Post by scribellesam on Jun 27, 2016 15:34:33 GMT -5
The most specific one I remember is being called "gorilla arms" in the fifth grade. I've been self-conscious of the hair on my arms ever since. Still don't shave it though because fuck you, mean girl.
Post by gibbinator on Jun 27, 2016 15:36:24 GMT -5
Grade 9 math class. I finished my classwork early and went to the front to ask the teacher if I could work on homework for another class. Unprovoked another classmate gave a short speech about what a suck up I was and clearly I had no friends since I spent all my free time doing homework, etc. I was so embarrassed. People cheered. I'll never forget that.
Fortunately, while I held back tears, one of my friends in the class told everyone to stfu.
It's amazing how much hurtful stuff an asshole can say in 20 seconds.
My mom has said some things to me that have hurt, although I think she feels she's just making observations. I had pretty bad acne as a teen and she would always point out big blemishes, as if I didn't know they were there. And once she told me I have one eye bigger than the other. Just thinking about her comments makes me sad.
I had a professor in graduate school say, "Everyone knows that you are lazy" after I asked to take a day off to attend my grandmother's funeral.
Now, I am a lot of things, many of them uncharitable, but I am not fucking lazy. I graduated at the top of my class and was accepted into a kick ass residency. I received the award for clinical excellence from her department.
I run into her from time to time at meetings on education in my field. The last time I did she said, "I always knew you would be successful." Go fuck yourself, lady.
Aside from a few incidents of racist stuff from little kids growing up or strangers, the one that stung the most was when the ex of my boyfriend in high school was aghast that he would date me. She proclaimed me "so homely" to everyone we knew. The worse part is that I was with that boy for many years and this chick was the only other person from my high school/hometown to go to the same college as me, so I had to see her for years (and then she moved to SF after I moved to SF with that very same boy). Many years later, he cheated on me with her!
Post by ellipses84 on Jun 27, 2016 16:02:02 GMT -5
This reminds me of an article I read in a magazine years ago about how we, as women, carry around negative comments for years and let them impact our self esteem. One woman was self conscious about her weight and was wearing a purple dress when someone jokingly called her Barney. She never wore purple again. I think comments during adolescence can be especially harsh and memorable.
When I was 12, I had recently gotten glasses and the third grade girl who I was friendly with sitting on the bus next to me told me I have a big nose. I wear contacts most of the time but I still think glasses make my nose look big.
My mom told me once "I knew you would fall in love with the first guy that gave you attention"
She was referencing my now DH. I was 19 when we met, and hadn't had enough serious relationships in her mind. I was in love, and it was hurtful. It made me feel like she "knew" I would be desperate for a man.
A "friend" once wrote me a 3 page letter describing why she hated me and why I was the worst person in the world. Thankfully (?) it was so long I just skimmed it and threw it away, so I don't actually remember any of the one-liners I'm sure she spent hours brainstorming. I just remember feeling like the worst person in the universe. We were in our 20s at the time, not middle school, where that letter belonged.
Also in my 20s - I wore a skirt to work once and a male coworker said to me, "you have 2 strings coming out of your skirt." I thought he was being literal so I started looking for loose threads when another female coworker yelled at him and I realized he was referring to my legs. I've had a million nasty "you're too skinny" comments like that but I'll never forget how humiliating that one was.
I vividly remember the boys in grade school used to treat me like a leper. Literally. They would leave wide spaces around me and be visibly disgusted if they accidentally bumped into me. The most confidence shattering was in HS, a girl I thought was in my circle of friends had a birthday party. She invited the entire group of girls, and they all made a pact to keep it from me specifically. I only found out by accident that everyone had been there. This included the girl I thought was my best friend. Birthday girl posted on FB a couple years ago, around our 10th reunion time, that HS was the best time of her life and she couldn't understand how anyone could have bad memories of it. I unfriended her rather than give into temptation to say it was because of people like her that people like me hated HS.
A "friend" once wrote me a 3 page letter describing why she hated me and why I was the worst person in the world. Thankfully (?) it was so long I just skimmed it and threw it away, so I don't actually remember any of the one-liners I'm sure she spent hours brainstorming. I just remember feeling like the worst person in the universe. We were in our 20s at the time, not middle school, where that letter belonged.
I got one of those, too. It was from an ex-Nestie.
She told me I should wear my hair down at my wedding because to hide my strong jaw. I don't have a strong jaw really but I had lost a lot of weight before my wedding.
She also told me that it must be hard for me to be excited about my wedding because I was DH's second wife and people attending probably had mixed feelings about it. Lots more insults about my looks over the years, my unusual career(s) and loads about the fact that I must feel so bummed out about having three sons and no daughters.
Oh, also on my 25th birthday, H took me out to dinner. I forgot something in the car, and went out to get it. On my way back in, 2 guys in a pickup truck yelled, "Fucking fat ass!" And drove off. I didn't tell H for years because I was so embarrassed and felt kind of like I deserved it.
I'm sorry. This is horrible. And you are beautiful.
I don't know if words could ever hurt me as much as actions. When I was in a deeply unhappy time in my 20s I gained a lot of weight. I went home to visit my family for a weekend and my mom kept taking pictures of me at really random times. A few weeks later she sent copies of the pictures to me with a note that said something to the effect of "I don't think you can really see how big you've gotten so here is the evidence." I have so many stories like this.
My XH also hurt me way more with his actions. One particular incident stands out though. When I had an oops pregnancy a few months after we got married (and subsequent m/c, which is how I even found out I was pregnant), he told me he was happy about the m/c because he never wanted to have kids with me because I would be a terrible mother. This was news to me. Our marriage never recovered after that.
Post by bananapancakes on Jun 27, 2016 18:46:21 GMT -5
My brothers were awful to me as a kid. They used to tell me that I had more rolls than a bakery and more chins than a Chinese phone book. There was a period of a year or two where they would "Moooo" at me whenever they saw me and stopped calling me by name and just called me Moo.
Post by yellowbrkrd on Jun 27, 2016 18:53:03 GMT -5
My dad called me thunder thighs in high school and would comment about the weight I carried in my tummy. My mom would always yell at him, but it still stuck.
When I was in 6th grade, the popular girls I thought I was friends with mocked me for my wife mouth and big ears. I've always been self conscious about those two things since.
A guy I rejected told our coworkers that he didn't care because I was a butterface. Someone had to explain ti me what it meant. I still think about it, and feel even worse about it now that I'm not thin like I once was.
Post by gerberdaisy on Jun 27, 2016 19:58:09 GMT -5
I don't know if I could even think of a specific one. Unfortunely xh called me so many that I became numb. Actually, the one that I think of most often is when he told me that he never wanted to have kids with me because I was too fat and he worried that I would raise them to be like me.
A "friend" once wrote me a 3 page letter describing why she hated me and why I was the worst person in the world. Thankfully (?) it was so long I just skimmed it and threw it away, so I don't actually remember any of the one-liners I'm sure she spent hours brainstorming. I just remember feeling like the worst person in the universe. We were in our 20s at the time, not middle school, where that letter belonged.
I got one of those, too. It was from an ex-Nestie.
Post by whitemerlot on Jun 27, 2016 20:39:18 GMT -5
My dad called me pad pants for awhile when I forgot to take a pad out of my underwear and left it in the bathroom one of the first times I had my period. It was awful for me.
Mine aren't particularly shocking. Plenty of middle school shit, but nothing really terrible. I do remember my mom saying, "You aren't my Skinny Minnie anymore!" and "you're cute and she's pretty" about me vs my sister. They weren't meant to be malicious, but they definitely influence things that I say to my kids now.
I went to a small school with the same kids from K-12. I was bullied for the majority of my school years. I don't really remember specific insults but being treated like that for so long by basically everyone you know takes a toll.
My parents have made lots of comments on my weight over the years. I am a size 8 FTR.
Post by everafter07 on Jun 27, 2016 21:25:00 GMT -5
When I was just getting in to going to the gym and eating better, I was walking down the street in my workout gear after leaving the gym and some dickface yelled out a car window "nice canckles!" It wasn't even that bad, it was just that it came at a very tender time, when I had no self esteem.
No individual insult stands out in my memory. Actually, I think all of the "encouragement" from my mom to exercise/eat better/lose weight is what bothers me most. (I'm about 6 pounds overweight, not that it should matter.)
This. My parent's comments about food/my diet and my weight have been far more harmful than anything else.
My sister told me I looked like a gibbon monkey when I was in middle school. I have been self conscious about my nose ever since. My DH thinks I am crazy because he doesn't think there is anything wrong with my nose. My sister and I are actually really close but she went through a mean stage in high school.
My MIL once told me that we should work out together because she "knew what it was like to look in the mirror every day and be disgusted by what you see." Thanks, MIL.
I just want to give everyone a hug. So much hurt, so much inflicted by direct family members.
One of my own. When I was in middle school, after school one day, I was eating some chips and watching TV. My dad told me to stop eating them, said "don't you see how big your thighs are already?" I couldn't have been more than a juniors size 7 at the time. It still hurts me to look back on it.