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Something unkind which has stayed for you forever 😟

670 replies

Heartbrokenstill · 29/01/2021 17:46

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 Sad she died years ago but I still feel the sadness of the little 7 year old I was all them years ago Sad.. 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 wasSad

OP posts:
oakleaffy · 29/01/2021 19:09

@Holothane

Being forced to throw all my seven years of James Bond cuttings and novels, remember I had very few friends at home a family who mocked me on a daily basis, the day before my 21st, for years I wouldn’t have a Fleming novel in the house too frightened they’d be took of me, I’d never go back to my teens or before being 40 for all the money in the world.
I understand that so much. I too clung to collections and had them thrown away. Hope you re - collected them over the years if possible.
LordOfTheOnionRings · 29/01/2021 19:10

My mum drunk from 10 to 16 when I moved out 'you cannot be fat and pretty, it's ridiculous - if you stay the way you are, you'll never be good enough to be loved, only weird men and losers like fat girls'. I wasnt even big back then - I am now! Also a favourite when I asked why we don't shop or go to coffee with each other like other mums and their daughters do 'im not your friend, I'm your mother and don't you ever forget that - I do not want to be friends with you'

FanciedanewnameAnne · 29/01/2021 19:12

@Throughhistory

So many horrible words and actions, I'm sorry for all of you Flowers

My mum was a very difficult person. As a young child, my hair used to get really knotty, looking back it was probably because my I used to love my dad rubbing my wet hair with a towel until my head wobbled! Despite being far too little to brush my own hair, she blamed me and one day took me to the hairdresser where I was forced to have a short back and sides. I can still remember the humiliation, and think that was the beginning of the end of any love I had for her.

The final nail in our relationship was probably when, in my 40s, she was criticising me for something I'd apparently done as a child (I was a quiet, polite child who did ok at school so no idea why she was so fixated on me being bad). I plucked up the courage to ask her why she never said anything positive about me as a child. Her response:

"There nothing positive to say..."

She's dead now. Three overriding emotion was relief.

Wow that's awful 😕 How sad
Hoppinggreen · 29/01/2021 19:12

My Grandma wasn’t keen on me because she hated my Dad ( with reason). I never went to stay with my Grandparents but I saw my cousins did so I asked to go too. My mum was a bit reluctant but agreed.
I can honestly not remember one thing about it except we went for a walk to the park and I fell and skinned my knee, my Gran was walking ahead holding my cousins hand and I was on the floor with my knee bleeding and I shouted “ Nanny I hurt my knee” . She looked over her shoulder and said “oh dear” then turned back to my cousin and said “come on x, lets go”
It was around 40 years ago and much worse things have happened to me since, plus I have learned a lot of things which explained why she was so cold to me but I can still remember how bewildered and upset I was.

sadpapercourtesan · 29/01/2021 19:13

One I always remember is my mum's best friend who remembered being sent to live with relatives when she was a little girl. She told me that during Christmases when all the children were opening their presents, she would be sent upstairs because there was nothing for her. She was unwanted and they didn't bother to hide it.

It went right through me when she told me, and I still think about it now.

HeidiHaughton · 29/01/2021 19:13

So many.
My mother is someone I have a complex relationship with.
I vividly recall some of her comments. I was an ugly teenager who longed to be pretty. I can't remember a single compliment from her my entire adolescence. I tried to do my hair in a new style once having read some tips in a magazine and she passed by the bathroom and snapped at me to ask why I was bothering when my hair was nice.
When I got engaged she didn't say anything nice about my ring. She made a comment asking if it was the "actual" ring or a temporary one until we got a diamond ring. She went out of her way to say her and my dad wouldn't be paying. Me and dh had long established careers and hadn't even thought about asking our parents to pay.
She thinks she's great at reading people and is a self appointed fixer in her family. If I ever raised these things with her shed laugh it off.
I have a totally different approach with my own kids.

HeidiHaughton · 29/01/2021 19:15

Paying for the wedding I mean.

tsmainsqueeze · 29/01/2021 19:15

I could cry for some of you on this thread , i hope you all know that its the appalling adults who should be cringing with shame at their treatment of you .
Why so many awful grannies ? , i too had one , didn't feel a thing when she died .
It is beyond me how thoughtless and cruel some people can be .

Joisanofthedales · 29/01/2021 19:16

My mum told me as a young adult that I had been an unlovable child.

Chanandlerbong01 · 29/01/2021 19:17

In primary school I got told by a teaching assistant to not forget to wipe the word of the week off the board (it was my job). As I wiped it off I was screamed at because not everyone had remembered to write it in their books and I should have thought about it or am I a robot that doesn’t think. It made me really nervous about doing stuff at school after that and always needed reassurance.

Another one is a grandma (not close) told me I would never get a boyfriend because of my fat thighs - I had been with someone for two years before this point and we are still together 5 years later. I was a size 8 at the time with bigger thighs for my size as a result of exercise and not actual fat. The relative in question was a size 24. They died shortly after so it was the last thing they said to me. They never gave me a birthday card over my entire life but gave all my other cousins cards and presents each year, she once said she found me hard work because I went to uni so think I’m better than them.... I hadn’t been to uni when I was a child so it made no sense. I don’t think I am better than them she seemed to just dislike me.

caringcarer · 29/01/2021 19:18

My Gran had a son (my Dad). He was born 5-6 weeks early and weighed 2 lb. She had the baby at home as was often the way in those days. The doctor looked at the baby and weighed him and told my gran 'he'll die in the next few hours. Just leave him at the bottom of the bed and I'll call by to see to him in the morning'. My Gran waited until the doctor left them wrapped my Dad in a blanket and breastfed him every two hours. The doctor came by to sort out the babys body next morning and could not believe he was still alive. He lived until he was 74. My Gran said she never forgave the doctor for telling her to leave him at the bottom of the bed to die. Things were different in those days, almost brutal. Imagine the hoo ha if a doctor said that today.

Heartbrokenstill · 29/01/2021 19:18

@Turnedouttoes. Sing till your hearts content!.. Its little things like this that you remember Sad

OP posts:
Whichname98 · 29/01/2021 19:19

An elderly aunt always picking fault with my appearance whenever we visited her. As a shy, self-conscious teen I used to dread seeing her for fear of what she'd say. I don't think it was done with malice,she was just overly opinionated and tactless. It would be my weight/clothes/skin, etc.

A friend's mum shouting in my face when I was 11 saying I had called her daughter a bastard (I most definitely hadn't, it was someone else but I got the blame). It really scared me! I'd never have used that kind of language at that age!!

Being snapped at and shouted at loudly by my dad at a family do in front of everyone. It was mortifying and I went in the toilets and cried. Even now if someone snaps at me it affects me, as daft as it sounds.

Tootsey11 · 29/01/2021 19:19

As a teenager with heavy periods, I remember one time on my period using the loo and not being able to get it to flush. After several attempts I asked my mum.

Her response was to laugh at me. Not because I couldn't flush the toilet, because I was bleeding.

Heartbrokenstill · 29/01/2021 19:20

@Sweetpea84. Bless you xx this would have mortified me also.. I was a little quiet child who was such a worrier Sad

OP posts:
WinniePig · 29/01/2021 19:21

At primary school I was asked to take a message to a teacher in another class. I peered through the classroom door and could see that she was telling off her class. I wasn’t sure what to do. I decided to knock on door and take in the message. The teacher turned her ire on me. It totally knocked my confidence and it never recovered. Teachers! Know your power. If you are interested in social mobility, big your kids up! Don’t knock them down.

Whichname98 · 29/01/2021 19:21

@Tootsey11 omg that's awful, how cruel.

Snowbeau · 29/01/2021 19:22

My "best friend" at secondary school whipping away my gcse results envelope before I'd seen it, opened it and laughed before throwing it back at me.

Still hurts.

I got As and A*s. Just not as many as her.

Pinklewinkle · 29/01/2021 19:22

Wow FuzzyPuffling that could have been me....so similar it's made me cry.

MrsGulDukat · 29/01/2021 19:23

I was voted the ugliest girl in our year from the Year 11 yearbook. The teachers wouldnt allow it to go in.

In the book it has quote, "Hi Mrs." "Shut up" (my response). Yeah coz I really want to make conversation with people who made my life a misery for 5 years.

I was a very unhappy child and even 20 years later, I still see myself as the ugly fat bitch that everyone hated.

MoreMorelos · 29/01/2021 19:23

My DM once told me I should have never had kids, I have no idea why, she didn't elaborate. We were at my DBs house having a BBQ. Also when I was about 10/11 I did the 24hr sponsored famine, she told me she could see I had done it well as my legs looked thinner 😳

IEat · 29/01/2021 19:23

14 years old, brushed my hair to go to the shop and mother said Dont know why your bothering who’s going to look at you. I’m nearly 50 now!

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 29/01/2021 19:25

When I was growing up, we only had a bath twice a week, and because the immersion heater had no thermostat and was slow and expensive to run, my sister and I shared bath water, and so did mum and dad.

Dsis was younger than me, so she went first, and got the bath water whilst it was hot and clean. I had cooler, grubby water, and I had to tidy up the bathroom, hang up the towels and rinse the bath out.

When we were small, I had a later bedtime, so I felt it balanced out - she came out ahead on the bath thing, but I got to stay up later - but when we were teenagers, we had the same bedtime, and I felt it was unfair that I never got the clean bath water, and dsis never had to do the tidying up, so I asked mum if dsis and I could take turns going first - it seemed fairer to me, and I couldn’t see any reason why mum would refuse - but she did.

Looking back, I am sure she preferred dsis to me (this isn’t the only clear example of favouritism), plus she always went first out of her and dad, and maybe she bought that, if she accepted it wasn’t fair for dsis to go first all the time, she might have to let dad go first sometimes too.

One Christmas, she put knitting needles and yarn in my stocking - I enjoyed knitting - but it was for me to knit a scarf for dad. To me, it felt like it wasn’t really a present for me, and for once, I had the courage to say something - only for mum to guilt trip me into backing down.

HappyTimeTunnelDinosaur · 29/01/2021 19:26

That sounds really sad op, I'm sorry that memory stays with you. For me, I really struggled at school, I had the occasional friend but honestly, it was more me wishful thinking most of the time. There was one girl in particular who would lead any 'friends' I had against me. She named a tree a horrible name after me and made up a song about it. The tree was outside our art block and I was always terrified to turn up on time and have to wait there with her too. She made my secondary school life misery for years and when eventually she left I remember crying with relief. Worse, my mum has always been sharp with words, this was all going on and she would regularly say to me ' It's no wonder you've got no friends'. That hurt because I was pretty sure she was right, but felt that surely your mum shouldn't think that. I've moved on with my life but it still hurts and affects my confidence with others.

hartof · 29/01/2021 19:27

When I was 16 I was in a bar and a guy said I had hairy arms. It was very blonde but it made me so paranoid I shaved it, I'm now 34 and still have to shave them daily.

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