When I started dating my first boyfriend in 11th grade, I had been anorexic for roughly 4 years, and was trying to go into recovery.
In the midst of this, my boyfriend told me one day, “I’m glad you have an eating disorder, you could lose a few pounds.”
5 years later and 4 years into recovery, I still think of his comment any time I step on the scale and think about relapsing.
Delivering my first child was easy, but the recovery was complicated. The placenta had been retained and I was still experiencing the symptoms of preeclampsia for almost 3 weeks afterwards. It seemed like every time we would leave the hospital, I had to turn around and be readmitted.
One night, just hours after leaving the hospital I told my husband something was wrong and we needed to go back. He asked me, "Are you even sure you want this baby? Every time we finally get home and should be able to spend time together, you always want to leave and go back. Do you even want us in your life? The next time you go back we aren't going with you."
When we arrived at the hospital I was rushed into emergency surgery. Something was physically wrong with me and I understand he was frustrated and scared but there was no reason to make me feel worse than I already did.
For a long time, I felt like my depression was ruining my marriage, but after I started going to therapy, I finally felt like I was making progress towards being "normal."
One day, my therapist told me that often with her married patients, improving their sex life was pivotal in improving their self-esteem. This made sense to me, because my sex life was nearly nonexistent.
I picked my husband up from work that evening, and told him about what my therapist had said. Before I could go further, he interrupted me to say, "I would want to have sex with you, if only you had a rockstar body."
Even when I was thin, my body image was terrible. But this shot what little confidence I had. His cruelty in that moment made me never want sex again, and I've not since initiated.
It's been five years since then. He's had affairs. I've been suicidal. He's told me to kill myself. And one day, I might.
Growing up, I was always on the bigger side. My grandma would try to "help" motivate me to lose weight by saying, "Boys won't think you're pretty if you're fat."
This started when I was five years old.
My mother, siblings and I were looking over my report card. I had finally gotten all A's and made the high honor roll! I was ecstatic, and I happily told my mom how proud I was of myself.
Her reply? "Finally. Seems like that's the only thing you're good for."
I told her that I thought I was a pretty good person, and I listed all the things about myself that I was proud of.
"Yeah, but you still don't pay any bills and you do nothing for the family," she said. "That makes you lazy and useless."
I was 14 then. I recently graduated from college, and on my graduation day, that was what kept buzzing around in my head. Lazy and useless. I'm the first in my family to graduate from college. But I still feel lazy and useless.
My husband was emotionally cruel to me, and then he had an affair. I went to stay with a friend and I asked my husband for a divorce.
This "friend" told me, "You're too much. No wonder he treats you bad. You deserve it."
Believing this to be true, I went back to my husband. I was a horrible person who deserved to suffer, right?
I got back, he got drunk. He told me that the next time I want to die, he won't stop me because I'm worthless, I'm fat, and he could always do better. He reminded me that even my family thinks that I'm stupid, and they don't want me.
I live in utter isolation because I don't have real friends, and I feel like I deserve his abuse.
A few years ago, my mom and I were fighting yet again. As she stormed out of the room, she said, "You're acting like such a bitch."
I'd never been called something so hateful in my life, not even jokingly. I was too shocked to cry. The person who I loved more than anything thought I was a bitch.
Now we're best friends and curse each other out occasionally as a joke, but I will never forget that moment.
When I was 8 years old, my sister and I went to my grandfather's house in Arizona. His wife loved my sister and bought her anything she wanted. But when I would even look at something, she would tell me, "Fat girls don't get to wear pretty things."
That was 20 years ago, and to this day I believe that fat girls can't wear pretty things, which is why I wear nothing but sweats and t-shirts. It was just in the last year or so that I started wearing tank tops.
Towards the end of my junior year, I was wearing a skater skirt and tight crop top. Our school doesn't have AC and gets extremely hot near the end of the year, so I wore this a lot.
I was talking in art class with two of my girlfriends and three of our best guy friends. We were all chit chatting and laughing when the art teacher called me over to her desk and told me to think about what I wear next time, and that I was violating dress code because half an inch of my mid drift was showing and my skirt was too short. Even though the skirt was at finger tip length, which meets the school requirement on skirts.
She proceeded to say in a sarcastic and degrading way, "There's a reason five guys are standing around you right now." Even though it was three guys and they in no way ever even flirted with me. I was about to explode, so I walked away from her desk and sat and talked to my friends about it. They all were shocked and outraged. The teacher overheard us and then proceeded to talk about it loudly to the whole classroom, degrading my outfit.
My friend spoke up and said, "Stop sexualizing women's bodies."
Then the teacher tried to give me detention and keep me after class for the commotion SHE caused.
I went home bawling for two hours because I felt so awful and embarrassed. She never apologized. And I forever am worried about seeing her in the halls with whatever I wear.
My ex boyfriend always begged me to have sex. He'd connect sex with everything and guilt me into doing it until I finally just never wanted to have sex at all. One day we were arguing and he told me, "I just don't think you'll ever find a guy willing to deal with how weird you are about sex." I ignored it.
A few months later, I sent him a selfie from my office; I was having a good day so I smiled for the picture and sent it to him. He replied, "Yeah. Those are the lips I want slobbering on my cock."
I'll never forget how utterly disgusted he made me feel.
Has anyone ever made a fleeting comment about you that immediately became tattooed onto the front of your brain for all of eternity, impacting your self-perception and self-worth? Whether it was an offhand comment made by someone you love and respect or a fleeting declaration by someone you barely know, we share the moments that stick.
