What’s something that stuck with you that the person who said it probably never realized would have an impact?

35 comments

  1. It’s more what wasn’t said. I remember when I was little, like 5, I called my dad “dad” to get his attention despite never really seeing/knowing him and he wouldn’t look at me. He only responded to me calling him his first name. Around that same age, I remember trying to hug my mom and sister (they were the only people I lived with) and they asked me what was wrong with me. And when I used to tell them “I love you” before school, they never responded to me. So I stopped doing those things. The last time I hugged anyone was like 10 years ago. What a loser lol

  2. “Why don’t you have facial expressions?”

    This was said when I was in 8th grade by a new male friend. I didn’t realise I wasn’t expressing or showing my emotions. I was used to suppressing them from years of it being used against me by my family. Since then, I’m always conscious over my reactions or facial expressions. It’s exhausting to overthink whether my face is appropriate for whatever situation I’m in. Not sure if that makes sense.

  3. “You’re so clever.”

    Which I then internalised and placed all my worth in my intelligence. Like I felt I would never be pretty/get people to like me, but if I was smart it didn’t matter because I could just rely on that and didn’t need friends/love. Then I got to university and was a small fish in a big pond and sort of fell apart because being clever didn’t make me special any more.

    A few years later I watched a documentary and remember one of the experts saying telling a child they’re clever is one of the worst things you can say to them, for exactly the reasons I described. That really resonated with me and I think it’s something that it’s going to take me a long time to unlearn.

  4. “Well, I wanted a normal daughter and not some freak”
    It was an off-handed comment from my mother. She doesn’t even remember it or any of the other mean things she would say to me.

    Ironically, she was the one who made me a “freak” by not taking proper medical care of me and fighting the doctors on my autism diagnosis. Now that I’m taking care of myself and appear “normal” on the outside she is very nice to me and says she can’t understand why am I so cold to her. Why, indeed.

  5. Well most recently being called an alien cyborg by a guy, totally unprompted.

  6. When my parents were in the midst of their divorce, my mom was telling me how their relationship was never that great even when they were just dating. Naturally, I was like “well why did you get married then?” And she responded “because I got pregnant”.

    I’m her oldest child

  8. Damn, everything I’ve been seeing in the comments is so sad, but here’s a positive one:

    At a company Christmas party, my team (who knows that I love to sing and take pride in it) got me to sing karaoke in front of everyone. Afterwards, my supervisor at the time told me I did great and gave me this compliment that has stuck with me even two years later: “When you sing, you look so happy. Like you’re really enjoying it.”

    These words cross my mind whenever I think about my relationship with music, or whenever I’m going through tough times and try to pick myself back up by singing a song or two. He probably doesn’t even remember saying it though; it was just a random compliment he gave in passing.

  9. My sisters and I being categorized by my mum growing up
    She’s the smart one
    She’s the wild one
    She’s the pretty one
    We are all a mixture of all three and more but being reduced to only one thing has shaped our personalities

  11. That men my age (25) aren’t interested with dating single moms like me because the idea of a kid is “too much”. It still lingers.

  12. Make it a great day or not the choice is your’s my high school principal said this

  13. My mum. Suck in your gut you look pregnant – to 10 year old me, who had just started puberty and it kicked off life long body image issues.

    Oh an it was in front of aunts, cousins, and they all laughed. I had literally just walked into the room.

  14. that i am unlovable, i am just a by product when my parents trying to have boys

  15. “What are you so afraid of?”

    This was said to me in one of my university classes by someone I sat next to who was very social. He couldn’t quite figure out why I was so quiet and shy. I do find it difficult to make friends when I have to meet people in person. I think I’m now beginning to realize I have some slight form of social anxiety. Not quite sure how to go about getting diagnosed/help for it. I often think of this one simple question. He didn’t ask this question aggressive or in an insulting way. I genuinely think he was confused by how shy I was.

  16. someone once in frustration told me they felt like every time they brought up an issue with another friend, they felt like instead of hearing them and addressing it, that friend just “fired back” by listing all the things the first friend had also done wrong. so nothing ever got fixed, it just turned into a contest of “who is the worse person” until they got sick of each other and the relationship fizzled. this person wondered why their friend hadn’t brought these issues up in the moment, when it first bothered them, and said it seemed like the second person preferred to save them to use as “gotchas” or get out of jail free cards, more than they cared about actually fixing the issues in their relationship

    she and I never really fought because we were so similar, so I don’t think this was a covert way of trying to tell me something, but I remember thinking “oh my God, that’s me. I do that.”

    I worked on switching my mentality to, “if someone has an issue with me, they have the floor. listen to them, don’t just wait to speak or think of justifications. address the issue. then, once it’s been fully addressed, if I have something I want to bring up as a separate issue, we can do that after.” it’s really changed my relationships for the better

  17. “You assume too much good about people”
    One of the most intelligent person ive ever met said that to me. Sadly, passing years proved him to be right.

  18. My family used to say that I bring misfortune whenever I was present. Whenever something did not go as planned, they would say it was because of me. I was called a jinx for years.

  19. “You can be right or you can be nice”.

    From a wise old co-worker when I was 30. A very sweet girl came to my department to ask me a question. I answered her and she walked away some type of way so I asked him what her problem was. He told me “You can be right or you can be nice”. I was like oh. well, I’m right. It was kind of a compliment back then because I was proud knowing how to do my job. Now it just sits in the back of my brain, like *yeah, you’re right, a-hole*”.

  20. “You don’t have to like it to do it. Just do it.”

    It’s something coaches and my dad have constantly harped on over the years. I fall back on this phrase when there’s something I know I need to do but don’t feel like doing it. I just do it anyway.

  21. My mom excusing my size when buying clothes when I was 11-12 years old. I can still remember the smells, and exactly what we were buying.

    The women in my family never had a healthy relationship to food, I was often told “don’t eat that, it will stick on your hips” and stuff like that.

    I ended up having a severe eating disorder for 20+ years, now recovered. Because of this, I have been very, very strict with never commenting negatively on my own (or anyone else’s!) body in front of my kids. And of course not theirs either. The only comments they get are when they need to wash up or change to clean clothing (clothing they have chosen themselves).

  22. criticizing my weight when I wasn’t even that much overweight at the time… from multiple people.. 😞

  23. During a super duper stressful time in my life, an ex had said something jokingly and I took it literally and got upset. He said, “Babe, you’re losing your sense of humor.” It wasn’t judging or malicious, just an observation – it was true! And it was honestly a breakthrough moment for me. I realized I needed to work on my stress management. Ever since then, whenever times are tough and I get in a doom&gloom mindset, I remind myself not to lose my sense of humor.

  24. “You just get a free pass because you were drunk.” About the guy who took advantage of me when I was drunk. He had a girlfriend.

  25. When I was 10 I drew a drawing in class – like normal for me. The teacher called my mum in to school, and my mum thought I was getting in trouble. My teacher told my mum that I was gifted and to enroll me in art classes, which she did. Since then I’ve gone on to study Fine Art in university and have become an artist. Because that first teacher believed in me as a child, I was able to follow my passion into my adult life.

  26. My mum loves me, and I don’t deny that one bit! But I do remember when I was a kid, she was angry at me for whatever, and she said she regretted having me and didn’t love me.
    I was only maybe about 7/8 but they words were definitely burned into my brain.

  28. my mom and dad both called me stupid when i was around 7 because i had undiagnosed ADHD at the time and wasn’t paying attention in classes to understand a lot of the material. fast forward 13 years later, that’s a trigger word for me and i literally revert back to crying like a little kid if i’m called stupid in an attempt to hurt my feelings.

    what’s funny is i went on to get straight a’s after that and made honor roll & was inducted into the national honor’s society. i think a lot of me pushing myself to do well in school is because i never want to be called stupid again.

  29. “You are a piece of work”. I have forgotten about this but a few weeks go I saw it in a comment under someone’s post and for some reasons, it brings back memories and lingers in my brain ever since.

  31. Growing up,…I looked very big for my age, and puberty wasn’t kind to me. And on top of that,…I was a complete extrovert child. But time & again,…being called names because of my weight and personality, affected me severely, to the point that I retreated in a shell, and completely changed myself to be accepted by others,…to eventually realise that those people never mattered to begin with, and during this whole process, I not just lost my innocence, but a part of my life as well.

  33. Theres various things but the one I overheard more than once was
    “shes a useless waste of space who will never amount to anything and doesnt deserve a place on this earth”

  34. What other people think of you is none of your business (in the context of people who aren’t friends, or aren’t nice/have nice intentions) really helped me in my early 20s to let go of their crap.

  35. My senior year of high school, I auditioned for choir after working with the director in the musical. He kept urging me to audition, and I got into the chamber choir (highest level choir). It was my first year in a choir (except for church) but I was super excited. But, being in high school, people were jealous and petty so they took it out on me. By the time Thanksgiving break came, I was considering dropping choir and not doing the next year’s musical, but decided to talk to my director first.

    When I told him what had been going on, he turned away for a few seconds (most likely to process) then looked right at me and said “ihatepickles, I’m going to tell you this because I care and because it’s something you need to hear. Do not stop singing. Promise me you will never stop singing and don’t listen to anyone who tells you to stop.” He paused. “Unless it’s me. If I tell you to stop during a song, please stop. But other than that, no one gets to tell you to stop singing.” And when classes resumed after break, he went off on them. I never got apologies from any of them but the harassment and bullying stopped. He was the only teacher who ever actually did something about bullying, and he’s the reason I’ve kept singing and am now studying music.

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