Once when I was in middle school, I was joking around with my dad and we were just having a grand ole time. Then I tried to climb on him, but he wouldn't let me. He said, "You're too fat to be doing this."
I immediately stopped and ran and locked myself in my room and just cried and cried. I could hear my mom yelling at him for being such a dick.
To this day I'm still conscious about my weight because of him, even though I'm a 130 lbs and 5'7" college girl.
"You talk too much. No one cares." - My aunt, when I was 8.
"Who sings this? How about you leave it to them?" - My father, when I was 11.
"Your hair doesn't matter. No one is going to be looking at it with those thunder thighs in the picture. You'd be pretty if you'd just stop eating." - Also my dad, when I was 13.
"No one will ever be as amazing as you are." - My husband, frequently.
When I turned twelve years old, I overheard our our 45-year-old neighbor say to my dad, "I can't wait until she turns sixteen so I can fuck the shit out of her."
My neighbor didn't know that I heard him.
And my dad didn't know that I saw him punch our neighbor in the face.
When I was in 7th grade, I mistakenly thought I was supposed to dress up for career day. I didn't know any better. People made fun of me for it, telling me I was weird and stupid. They laughed at me and joked about me.
This was the moment in which I became extremely aware of myself. I started to get my entire self worth from other people's meaningless jokes, side comments, and attention.
I am now in 11th grade with social anxiety, and can't even talk to people I don't know or only sort of know without crying and hyperventilating. Those comments definitely stuck with me.
When I was in 7th grade, I bought a new white miniskirt and couldn't wait to wear it to school. It was the middle of February, but I knew that people still wore skirts in the winter, as long as they were wearing tights.
When I showed up to school, my then-best friend waited for me at the top of the stairs to judge my outfit, like she did every day. She took one look at my short skirt and shouted, "What's wrong with you?! It's winter!" Then everyone looked at me and pointed out how crazy I was for wearing a skirt in February.
She made sure I didn't forget my foolish decision all day long. Every time we passed each other in the hall, she would scream, "It's WINTER!!!" to me. This drove me crazy, because even if my choice to wear a skirt in February wasn't the wisest decision on my part, there was nothing she could say to change the fact that I was already at school in this outfit. It's not like if she said it extra-convincingly, my skirt would magically transform itself into long-johns and jeans. I was stuck at school in this tiny skirt, and her constant vocal protest of my outfit made me feel naked and exposed and trapped.
She was a very unsupportive friend in general, and I am happy to say that we are no longer friends.
It was 2010. I moved to a new town and was starting my first year of high school. I saw this guy around school all the time. He was a year ahead of me. I wanted to get to know him but I was too shy. I was just the new girl. One day, he approached me, and from that one encounter, we soon became best friends. But for me, shortly after, I realized that I loved him.
I could never tell him, because I didn't want to ruin what we shared. Years went by, and I got into a relationship in late 2012. He had been dating a girl since the year before. Things were going well. We were such great friends. Yet, despite having a boyfriend and caring about him, I couldn't help but love my best friend still. I'd fantasize what it must be like to hold his hand with our fingers intertwined. Or what it would be like to gently plant a kiss on his lips.
But it was only in my dreams.
A few more years went by. And we both got out of our toxic relationships. It was 2014. I had just graduated from high school. We were at my house one day in the summer, laughing and drinking Capri Sun, having the most hilarious conversation, when he suddenly fell silent and whispered to me "You know...I've always loved you."
I was stunned. At first I thought I was dreaming. But when I whispered "what..?" He smiled and said it again. "I've always loved you."
It is now 2016, and we are happily with one another. And I couldn't ask for anything more than to be with my best friend. Always.
When I was in junior high, I was overweight and spent most of the school dances alone, in the corner.
The last dance of 8th grade, the school hired a DJ who would dedicate songs to couples, and they would go to the floor and slow dance together. Imagine my surprise when the DJ announced the next slow song dedicated to me, by one of the most popular boys in school! We danced together, and I felt so special.
After the dance was over, I returned to my dark corner where I overheard the DJ talking about a group of pranksters who were dedicating slow songs to all the fat/ugly/unpopular girls, so the popular boys had to dance with them.
I have never been so humiliated.
15 years latter I have thankfully left behind my ugly duckling phase. That particular popular boy is now bald and short. But still, I don't think my self-esteem will ever recover from such mortification.
I had a huge crush on a guy in 8th grade, and was devastated when he started going out with this girl I hated.
I came home crying about it, and my mom just said, "Did you really think he would have picked you over her?"
She said this because he was white, I was black, and the other girl was white. It was like I never had a chance because of that.
To this day, I still have doubts about myself when I find a white guy attractive.
The first time I ever wore makeup was when I used my mom's foundation in middle school.
When I walked into class, one of the other girls pointed at me and said, "It looks like you have a spray tan, but only on your face!"
Now I'm a cosmetologist.
It all started when I was eight years old. My sister, who is four years older than me, and I had spent the evening arguing over some not so import things. Like most children, we had our sibling rivalries. But this particular argument set my father off, and when I bring the subject up to him now a days he doesn't even remember. But I do. Oh God, how I remember.
My father pulled my sister and me off each other and sent me to my room as punishment. I wasn't angry about his decision, but I was upset and crying.
My sister was definitely the golden child, while I was always the black sheep. Our rooms were next to one another, connected by our closets. After I was sent to my room, I could hear her on the phone with her friend through the thin walls of our connected closest. She was complaining about me, saying some really hurtful things. I vividly remembering sitting under all my hanging clothes, crying about all the horrible things my sister said about me.
I guess I was really loud because only moments later my father burst into my room and threw open the closest door and began to scream a million things. But one thing he said sticks with me to this day.
"Don't fucking cry. Only babies cry."
This was the day that my now-eleven year journey with depression began.
Be careful what you say to your children. You could be setting them up on a date with the monsters that live inside their head, waiting to be released from their jail.
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.
