Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Comments that have stayed with you into adulthood

357 replies

IcyBlonde15 · 08/01/2022 20:58

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!!

OP posts:
gavisconismyfriend · 08/01/2022 22:49

My mum saying maybe I should go on the pill as it might give me a better shape. I was about 15 and very conscious of my small boobs. It was one of many bitchy remarks she’s made about my body over the years. Ruined my confidence, led to long term eating disorders.

Pheob31x · 08/01/2022 22:51

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

LeedleLee · 08/01/2022 22:51

Pretty minor in comparison to others on here, but my dad telling me I looked like a 'man in drag' and laughing uproariously when I wore makeup. I must have been about 10 or 11. It was my first time putting it on and I probably DID look awful, but he didn't have to make such a cruel comment.

Even now over 10 years later I still have no confidence about my looks.

Imamumgetmeoutofhere · 08/01/2022 22:51

"I should have had an abortion when they offered me one" was the final straw that broke me at 18 years old after a very awful 2 years of hell from my mother.

Haven't seen her ever since that comment but my feelings of self worth have never really recovered

LookAtMissOhio · 08/01/2022 22:51

There are quite a few but this one stayed with me. Aged 9 or 10 at a swimming lesson with school. I could not swim to save my life, quite literally. At the end sometimes they brought out big floats etc.

At the end of a lesson I went up to the leisure centre swimming teacher and asked were we getting the toys today.

Her reply: "NO, And if you were, you wouldn't deserve them". Horrible auld bag.

What sort of bitter person treats little children like that? I had only met her once or twice, didn't even know her name.

uneffingbelievable · 08/01/2022 22:52

A Canadian girl at my school, told my best friend - that I was the ugliest person she had ever seen and could not understand why my friend hung out with me- I was 11 yrs old. I still want to smash her in the face and that was 35+ years ago - Busby beware!!

There are 2 others but would be outing

Biffatcrafts · 08/01/2022 22:54

Just want to add that it is so sad to read so many deeply cruel and hurtful things that people have had said to them and I feel for every one of the PPs. But I will take a guess that every one of us has gone through our lives being kind, supportive, nurturing and loving with our words, because we truly do know how deeply harsh words can cut.

Fuckitsstillraining · 08/01/2022 22:54

I overheard my best friends father tell her 'you may as well be bad as in bad company' just as I arrived to collect her, we were 18 and I was an outgoing miniskirt low-cut top wearing happy girl, she dressed very differently because her parents were so judgemental, she stuck out among all our friends and felt awkward and wasn't very happy at the time all thanks to her parents who gossiped about everyone. Her fathers comment bothered me for a little while and then I thought fuck him and made sure he didn't stop our friendship, she's still my best friend over 30 years later.
I also heard a lovely elderly lady in our village say 'I hope she doesn't do anything stupid like getting married' when I became as lone parent aged 21, she was so so right. I did eventually get married 16 years later to a wonderful man who has been a great step father though he refuses to use the word step and just says he's a father (biological father not involved by choice).

pennysays · 08/01/2022 22:55

Once I was walking down to tube with a friend and man was rushing to get past. He turned round and screamed at me “get out the way you FAT BITCH!” It’s stayed with me but more because I’ve never been on the receiving end of unprovoked anger like that before. I was astounded and felt quite sorry for him. He must have such a horrible life being so angry all the time.

This thread is making me think of a cruel thing I said about a boy in secondary school and he was right behind me when I said it. God I’m so sorry Stephen. I was such a dick.

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 08/01/2022 22:56

Nothing compared to some of the above, but my Mum saying to me, “your saving grace is that you can laugh at yourself”. What’s a child meant to do with that?

PurpleMauve · 08/01/2022 22:57

‘Write them down and burn them;…’

^ This 💯

KevinTheKoala · 08/01/2022 22:57

My mum and stepdad telling me in great detail how I was the ugly one of the sisters but at least pretty girls would stand next to me as a sort of landmark in pubs look at the fit bird next to the short ginger one were the words used, and my dad telling me how useless I was because women are supposed to be good at shopping when I was 8 because I couldnt find something in a supermarket I'd never been in before. There are so, so many other comments that have stuck with me always that replay in my head constantly.

maddiemookins16mum · 08/01/2022 22:58

A teacher, I was 7 on school photo day.
‘Maddiemoo, take your glasses off for the photo, you’ll look prettier’.
I wore glasses all the time, yep those blue NHS ones (it was 1973 at the time). I had terrible eyesight and a squint.
My school photo was awful, I was looking in two different directions.
My mum went mad (not at me) when she saw it. I told her the teacher made me take them off. It was the only time I recall her marching up the school and telling my teacher never to make me feel less than I was for wearing glasses.
Tbf, wearing glasses has always made me feel ugly, that teacher may have started it off.

haribofiend · 08/01/2022 22:59

It was intended to be a nice encouraging comment by a teacher on the day I left Year 11 - “you can achieve anything you want to”.

Unfortunately my twisted brain re-interpreted this to mean: “you should be able to succeed at everything”.

Hello perfectionism, my constant companion.

dottymac · 08/01/2022 22:59

As a teenager, my dad called me a bitch in front of visitors when he was drunk. I was quite meek in general so I dont know where that even came from. It was 30 years ago and he died over 10 years ago but I still think about it now and again and it still stings. 😪

Snorkmaidenn · 08/01/2022 23:01

My mum said
Boys never make passed with girls who wear glasses.

I was short sighted and couldn't read the blackboard

Picklypickles · 08/01/2022 23:02

All from my mum. "It's YOUR fault I have Parkinsons, you bloody kids have worked me to death" said to me (not to brothers) when I was 17. "You dirty little slut" when I came home late one night aged 19 and told her the truth that I had been out with a boy I was seeing. And a frequent one throughout my life "You're just like your Dad" said with sneering contempt. My dad is wonderful, but she obviously didn't think much of him as she cheated on him and left him when I was 2, so clearly what she was saying was she doesn't much like me either. It was also my own fault that the man she cheated on my dad with liked to smack me about the head all the time from the age of 3 onwards.

Then she asks me recently "my god girl, why have you got such low self esteem?" Hmm, I wonder mother dearest!

Snorkmaidenn · 08/01/2022 23:02

Passed not passed

frustratedgreeter · 08/01/2022 23:05

At the start of our adoption process, after years of infertility/three miscarriages/failed ivf, my MIL said that she’d never been able to picture me with a baby anyway. That was over 15 years ago and I still think about that comment. She’s not a mean woman and I’m sure she had no idea how hurtful that comment was and still is.

theDudesmummy · 08/01/2022 23:05

When I was about 14. My dad: you have a nose like a potato. I loved following the Miss World contestants. Him: "You could win miss World if you had a bag over your head'.

My grandfather when I was 16, "she is such a a funny little thing, how will she ever get a boyfriend ". Scarred me for many years.

Pinkchocolate · 08/01/2022 23:07

Gosh some of these are horrific!
My sister always told me she was the clever one and I was the pretty one, it had been decided and that was our fate. I idolised her so took it as gospel. It took me years to have the conversation with our parents and understand that it wasn’t an either/or situation and I wasn’t totally thick and incapable of achieving anything. (Incidentally I’ve never been particularly pretty either).

MsF1t · 08/01/2022 23:11

God, there's loads. One of the most egregious ones was when my Mum cried to her friend in front of her kids about how much she hated her kids. Who then told me. When I 'subtly' asked her about it by asking her when she'd last cried I got both barrels. She lost twins before having us and treated me to a list of all the ways she imagined they would have been better than us and how much of a disappointment we were.

Mind you, I feel like that's bloody nothing reading some of the stories on here/ especially the children's home one. Horrific, and I am so sorry.

SmallOrFarAway · 08/01/2022 23:12

My grandad once grabbed my (admittedly flabby) upper arm when I was wearing a vest top on a visit home from uni and said 'ooh you've got lots of meat on your bones'. I've never worn a vest top in front of anyone ever since and have never really showed my upper arms at all, always go for something more covered up.

theNumbersStation · 08/01/2022 23:13

My headmaster made me do a rope climb. I was hopeless. He kept making me do it - I kept on failing. The whole class were told to watch. It seemed as though it went on for hours.

He called me fat and useless.

It stuck.

I was 8.

BibiBlocksberg · 08/01/2022 23:15

From birth parents, ‘we’ve decided to switch roles in this family, the dog is now our daughter & you will take her place in the ranks’

Complete with a tin of Chappie for Dinner. Aged 6 (real food hidden in cupboard until i got suitably upset)

Two gems from Trampoline Coach aged 14 - you’re alright now but you’ll be fat in the future if you don’t watch your figure’

‘You know you only got 2nd place because x wasn’t here don’t you?’

Screw x, i was on fire that day, twat!!!

Still nowhere near as bad as most on here but v therapeutic to get it out, thanks OP :)