my parents behaviour shaped her - and I don't feel bad for my dad he deserves it.

Being called a little whore as a 10 year old by the wife of my dad's boss (military) after I complained about him wrestling me on my bedroom floor regularly in a way I found exceedingly uncomfortable. My mum sided with her and referenced it regularly. It's over 30 years ago but I can still remember his smell and his smirk when she said it.

Being told I didn't deserve dc1 as I couldn't give birth to him by my Grandmother. He got stuck mid pelvis and couldn't be pulled or pushed out so was delivered by emcs.

oh my lord!, I was such a lucky child, I have very few memories of unkindness towards me - i would
just like to scoop you all up and give such a big hug!

You are all so precious and fragile and so deserving of love and care.

I was on a bus going to a sports competition and the coach said to me that I was the ugliest child she had ever seen. Must have been 10 or 11. Still feel prickly hot shame just thinking about it.

My mum is generally not a good person. I struggled a lot socially as a child, wasn't very resilient. As an adult, I know now its because of the way I was brought up.

I was quite often rejected by my friends to the point where they would feel they had to have a conversation with me that they didn't want to be my friend anymore and every single time, my friends would tell me it was my mums behaviour. This started when I was about 8 I think and happen on two or three occasions at primary school. It was heartbreaking for me and I'd come home very upset but obviously out of loyalty and wanting to protect my mums feelings, I wouldn't tell her the real reason my friends had rejected me.

The final time it happened, I was in year 8 and it was just awful, a boy in my class decided I needed to know the truth and what my friends had been saying and that they weren't my friends at all, I had a crowd round me, being told all the lies my mum had said and how it was weird. I was so distressed. I probably cried the rest of the afternoon and dont remember any teacher approaching me.

I cried all the way home and when my mum opened the front door she said Oh not this again. And literally turned her back on me. She's done a lot of things over the course of my life but this was the worst I think. I have no love left for her.

I don’t know why people like that ever get into teaching

Power.

They know they'll find victims there.

There's still plenty like that, they exercise their nastiness in less obvious ways now.

@user234987653
There is nothing ‘unkind’ about what you shared. That is cruelty in the extreme. How horrific

My Mum throwing away my childhood teddy when I was like 14/15 without telling me. She must have gone into my room when I wasn't there and actually made an effort to find it (would have been under my bed) just to chuck it away. I never understood it because there were other cuddly toys she could have chucked and yet she chose to bin poor JoJo - who she knew was beloved. Annoyingly my older brother's childhood teddy remained unscathed. Just bizarre and I still side eye her about it 15 years later.

I remember our family reunions, we had one every year on my mums side. Every year the adults would sit around my older cousin and comment on how lovely and graceful she was. "Isn't X so beautiful and slim?" - sometimes they'd even comment it to me! Even as a young child it would upset me. They never ever said I was lovely.

Another time, I was around 13 and I was driving home with my Mum from school and I was telling her about this protest we'd been doing at school (don't ask lol) and I was quite a passionate teenager and she turned around point blank and said "Ugh for God sake, why can't you just be normal??"

I can still hear her saying it.

I have cptsd so I understand what it’s like to experience memories that are still just as painful today. It doesn’t take much to be kind but some people don’t realise how much hurt they cause with their words alone. When I found out my youngest had Down’s syndrome (I was still pregnant) my SIL told me I was destroying my husbands life by continuing with the pregnancy and that I was being selfish etc. I’ve never had an apology and it still hurts me now. Everyone loves my son but I can’t forget the way they treated me for wanting him.

I have a long list.

1. partially grew up not in home country, did primary in english language. I still spoke perfectly on my native language and by that time I was bilingual, but after going back to home country at age 11, I had to go to normal school. And they were at a totally different place as the 2 curriculum had little in common. There is a system that the teacher selects 1 or more pupils from the class and they have to do a mini oral exam in 10 mins on the prev lesson(s) and they get a grade for it. There is no such thing in the english system, so I had no idea what it was. 2nd day, teacher called my name, I answered yes, here but didn't move. She then started shouting that I am a lazy bitch and move my ass to the chalkboard. Not these words, but this tone.

So I went out, stood there and had no idea what is going to happen. She then asked my about a poet* I've never heard of and said recite the first 5 stanzas. I had no idea what she was talking about, so I told her so - in english. Whole class started laughing at me as I didn't even realised I switched to english. She started yelling at me about how rude and stupid I am. I got a 1 (on a scale of 1-5) for my very first mini-exam.

*poet is a national hero

1. When I started high-school at age 15 (I started school a year later, when I was 7, not 6) I was generally fed up with the school system and simply hated every minute. And my classmates were asses. So I stayed in the classroom or library to read. Didn't even try to make friends. Our form tutor (something similar) 3 weeks after the start of the term engaged with us in form time on what we want to do - go and train to be a psychologist. I said what plans I had, and she started laughing and told me in front of the whole class that I will never get to A-levels as I am stupid as fuck (those words) and that I should be happy if I can get a job as a trash man.

That solidified our loving relationship for the next 4 years. In that country the system is that if you flunk a subject (get a 1 at the end of the year) you have to repeat the whole year unless you can pass a test at the end of August). She had 2 best friends - chemistry and german teacher, she was our math and physics teacher. In the second year of high school she convinced the chemistry teacher to flunk me based on not having been in enough classes present. Given how i never skipped school and my overall school record showed that I was only not present when sick with a doctors not I have no idea how this could fly, but it did. And she flunked me in physics. The problem was that in chemistry I only had straight 5s as I needed those grades to get into uni. Physics - very stable lower/middle ground. After hell of a summer I passed both, continued with same class. Next year (one year before A-levels) she flunked me in math and had the german teacher flunk me in german. And I had a middle level german language exam paper from the country's only exam board. So again, had a great summer. All through this all I heard from my father is that I'm a stupid prick and my mum would not stand up for me even though it was glaringly obvious that most of it was not even my fault. But she said I have bear it and get through and such shit.... When we went back in sept I turned 18 - legally adult- and got things into my hands. Found out that the german teacher actully never finished her uni course, so she couldn't teach in a high-school legally. Filed all paperwork with Dfe and got her fired. Filed all paperwork for chemistry a year before, proving that I was there and no other teacher was complaining about me being even late for class, so they reinstated my 5 as a grade for the year end grade overriding teacher + fined her and the school. It took me until december to get these done and by january the situation was untolerable so I got myself a place in a special high school for deviant/misfit kids. But the system was that I had to finish the year in the old school as something like home-ed status (not going in ever, just to an end of year exams) and would sit the exams in the new one. And even at this point the dear teacher tried to screw me over by putting the end of year exams to 3 weeks after the A-level exams. Now, you could only do A-levels if you had your end of year grades. New school was fantastic they allowed me (defying law and guidance) to sit all my exams and even graded me, but they were not valid. 3 weeks later I went in to do the end of year exams, passed everything as all subject were in front of a committee, so she couldn't pull anything there. But it still left me with a non valid A-level exam and because of this no chance to apply to any university. So, again, I went to the Dfe, made my case that by law old school should have scheduled it for sooner, blablabla.... New school backed me up, as it turned out they requested my file and grades, but never got them. They were the first ones who stood up for me and with me. Got the Dfe to make my A-levels "legal", old school got fined massively, and my dear form tutor/teacher got banned from teaching for 2 years. (2x years later she is the deputy HT of that same school - no comment) But I still missed all uni application deadlines. The story of how one person fucked up my whole life and I never got a psychology degree. Got 3 others instead, but still regret not being able to do that. She is the only person on who, if I would ever see her, I would literally spit on. She deserves it.

On the upside, my resilience levels are through the roof, so this whole shitshow that is now in the world actually doesn't affect me that much mentally. And I forgave my parents a long time ago and we have a good relationship. So, although, it's quite a shitty story it's not one that I would ever cry over now. It's in the past, resolved all issues stemming from it. Wasn't always easy, but hey, life never is.....

There’s been many, but one that strangely stayed with me was when I went to my then best friend psnhiuse for her birthday, must have 7 or 8. We had party food for dinner. Afterwards they dished out the birthday cake. I hate the feeling of being to full so I decided to save my cake for later.

We went into the living room to play games, after a while I felt the need for cake, so I sat in the dining room alone with the cake, my friends dad walked in, laughed at me and started making oinking noises. I was so embarrassed. It just felt so unnecessarily cruel, especially as I was overweight.

My "friend" at junior high school who lived across the lane from me and spent lots of time playing together when we were younger, running away from me on the walk home as I was not cool enough for her to be seen with.

Really, really hurt.

My parents' priorities were our camping trips with our little tailer, right into the fall on weekends. We were not poor, but trendy clothes and shoes just never appeared in our house.

I remember the same girl coming to school in white vinyl boots (go go boots they were called ). I admired them and she said her Mom thought she needed "date boots." I was quite shocked, being so naive that dates were the last thing on my mind at about age 13 or 14 in the late 60s.

Her rejection has really stayed with me. I found my people in college and uni many years later.

In primary school about 9 or 10 years old and I couldn’t answer a question on the blackboard.
Teacher really shouted at me and kept asking - I didn’t know because I couldn’t see it. Turns out I had really bad eyesight and had never been tested (massive glasses in adulthood!)
After the lessons my friends were laughing at something on the yard - they’d recorded the whole thing and kept replaying me crying.
How mean.

01:00AramintaLee

She did it to hurt you
She is not a nice person

@NoProblem123
It's stories like these that make me glad I'm older and went to school in the 80s without any phones/cameras.

That's horrible OP. It's brilliant that you are so different from your grandmother though! She may have been treated badly herself in the past but that's not an excuse.

My grandparents on my Dad's side always made it known that we were worth less than my cousins (their daughter's kids) e.g. they'd discuss with my cousins how they were planning a special meal for after we'd left when we were visiting. Worse things also happened later down the line but that still sticks with me!

‘My god, you’re a fat cow aren’t you’.

Said by my childhood best friend after bumping into her years later.

I was 8 mths pregnant and newly single.