Comments that have stayed with you into adulthood

[IcyBlonde15]

I am very conscious now that my words can have a long lasting impact and think very carefully about what I say to people. Two things that have stuck out to me from my teen years are when I was going out with a boy I really loved as a teenager and he told me his friend asked him “what are you DOING with her? She’s scum she’s not good enough for you” always made me very insecure and wondered what was so WRONG with me, and I still sometimes get paranoid that I’m somehow not as good as other people which is mad now I’m an adult! Also a friends mum told me to sit in the front as I was “the largest girl” which started an eating disorder that still rears it’s head now. The impact of words on young minds is so strong I want to teach my kids to be very mindful of things they say as they have no idea the amount of damage it can do. AIBU or maybe just need to get better at letting go of grudges!!

When I was 17, I was having a meal with my boyfriend and his family. His mother said infront of me and everyone else 'I made extra food because Newbie is a pig'. I was a size 8 but had a healthy appetite! I ended up marrying my boyfriend but even now, 13 years on, I dont eat very much in front of her anymore!

@Nickmoul

I was adopted, but it didn’t worry me. Mum was 90% great. But she over fed me and years later I needed a gastric bypass to lose 100 lbs and it saved my life.

So proud of you!

I remember taking a beautiful strawberry pie to some new neighbors years ago to say welcome. It was about 3pm & I’d never seen them.
The mother was older & the daughter was 3 or 4 and had a huge plate of chicken nuggets & chips in front of her. I mean HUGE, even for an adult.
The little girl was incredibly overweight — I felt terrible at my choice of gifts and even worse at the mother’s choice of “snack” — she definitely was over-feeding the little girl.
Congratulations! You did it. ❤️

A teacher in Primary school shouting at me that "If I was your mother, I'd give you a good bloody hiding' then throwing a book at me.

When I was a kid someone asking if I was the clever one or the other one...I was the other one...

As an adult someone asking at my uncle's funeral if I was one of the clever ones with the PHDs that he talked about all the time. Again no (but I'm the one who sorted out his care and shopping)

@Fetchthevet

Most of mine are people commenting on how ugly I am, as if I need to be told because I can't possibly know it already. My brother saying he didn't want to be seen with me in case anyone saw us and thought I was "the best he could do". Someone looking at me and my sister and saying to my sister "Oh you're the pretty one". Overheard a lady at work saying I must have gone to a clinic to get pregnant as there was no way a man would go near me. Girls at school laughing at me telling me my face was square etc etc. I could go on for hours with these, each one still hurts and I am in my 40s. I wish people would realise that I can't do anything about my face and I am still entitled to live my life no matter how ugly I am.

Just horrible, there is absolutely no excuse (and this goes for the previous posters too, I just can’t believe how thoroughly nasty people can be)

Mine is also education related. I remember at the beginning of A level maths. The teacher asked how many got A* in their GCSE? About 4 people put their hands up in a class of about 25. He then proceeded to tell the rest of us that we will fail our A level maths; considering we all had Grades A and I think a couple of others had Bs but most of us had achieved As at GCSE. That statement stayed with me the whole year. I mentally blocked all learning because I expected it to be too hard and ofcourse I got terrible grades in that 1st year.

I decided to repeat that year and thankfully I was given new teachers in all my A level subjects. My new maths teacher took me and a few others who were also repeating the year and told us, "forget what you learnt in the last year. This is your new beginning. You will know the stuff we are teaching and I'm confident you will realise it is not as hard as you thought." He was right. The best teacher I have ever had. Maths became my favourite subject and my career is almost 15years later uses a lot of the maths I learnt at this stage.

A teacher of mine once said to me "you might be top of the class but you'll get nowhere in life because you've got no common sense". Another teacher said (seemingly out of nowhere) "Why are you so serious? No one likes the serious girl". I got a lot of comments like this from adults as a kid and could never understand what I'd done wrong. Now I've learnt about ASD and how it presents itself in girls it does make me wonder.

Some of these are awful. I’m so sorry. I was a bit if a tomboy at school and very gawky with horrible short boy hair- it didn’t grow very well so my Mum insisted I keep it short. I was very conscious that I wasn’t like then other pretty girls but do desperately wanted to be. One day, I was about 10 one of the girls told me I was pretty and she and another tied a beautiful blue chiffon scarf into my hair and put some lip gloss on me. I felt so pretty.
I went to line up for assembly and the teacher shouted out ‘Julie what on EARTH are you wearing in your hair?! Come on, you must realise you look absolutely ridiculous wearing that thing with YOUR haircut’
I’ve never felt so mortified. I’ve never told anyone since either.
So weird that my parents were abusive and cruel at times but I was kind of de sensitised to it. This really stuck with me.

I was told more than once make up would be a waste of time on me as it can only enhance. So I'd look worse. To be fair, I am not at all attractive in make up.

I was asked to make myself scarce by one manager when a photographer was on site taking 'in action' shots.

My first boyfriend his parents wrote mine a letter complaining that he'd kept a secret from them and it was somehow my fault. They went on to call me the sort of girl who "wasn't destined for the same circles" as their boy. Asked my parents to "cool things off" so that I wouldn't get a bad reputation to boot.

It was clearly intended to make me feel about 1 inch high. To be honest I was able to laugh it off for years (though I was punished heavily by my abusive parents because of it) until someone told me that HE didn't like that I'd ever mentioned it to my closest friends or that my parents had let me read it.

@PyongyangKipperbang

When I was 14 my mother, who was abusive (due to hormonal disorder, we are close now) called me a slut.

It was about 1986. Not a nice word now but worse then.

Stayed with me for years that she hated me that much and thought that of me. Then, after her treatment and she became human again, she told me a story about her aunt calling her a slut. This was back in the early 60's. Her mother, my grandmother then went to war against the Aunt. Mother cried and said how happy she was that Grandma had defended her like that.

I asked her why she called me a slut. And she did have the decency to look ashamed and said that she probably wanted to hurt me.

Just checking, did she definitely mean it in the modern sense? My DM also called me one many years later than that and she meant really messy/untidy (a bit like the word gay changed meaning).

Being told at school that I have a big strawberry for a nose. I had the typical horrible skin as a teen and I've been extremely self conscious about my nose ever since. I was also told I look dirty (I'm olive skinned) and I still feel like everyone things that of me.

My mum telling I should be grateful I'll never know what its like to be truely depressed, after I opened up about my mental health and struggles with suicidal thoughts. I'm now mid thirties and still can't open up to anyone about my mental health.
Also my mum, 'i don't know why your bothering (applying for a new job) as stacking shelves is the only job you'll ever be good for'. I've since worked out she can't stand the thought of me doing anything to better myself. As long as she's perceived as the 'better' one out of us then im in her good books.
I cant imagine speaking to or treating my children like that.

I was picked on a lot about my appearance as a teenager and it took me years to get over it. I have quite a big nose, so there was that, and then I also had short hair and looked (and dressed) quite androgynous so it was always, of course, that I 'looked like a man'. I had this massive hang-up about not looking very feminine. Then there was the fact that I was extremely skinny aged 17 due to mental health stuff, gained a few pounds (not even very many, like half a stone max) and my boyfriend said he 'preferred it when I was thinner'. Cue disordered eating.

Oh well, there are loads really. My parents were right dicks. And I had really severe eczema (in the 80s) so a lot of chanting from kids at school about how I had mange.

The one that really sticks out is being 16 and working in a pub waitressing/collecting glasses. One of my parents came in and Tori Amos Professional Widow played. The lyric "it's gotta be big" can sound like "scabby bitch" which my parent realised and lead a few people (incl. bar staff) in a rousing singalong shouting scabby bitch and pointing at me. And I laughed like I was in on the joke.

However to even it up, I had a teacher who thought I was bright and recognised things at home weren't great and he really, really went to bat for me. Helped me with coursework (driving from his home city to my home on Mother's Day (wife, kids and mum in his car outside) to collect some work to make sure it was in as my attendance was so poor.
He made me realise that I could achieve things (and life is now really good. I'm fortunate that I can put it down to character building stuff!)

Wow, I have had some nasty and hurtful things said to me in my time (especially about weight from family members) but some of these comments are just something else.

You all sound lovely 🥰 and like people I would love to spend time with and I hope those who were so vile to you all burn in hell 🔥 or at the very least are very regretful and have changed their ways.

My dad telling me I was naturally good at school and had to work hard (unlike my sister) - lead to years of feeling inadequate and that I wasn’t smart (despite a track record of good school reports, no idea why he said it).

A guy I went out with telling me I had a personality that ‘not everyone would like’ again years of insecurities thinking people hated me.

*wasn't naturally good at school

Loads of comments from those days have stayed with me. One I have mulled over recently is when a group of friends were talking about drugs and their impact etc. I'd been saying that I'd like to try some drugs as you only get one life etc (I've actually ended up the most square, non- druggy person I know, but this was my view at age 13). My friends at school were all rich and had their careers mapped out by their parents. One of my other friends said, yeah, I'd like to try marijuana. Everyone in the group suddenly started talking her out of the idea and saying how stupid she was being even to suggest it. A boy I had thought of as a friend said to her, "it's different for veryverycalmnow and you. You have such an incredible future ahead of you. Don't mess it up!"
I was from a working class background, on free dinner tickets and in second hand uniform. Nice of him to judge me and predict my future. He asked me out a few years later. Haha. Prick.

When I was 14 my dad laughed and asked if my bust had slipped as my tum looked so fat.
Now I have severe Osteoporosis which has changed my shape. My tum is bigger as the vertebrae have fractured. His comment hurts even more. It's not as bad as some on here, though, which are evil.
.

I was on a train back from London to Oxford after having a reunion with a lot of close friends who were spread out around the country, I had taken a load of sandwiches as we were intending on "picnicing" in the park before going out drinking.....we never ate them, so I cracked them out and offered them around on the train back to random revellers who were sat at the train table with me (chatting nicely etc. and not overly drunk) and one of their party (a girl, I will never forget what she looked like and I will never forget where she got off the train) said;

"eurgh, look at you, you fat ugly pig, you got all those sandwiches, no wonder you are so fat, you disgusting fat pig, of course we don't want any you fat cow"

I just withdrew and pretended to be asleep whilst sobbing with my head on the window - that completely took any confidence I ever had - and it still hasn't returned.

A nice comment that stays with me was a man coming up to me in a nightclub and saying "I just wanted to tell you that I think you are beautiful" - My biggest regret is not getting his number!!!

I have a few said to children that I was working with & my heart broke for them - those women had no business being anywhere near little ones. Because I was quite young I didn’t speak up but really wish I had. One was to the Mum of a little boy of around 4 if I remember rightly - “ He’s left handed as well as all his other problems” 😥I was a supply nursery nurse for a while & the teacher was an absolute cold hearted bitch. Even now I get upset thinking about how horrible she was. There was a dear little girl who had selective mutism but instead of supporting her & trying to build her confidence, the cow ridiculed her & punished her. I think the worst of all was when she was talking to the girl’s Mum, in front of the girl, and said something like “ Why can’t she behave like her sister does?” Honestly how she ever got into teaching I have no idea.

I also had a positive one to add.

Id just back from Afghanistan and was refuelling my car at a petrol station. A guy came up to me who said, 'I dont care if you have a bf or whatever, I just want to tell you that you are the most beautiful woman ive ever seen'.

I did have a bf at the time, who turned out was cheating on me the entire time I was deployed. I wish id got that guys number!

When I was splashing away at a width aged 10 or 11, I overheard one swimming teacher say to another “I’ve never seen a child who just isn’t able to float before.”

It took my until I was in my 30s to learn to swim when I realised all human beings can float - I just hadn’t been taught correctly to swim.

I was bullied at school so there were a lot of comments. Two that I remember though:

Off sometime who was supposed to be a friend "I can't even call you a slag or a slut because no-one would ever want to go out with you". I'd confided in her, she knew how to go for maximum hurt. And it echoed other things that were said.

After a PE lesson where we'd been dancing - "Sorry, but we were all laughing at you". I've not danced in front of anyone since, not even on my wedding day.

I was a single parent after divorce, and went full-time to university. A fellow student, an older woman, looked at my beautiful six year old daughter one day and told her, me and the room, that she would grow up to be a 'juvenile delinquent' because she didn't have a father in the house. I've thought of that, often. The woman scraped a pass degree. My daughter has an honours degree in Classics (languages, not C Civ) and is a married woman, a mother with a career and a beautiful home. And what we say, in our thoughts, to that old lady (who was probably younger then than I am now) is... fuck you, bitch.

Lighthearted one this...
attended a birthday party and was around about 6 or 7 at the time. The home made birthday cake looked amazing. Some adult complimented the chef/mum of birthday girl. Her reply was "oh it's just a simple sandwich cake"!

My ears pricked up... sandwich? As in bread and ham and cheese? Eww... that's disgusting.
To this day, more than 30 years later, I can't look at a Victoria sponge!