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 just wanted to say that I have had many, many examples of people being unkind to me over the years starting from my childhood (my mother was very unkind to me at times, but my dad was amazing).

As I've grown up, I've realised that this is why I often revel in gossip (I never start - but I always show interest when there is), form strong opinions about things that are of no concern to me and hold serious grudges. I am trying very hard to rectify this with therapy and self-help books.

For example, when I was in primary school there was a girl who was a bit of a "bossy boots" and we always clashed. A few years later when we were 10, I felt that we had turned a corner a little bit and that we were getting on better... only a year later she had a big year group party and I was the ONLY one in the year who wasn't invited. It sounds so petty and I am not comparing this situation to others mentioned here ( to you all). But it stung and stayed with me for a while. In secondary school I sort of just forgot about her but we were forced to reconnect in sixth form because we had mutual friends. I admit I was probably very hostile towards her because I didn't like her previously. Not just because of the party, but because she just wasn't very nice to me for no real reason. I took every chance I could get to put her down.. albeit not to her face! I probably made her feel awful.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble. But the point of this is that bullying and unkindness doesn't always make you a kinder person going forward.

PS I'm fully expecting judgement and critique from everyone and that's okay.

@heidbuttsupper I'm no psychiatrist but I bet they are connected!

My mum made it quite clear she thought I was the plainest of her 4 daughters, and used to comment about the shape of my face (long apparently) and my teeth (needed braces). I can remember when she had a friend over, I had just started puberty and she said to her friend "look at her bee stings" referring to my developing but small breasts, and then "yes but she's still got a bum hasn't she!" Utterly humiliating. My sister used to call me ugly a lot when we were kids/teens - guess who had massive self esteem issues throughout most of their adult life - thanks mum!!

Luckily I have a DH who adores me, in the grand scheme of things I wouldn't say I'm ugly, just normal, and I've stayed slim.

I have 2 DD's who I think are utterly beautiful and I tell them that regularly, and wouldn't have dreamt of speaking to them in the way my mum spoke to me.

My sister used to call me ugly a lot when we were kids/teens - guess who had massive self esteem issues throughout most of their adult life - thanks mum!! I just cant believe the sheer number of mothers being so fucking cruel to their daughters???!! I understand kids are cruel sometimes but your own mother.
I am genuinely so sorry for you all who have had mothers(and fathers) like this

I was a very skinny and active child,my older sister not so much, she constantly called me ugly and skinny..told me it was a known fact that men like women with an arse and a bit of meat and my body is disgusting and no boy would want me. I spent years stressing about not being able to put on weight..being made fun of from boys and girls about my 'lack of wrack' even speaking with female friends at school or my sports team about feeling crap and trying to put on weight..they all turned on me and told me that I loved myself and was going around trying to show people how thin I was and was trying to make bigger girls feel bad. 🙄

I don't ever remember a compliment on my appearance growing up. I tell my kids every day how much I love them and how lovely they are. I know you can't be obsessed with appearance but there is a middle ground.
Recently my mum was going through photo albums to digitize them and sent one of me to the family WhatsApp group with a "hilarious" comment on what I was wearing. Then she got snippy when I pointed out I was 13 in the photo and she had bought me the outfit. It was for a holiday so I remember it very clearly. She wasn't impressed and as usual I was accused of having no sense of humour.

I was 6 maybe 7 when my dad walked out, mum told him if he left he'd never see his kids again. He told her with some venom that she would never stop him seeing "his dsis name" and he left. Mum took him back but I have ever forgotten or forgiven.

As a 17 year old I was babysitting for a local bank manager one night, they were later home than they said (days before mobiles I am.in my 40's now), when I got home he screamed at me that the only words in the English dictionary that described me were slut and whore.

In my mid 20's he told me as far as he was concerned he only had 1 daughter, him and mum didn't want to know me and I was never to "darken" their door again.

My aunt asked me to maintain friendly relationships as far as I could for my nan as she was dying and after counselling and some pretty Frank home truths to my mum we have a relationship these days. But he and my mum are under no illusion that if I ever catch him acting like that with my dd then they will never see either of us again

About this time last year I booked to join a Pilates class at my local leisure centre, something I'd never tried before. Or indeed any other exercise class.
The room was full when I got there, as they had all done the previous class too, so I grabbed a mat and tried to find a space. Now, I'm short, fat and over 60, and the others were all in their 30s I'd guess. The biggest space was next to one woman who had a look of Queen Bee about her (think Amanda from Motherland).So I asked " I wonder if there's just room for me to squeeze in here?" She looked me slowly up and down, head to toe, and then positively sneered "Oh I really don't think so" I got through the class but never went back.

This hasn't stayed with me forever, it happened quite recently (not specifically to me but to my little girl who's 5) and will stay with me forever.

My husband and his family are Pakistani, they seem to have a huge misunderstanding that people and kids don't have feelings and you can say absolutely anything you want to them.

I've been called fat by my mother in lW and sister in law before ( I am not even fat, I was a bit overweight but I lost loads of weight and felt amazing) I got down too 11 stone and they was still making comments to me about how big my legs wefe and that I needed to loose more weight, at the time I didn't realise it but I was so dizzy and became anemic because I stopped eating properly after these comments, my face became so slim and I started suffering with anorexia, I have recovefef and I am a healthy weight now and I eat properly but I still get called fat legs by my in Laws. It will sty with me forever.

But recently a few months ago my mother in law was on a video call with me was watching my daughter play (she's 5) perfect weight, very tall and just healthy! She's not even over weight AT ALL and she literally turned round to me in front of my daughter and said, "she's getting fat stop feeding her junk and start feeding her proper food" my daughter understood every word, I called my husband in tears and told him how unacceptable this was and pointed out how my daughter is not even over weight or fat in the slightest.

Let's just say after this evwry time my daughter has seen my mother in law on video calls, she bursts into tears and says you called me fat.
I will never ever forget this and It will stay with me till the day I die that my daughters own grandmother put her down and called her fat when she isn't fat at all and not even over weight, even if she was its unacceptable.

My mother in Law tried bribing her after with buying her toys etc, let's just say if my little girl ends up with an eating disorder too then I will never forgive her.

Actually, it's only stayed with me for a year, but I will never forget the utter contempt on her face, or that she completely shattered what little self confidence I'd managed to pull together just to get to the class that day.

[quote NotEver0]@mrsmadeevans your story made me cry,I'm so sorry for the child you were,I hope you have such a good and happy life now.[/quote]
Thank you so much , it is so kind of you to think of me . Yes l am very lucky . I met and married the most wonderful man who has loved and looked after me all our life. I have 2 beautiful daughters and count my blessings every day . If anything the way l was treated has made me the total opposite to how my family treated me . Ironically, l am now a full time carer for my Mum and treat her very kindly. l don't understand that myself either

My favourite aunt lived just round the corner from us so I was a frequent visitor. My other aunt came to visit and they sent me to the corner shop to get them cigarettes, (it was over 40 years ago).
As I closed the door I heard the visiting aunt say, I've never liked that child. Oh no, don't say that said my favourite aunt.
No she said, there's just something about her (me) I can't have.
Always left me wondering what it was made me unlike able.

Most of my unpleasant memories are when I was in nursery and infant school. I was the only Asian kid in a very white working class area and school. The racism was atrocious. None of the kids would want to sit next to me or be my friend because I "looked like poo".

One day we were drawing and colouring in pictures of ourselves and our families. They had a box of crayons in the middle of the table. There used to be a peach coloured crayon that all the kids used to colour in skin. I remember one girl grabbing it out of my hand and telling me I wasn't allowed to use it because I was brown like poo.

I can't tell you how humiliating and devastating it was. The worst part was that all the teachers would always turn a blind eye to it all and if I raised it with them they would just ignore me.

My Y6 teacher who I really looked up to. I’d had a week off school - in those days parents could take kids out of school when they had their annual leave. We’d had a family reunion and didn’t see a lot of the family very often so it was a real treat. When I got back to school I was told I had to catch up on the work I’d missed - no problem, I loved school so wasn’t a chore at all. The rest of the class were doing fun activities because it was the last week of term. I was sitting working on the same table as them and chatting away as kids do. Teacher was writing on the board and suddenly turned around and started shouting at me - called me and my mum selfish for taking the week off and how dare I complain about having to do work to catch up (I really wasn’t) - asked me ‘who I thought I was’ and similar. The whole class sat there with shocked faces - nobody knew why she’d done it or what prompted her to shout at me - she was literally hysterical. It still hurts when I think about it because I really thought she liked me and I really looked up to her. I remember going to get something from my bag because I didn’t want her to see me cry. It still baffles me today. She was really ambitious and went on to become a head teacher

Zenab I think the time has come to give as good as you get. You need to protect your daughter.

So in future every time she opens her mouth you be firm and assertive and say - Do you know how hurtful that is? Please stop. or Have you actually looked in the mirror as you have X Y and Z. Please stop being rude.

And you pull her up each and every time.

No way on God's earth would I put up with her making those comments to you or your daughter.
Her remarks will soon stop when you target her right back!

@shardenfreud

NCed for this ...

Sometimes the bullies get their karma without you having to do anything.

I went to a school that looked "lovely" on the outside - the kind of place MNers would be discussing on the Education topic. The teaching was very good. But there was an unpleasant undercurrent in the culture, a sort of very low-level but constant bullying - hard to put your finger on and not like some of the really horrible things reported on this thread, but producing a sort of low-grade social anxiety the whole time. Others I went to school with say similar about the place. Looking back now, I can see that nastiness and exclusionary behaviour was directed to pupils who were less well off financially (and was basically about the usual stuff, class and race) .. but at the time it just came off as a bunch of girls being mean.

One girl in particular - a couple of years older than me - had singled me out and was pretty horrible to me over a sustained period of time, maybe a year or two. Just one example - "I can see you're wearing make-up Sharden. You shouldn't bother. You are fat and ugly so it won't do anything". You get the gist.

Fastforward a few years and I am at uni in a city far away from my home town. I think my mum was sending me copies of the local paper - this was pre-internet. I open the paper that week ...

... and would you believe it, the bully is dead! I will disguise the details a bit for anonymity, but in short she had taken up a dangerous sport. She'd been participating in the sport when she fell and was killed, probably instantly.

It was a very unlucky accident (for her) but - and this is why I have NC-ed - I was delighted, served her bloody well right. I cut the obituary out of the paper and stuck it in my diary, where it remains to this day.

PS I still love make-up, have loads of it. And all the bullies/abusers/cruel people mentioned on this thread (whatever their own sad backstory) can fuck right off.

You were delighted? Jesus fucking Christ. This shows more about you than her. What about her parents? Friends? And the fact she just died at a young age. Yes she wasnt a nice person by the sounds of it but fucking shame on you for being delighted and using exclamation marks to talk about this

I have a half-sister (the golden child) who is 16 years younger than I am. I forget how old I was at the time but half-sister was still at school. My “D”M said “You’ll never get a man, no man will ever want you and Half-sister will get married before you do”
Sad thing is she was right - half sister got married 4 years ago and I’ve never had the opportunity.

Parents divorced when I was 6. Forced to stay with my father weekends and school holidays. One time staying at his house the ice cream van was outside. He sent me out to buy ice cream (it was a block - shows how long ago that was ) and then he ate it all himself, never offered me any.

And another one! I was very fond of a family friend and when I was 16, my “D”M came into my room one morning holding the local paper and asked “What’s Friend’s middle name?”
I told her, then in an almost excited tone she said “Oh it was him who got killed at the weekend”.
Thanks for the caring way you broke the news to me.
Earlier this week I asked if she had any photos of Family Friend, to be told “you barely knew him”. Funny, I seem to have a lot of memories of this person I “barely knew”.

Not rtft cos it's 24 pages long, but I remember when I got a perm after I'd not long started senior school. One of the 'cool' kids came up and said to me 'I know I don't know you or anything, but your hair looks shit'.

Also same boy told me when I done a song with my friend that we had seen on a soap, that I didn't know it properly and I made it sound shit.

Dunno why I annoyed him so much, but I've been insulted by bigger and better people, but these teenage insults, I still remember.

@ Tony the donkey. I can better that. I had a friend whose Mum told him that when the ice cream van was playing music, it meant they were out of ice cream.

Having RTWT I'm gobsmacked at how awful grown-ups who bloody well should know better can be, especially to their children and students. Love this response from @Sbowiegirl to her snitty mother: "I stopped and looked at her and said “we both know that’s not true, I have plenty of friends. That was nasty, and you know it. I’m sure I could think of nasty things to say to you, but I don’t.”

By adulthood I knew that a lot of grown-ups were total jerks, but this incident, when I was 23, lingers with me after 30 years. I'd moved cities to take up a new job. I got there to find no desk, no computer and no telephone (this was late 1980s) provided for my use. After two months, during which the company had failed, despite my requests, to give me a telephone and I'd been relying on the sympathy and phone of a person from a different company down the hall, the boss called me in and blasted me for my disappointing performance and said I was likely to fail my three-month probation. Tony, if you're reading this, go to hell NOW!

We also had grandparents we only saw 1-2 a year.

I was about 8 and I remember standing in the kitchen at my grandma‘s house. I am adopted and we had gone up to see them as my aunt had just given birth.

My grandma suddenly said «I am so happy to finally have a granddaughter. I looked at her and said but I am your granddaughter and she turned and said „no you aren’t my real granddaughter and this one is the first real one“.

It broke my already fragile heart.

I never wanted to visit her again and was glad the trips were so infrequent.

My dad is still alive and I have never told him as an adult what was said. His mother is long gone and there is no point. But now when I read about the level of prep and education adoptive parents get about Trauma etc. I am happy but wish it had been done all those years ago as I am sure there are countless other adopted children from that era with similar stories.

@ComeWhatMayKeepTheHope that's heartbreaking 😥 for you its awful when you are so young and someone you love treats you like that!

I have a few of these (like everyone) but I also have an attempted one that went wrong, which I still remember with slight glee.

My mother favoured my sister, would openly say "(dsis) is my favourite". One night she poured the last of the orange juice (a treat we rarely had) in to a big glass, said "here you go, for my favourite", but she accidentally gave it to me. I had half drunk it before she realised and said "damn, I meant that for (dsis)!". Ha ha! I still remember the pissed off look on her face!

@ToniTheDonkey

And another one! I was very fond of a family friend and when I was 16, my “D”M came into my room one morning holding the local paper and asked “What’s Friend’s middle name?” I told her, then in an almost excited tone she said “Oh it was him who got killed at the weekend”. Thanks for the caring way you broke the news to me. Earlier this week I asked if she had any photos of Family Friend, to be told “you barely knew him”. Funny, I seem to have a lot of memories of this person I “barely knew”.

9h yes, the excited tone when they break bad news, unable to hide their enjoyment at revelling in someone else's emotional response. Quite probably because they don't have one themselves.

Once you've encountered the "excited tone", you never quite forget it. So sinister.