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

This wasn't done to me or by me, but has stuck with me. A (now Ex) friend was once asked to be a model for a big hairdressing competition with quite a prestigious prize.

She went in the afternoon and had a gorgeous cut and colour done by the trainee who was competing. The final prize giving was in the evening. After the afternoon session, then-friend met some people in a nearby pub, got carried away and never went back for the prize giving.

I found out later that her competitor had won, but was disqualified when her model didn't show up for the final. I just cannot imagine being so utterly selfish and unkind as my then-friend was to take the free cut but then not to play her part in return. It still makes me cringe to this day and I had no part in it.

(Shouldn't have come as such a surprise that she went on to sleep with my boyfriend a couple of years down the line really 🤷🏼‍♀️)

At university I heard a small group of my male friends talking about someone with the same name as me. I heard my name and as a joke said “Talking about me?”
One of them just looked at me and said “in your dreams”.
Turns out they were talking about the “fitter” person with my name.
I wanted the ground to swallow me up! He was very sorry and the other boys were shocked at what he said and told him it was out of order. It shattered my fragile confidence though and confirmed my negative feelings about my looks. Words wound!!

@DuzzyFuck Wow, that's shitty.

Gosh, some of these are heartbreaking.
I have 3. All school related.

1. A friend ( she was a bully, really, but at the time I thought of her as a friend), said, ' I have never known anyone to work as hard as you, and get nowhere. ' I didn't like school much, was bored most of the time,but I tried. I just didn't fit in.
2. My Latin teacher trying to dissuade me from choosing O level Italian, ' I don't think you can cope with another language. ' ( Already had French and Latin, compulsory).
3. My posh English teacher telling me, ' You're very common. It shows in your writing.'

I was raised on a very large council estate. I was the first person to pass the 11plus, and the first to graduate. I am intelligent, but all these comments held me back for a long time.

I achieved 7 O levels, 4 of them languages. 3 A levels, all languages, and a further language at degree level.

So, to the bully masquerading as a friend, I DID work hard and I DID get somewhere. To my Latin teacher, I CAN cope with learning more than one language and to the snobby English teacher, ' I may be 'common', BUT I can speak 4 languages!

That feels better ! Love to you all,and let's remember think before you speak. Words really can wound for a very long time.

Reading all of this and I have to add at the other end of the spectrum that a lovely pe teacher in my school (i wasvapprox 9-10 years)ran the last 1k of my cross country race with me 🙂 I loved this teacher 😍😍

A couple years ago I was out on a walk, in a good mood, and a group of kids (about 10 years old) just said really loudly and pointed at me, 'she's so ugly, is it even a woman?'

Made me feel fucking awful and I still hear them saying it in the early hours when I can't sleep

@Mrsmadevans, I think your story will always stay with me.

When I was 16 my father died, and it was awful. After a week or two I went back to school, and nobody spoke to me - nobody - not a teacher, none of the other girls - losing my father was such a huge thing, yet it was as though I was supposed to carry on as though my DF had never existed. I have never really got over how wretched it made me feel - as though he and I were not worth bothering about.

When I was 14, I was seriously ill for a few months and had an extended absence from school. When I went back, a girl in my class loudly said that it was a shame I didn’t die. Everyone laughed. I hated school.

I bought a family member an Easter egg out of my pocket when I was a similar age, about 7/8. They shouted at me when I gave it to them saying it was for a child not an adult... how dare I give them this basically. I have never forgotten!

[quote StormOfSekhmet]@Mrsmadevans, I think your story will always stay with me.[/quote]
It's the tip of the iceberg l promise you . l can't thank you enough for validating my suffering 💐

I was fostered at 12. The foster parents had a daughter the same age as me so it was a mistake from the start. I was always being compared to their daughter. I was put on a diet because I was fatter (she was about size 10 and flat chested, I was about a 12 and my chest was developing) I wasnt allowed a bra because 'it wouldn't be fair on their daughter....I was told I had to call them Mam and Dad even though my parents were still alive and had contact with me. I always remember going to visit one of their relatives at Christmas and this relative was told not to give me any xmas gifts as my family never gave her daughter any (my family sent us both small gifts but according to the foster parents they got rid of them because they were cheap tat) I heard them telling neighbour's that I was a problem child from the local children's home and 'had got me as a playmate for their daughter'. There is far more stuff I could go into but I wont. I eventually plucked up courage and told my social worker that it wasn't working out. Social services forced me to stay there for another month. It was hell! I went back into care till I was 18. It has taken me years to get over the emotional abuse and I moved from the area to avoid ever seeing them again.

Two things.When I was much younger I was anorexic and it makes you depressed and very self conscious, none of my clothes fitted so I went to the shops to buy something cheap to wear while I recovered.
I overheard a plump shop assistant say to another did you see that it should be illegal to be that thin.
Then in the 70s my parents fostered many children.A black girl stayed with us and we all went out to play,myself brother and sister.Everyone in our village was white.
Children went by on bikes and shouted abuse that we were N*a lovers.
So hurtful and cruel thank goodness we have come a long way now.

My father once said I hadn't got the manners of a bed bug.

My elegant much older cousin said I used to be a race horse but had turned into a carthorse (since having children). I actually found both comments pretty funny!

screaming she has thankfully retired and relinquished registration, so I presume that means she can never work as a GP again . She was a vile woman . It’s taken years to fully trust any doctor again .

Mine doesn’t compare to some of the awful comments on here, but it stayed with me.
I was walking home from school with my friend and was upset, my pet rabbit had died in the morning. She said to me “can I have the hutch then?” I must have looked shocked as she said “what? It’s not like you’re using it now”.
We must have been about 12, old enough for her to know better.

Family holidays to stepfather's family.

To put my family dynamic into context - my mum worships men and acted like some 1950's housewife to my stepdad, despite having a full time high pressure job. Everything we did was ONLY for his regard - trips away, holidays, all to please him, never us. Our opinion never mattered. She never stuck up for her 3 kids. And he didn't treat her nicely in return - he forever had affairs, never lifted a finger and constantly complained about her appearance, weight, the state of the house etc. I think she wanted to be loved and he wanted a maid.

Anyway he's Italian so our summer holiday was 2 weeks in Naples going round a different family members house each day. Which meant 14 days of sitting in a freezing kitchen (Italian houses are surprisingly cold even in summer) surrounded by people talking a different language and ignoring us while mum simpered and smirked a shushed us (because children should be seen and not heard). Occasionally she'd get us, like puppets, to recite an Italian phrase for their pleasure. We'd then be fed HUGE bowls of pasta. As a child I HATED pasta and had a tiny appetite and I would almost be vomiting as my mum whispered threats for me to eat it all. She would never tell the host I'd had enough, I was considered very rude and would get bollocked on the way home, every single day. Which was annoying as at home she cooked food I liked to a size I'd eat. sometimes I'd vomit when we got back to our Villa and one time I had to go to the Italian doctor with horrendous indigestion from over eating. But to mum, and stepdad (to whom we were all an inconvenience anyway but part of the package of his live-in maid) my feelings weren't nearly as important as being seen to be 'polite'. If we were good we got a day on the beach at the end of the holiday. But the entire day at the beach would be spent by moaning how very rude I was to not eat all my dinner.

How I longed for the package holidays with swimming pools my friends took. My dad took us when I was 12 to Turkey, the first place I'd ever stayed with a pool and it was amazing.

Now I ALWAYS centre my holidays around my kids - cheesy resorts with animation teams, mini discos, play parks and swimming pools galore. I'd much rather do Greek island hopping myself with them but holidays are an annual treat and I didn't always want to make it about me - and no matter what the "we go to a hole in Beirut for 2 weeks and forage for our dinner for our holiday and the kids love it" crowd say, small kids want discos, fun and shiny things.

My school had a tradition of inviting about 20 children from a less privileged area to stay in the boarding houses for a fortnight during the summer, with the sixth form students managing 95% of all this with trips out, we cooked and served meals etc. I unwisely signed up for this in my final year there, and found I had none of the nurture skills that seemed to come so easily to the others although I gave 110% on the washing up. One of the visiting boys was talking to a group of us older girls, when he suddenly turned to me and said "do you know what, we were all talking in the dormitory last night about which of you girls we fancied. And guess what, not one of us liked you. Every one, every one of us said they didn't like you." I tried to laugh it off but he went over it all again then said over his shoulder as he walked off "Well, you should be better looking, shouldn't you."

That evening I phoned one of the other girls and got first her kind dad who went to some trouble to say apropos nothing of course that I was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen. Kind of him but it made it worse that she had obviously gone home and immediately told her parents of this humiliating episode. I said nothing to mine who seemed to be of the same opinion as the kid a lot of the time, and I would certainly not have got any gentle words.

I used to wonder as the years went by how I was ever going to get past this as it was an immutable fact, was completely unprovoked and seemed to crystallise the opinion of the world at the time. Then like so much does the sting faded and of course I could get past it. Only took about 20 years. I also realised as I got a bit wiser that looks had little to do with it - more like lack of genuine warmth and interest towards the kids they had all picked up on.

But you know you'd fight your daughters corner if something like that ever happened to her x
My mum went to the school to complain about a teachers behaviour to younger sis. Several other parents heard about this and a friend approached mum and said her DD was suffering the same. When my mum said sis wasn't the only one, the HT said he wasn't there to hear rumours. Mum said the parents had given permission for her to name them. When she said the name of friends DD the HT said 'Sarah?! But she's a bright child!'

My mother told me, on several occasions, that she wished I had never been born. Horrendous and it'll never leave me.

I found out, probably aged about 14, that I was related to a girl in my year at school. Soon after, she loudly said 'here comes my fat cow cousin' to her friends as I walked past in the corridor.

I've always had eating and weight issues, affecting my self esteem. I doubt they'll ever go and I hate myself for it.

@shiningcuckoo I would not believe it. If I really was your mate, and had come across this third party and heard this diatribe about you, I would quietly put the third party straight and not tell you. Knowing that it would hurt you and serve no purpose.

I think there is often a case of history repeating itself and people treating someone how they themselves were treated .

My maternal GM was orphaned young which wasn't uncommon back them but must've shaped her perception.

She had her favourite GC ( my older Sister and my older Cousin) . She would send presents to the older ones but not younger GC

Once we were at GM house , Mum called me to help her (she'd burned herself with tea and needed help to remove tights)
GM told me "You'll miss your Mother when she's dead and it's too late"
I was 8yo !

GM hadn't called Perfect Sister (11yo) , they called me then she lays this guilt at my door .

Any presents I gave GM were met with a sigh and put aside but anything Sis gave her she raved over .
Things I toiled to sew or saved my pocket money to buy .

My cousin (the othe Non Golden Child) and I laugh about it as adults but it did sting .

My dad was a darling, mum could be harder work. We spent more time with mums family than dad's even though gp lived over the road, a 2 mins walk.
Dad's mum was never maternal with us and I could count on 1 hand when she babysat us. She was really distant an d that's the way she was.
Yrs later I met a lady and we realised we were from same area and when we were chatting my grandparents came up as having lived very near to her. She RAVED About my gm. How lovely she was, kind, generous, loving and how often she looked after them. I can remember being hurt that a 'stranger' saw this side of gm but her own gc didn't. It really played on my mind that we had missed out.
Several yrs later I realised that a) my gm didn't like my mum but more importantly that b) the friend I met had a REALLY bad childhood. Her parents struggled to look after their kids, they were dirty, regularly hungry etc and that meant that any help from my gm would have been seen as wonderful/lovely, and that my gm was not a cruel woman who would have stepped up to help.

dinosauratemydaffodils

you reminded me of something.

My mum was so critical (still is) of everything I do.
I apologised to her when I came round after a general anaesthetic for having to have an emergency caesarean!
It was humiliating enough for her to have an un-married daughter having a child out of wedlock (90's and I was in my 20's!!) but not to be able to give birth naturally was a huge disappointment to her.
It was ok for my other unmarried siblings to have c/sections but for me , in her eyes, I had failed.
I have had SO many negative comments from her throughout my life, I love the fact this lockdown has meant I dont have to see her at all.

Being told by my mother at the age of 10 that I wouldn't be going to a certain school because even though my younger sister had passed the entrance exam, I wasn't "clever enough". Being told that if I ever went out for dinner with a boyfriend, I certainly shouldn't "eat in that manner". Being told apropos of nothing on a shopping trip that I walked like a farmer. One day at school when I was 11, a 6th former was watching over the class during a free period. She had this gorgeous long red hair. When she caught me admiring it, she asked in front of everyone 'What are you staring at, mopey mouth?". All these still sting now.