"You look like a boy from behind."

When I was 11 years old, I hit puberty. I got taller and thinner overnight. I developed faster than the other girls, and they all made fun of me for it. 

I came home crying about it to my parents and they told me to laugh it off. 

Over the next few months I became even thinner. I was a stick. 

My stepmom and my dad told me, "You look like a boy from behind," because of my lack of curves. They continued telling me this for years. 

I'm 19 now and I still think about my "lack of curves" and how I "look like a boy from behind." 

I cant shake that.
 

"You're a mixed breed."

I am Caucasian, African American, Irish, and Native American. I have caramel light skin and extremely curly hair. So I always stuck out like a sore thumb.

When I was in school the question I always got was, "What are you mixed with?"

Once I got to middle school, it turned from genuine curiosity to physical and verbal abuse. 

People would drag me by my hair or spit gum in my hair, so I had to cut it. 

People said things to me like: 

"You're a mixed breed. A mutt."

"You have no place in this world."

"You need to go kill yourself. The world would be better off."

I guess you can say I'm a rebel or a loner now, but I'm turning twenty soon and this is something that has always still stuck with me. I could never shake it. 

Now I take a high pride in being biracial, but back then I could never understand why people didn't like me. 

"I picked him but I didn't pick you."

My mother's husband always disliked me and frequently physically and verbally abused me. It got worse when I started fighting back, at around 9 or 10. One day we got into a vicious argument, and he locked me out of the house. 

My mom eventually came home and asked why I was crying on the porch, and I told her what had happened. She told me that I was instigating trouble with him.

I asked why she always sided with him, and her response was, "I will always side with him. I picked him but I didn't pick you."

I've never forgotten that. 

Every time I see her, that's what I think of. I'll never forget that she didn't "pick" me. 

Ever since then, I've never picked her either. And I never will.

"Boys can't be sexually assaulted by girls."

When I was in high school I struggled with my sexuality. I never dated, never 'experimented.' My freshman year a female friend of mine asked me out, but I declined because I didn't have feelings like that for her. She said okay, and we continued to be friends.

Before the end of the year she sexually assaulted me, at the school, when nobody was around. When I tried to tell people, they dismissed me and said that I was lying because she wasn't attractive and I was ashamed. And many people said, "Boys can't be sexually assaulted by girls."

Years later I moved across the country and began to move past the trauma of being assaulted. A girl who was acquainted with my roommate came to our apartment and told me that she thought I was attractive. I removed myself from the situation and went to bed, the reminder of what happened last time made me sick. 

Then she forced herself into my bed and I was sexually assaulted again. She said I couldn't tell anyone because they wouldn't believe me anyway.

That will never leave me. 

And even now that I am in a happy, loving relationship I still get a spike of fear when someone reveals that they find me attractive.
 

"Was he at least kind about it?"

When I told a friend that I had been raped, she asked me, "Was he at least kind about it?" 

I was dumbfounded, so I didn't say anything except no. 

This still bothers me, and I am shocked by the way our culture portrays and views this horrendous criminal act.
 

"What kind of a retarded freak are you?"

My birthday is in September, so I was just 11 years old when I started 7th grade. My Spanish teacher was going over the lesson, and I kept mispronouncing several words. She finally exploded at me in front of the class and said, "What kind of a retarded freak are you?" 

I turned bright red while more than 60 eyes zeroed in on my agony. 

Later that day, I went home and just cried. Cried and cried. My parents were the type that felt the teacher could do no wrong. It was the first time in my life someone other than family had made me feel so worthless and useless. 

Somehow, I made it through 7th grade and the Spanish language well enough to become fluent in it. 

Years later, I became a New York City teacher. I spent about 30% of my time as a teacher speaking Spanish with students, most of whom were from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. 

In my last year teaching before I retired, a student asked me why I became a teacher. It was at that very moment I actually realized why. 

I never wanted another child to be publicly humiliated by a teacher like I was by my 7th grade Spanish teacher.
 

"You're so ugly."

When I was in high school, there was a girl who would whisper in my ear every time I walked by her. 

Every day, multiple times a day, she'd come up to me and whisper, "You're so ugly."
 

Connect the Dots

In second grade, there was one kid who always picked on me. He called me lots of names and said lots of mean things to me all year, but the one thing that stuck with me the most was when he said, "Let's play connect the dots, and you're it!"

Kids can be so cruel. I couldn't help that I had freckles!

I'm 31 years old now, and I love all of me. I try not to let anyone's opinion bother me, but I still remember the way that kid made me feel all those years ago. 

"You'll end up barefoot and pregnant in a trailer park."

Growing up with four siblings was hard enough without throwing a drug addicted father into the mix. I always took the blame for my brothers and sisters, so that they wouldn't get hit. 

As a result, my dad would say things to me like, "You're not good enough," "You're stupid," and "You'll end up barefoot and pregnant in a trailer park." 

I am now 27 years old and have four beautiful girls. I wouldn't change how I grew up because it made me who I am today. 

But you better believe I won't allow anyone to treat me that way, ever again.
 

"No one is ever going to want you."

Being a size 6, I've never thought I was fat, I just knew I wasn't a size 00, which was fine with me. 

But my ex loved to say things like, "How can you still be hungry?" or, "Do you really need to eat that?" or, "Eat up fatty." I had always laughed it off and convinced myself he was joking.

It wasn't until one night that it really got to me. We were eating out and he refused to let me order dessert. He looked at me and said, "You need to stop with the food. If you keep it up, no one is ever going to want you. I don't date fat girls."

Looking back on it, I'm not sure why I stayed with someone so critical and hateful. Maybe it was the feeling that I needed to be accepted by him to validate my worth. 

It wasn't until months later, after I had worked out and starved myself to exhaustion that I realized he was fighting a battle with himself all along, and that there was never anything wrong with me.

Years later, I'm now with a man who tells me every day how beautiful "every inch of me" is. He's convinced I've never had enough to eat, and he always, always says yes when I want to order dessert.