When I was in 3rd grade, I walked in on my mom purging, and she told me, "I have a stomach ache, and I have to get everything out to feel better."
From that moment on, I started purging whenever I had a stomach ache. For years.
It took me until I was 25 and finally on the proper medication to realize that I've had an eating disorder my whole life, and it all started when my mother told me a story instead of telling me the truth about her problem.
When I was about eleven, my mother took me to visit her parents. They were emotionally and verbally abusive when she was growing up, and she still constantly seeks their approval. She wanted to show off her golden child so that her parents would have an opportunity to find something good in her.
We ended up in a discussion where my grandfather told me, "It's impossible for you to make good decisions because your brain isn't fully developed. You'll be making bad decisions until your mid-twenties." He added that I would probably be pregnant a few times and that I would borrow (and owe) him money between then and brain maturity time.
He was wrong, but I still remember him saying that.
When I was in first grade, there was a girl who liked to tease me in a rather simple but hurtful way. I was a very talkative child, but every time I said something, she said to me, "Nobody cares."
Eventually I stopped being talkative and became a quiet child. Now I am a quiet 20 year old struggling to talk to people, with barely any friends.
To top this all, my parents say I'm a very boring person. They don't believe in mental illnesses or disorders that I could have, so they just tell me to get over myself.
I just honestly think that nobody cares.
I had a problem with self harm a few years ago. When I finally decided to reveal it to my mom (because I was sick of hiding), one of the things she said about it really bothered me.
"It's not cool. It's scary."
I just can't figure out where she got the idea that I was doing this to myself because I thought it was cool. Her reaction made me feel like she was dismissing the problem by ignoring the underlying issues and simplifying it to some weird hobby or something.
Ever since I can remember, I had difficulties in school, and I was always really socially awkward. Starting in second grade, I was severely teased for being different.
My second grade teacher was so supportive and kind, and he advocated that I get tested to find out why I was different from everyone else. But after I was tested, my mother, who I refer to as "Birthgiver" made sure I never found out the results.
I used to come home in tears, begging to know why I was so different, and she would say things like, "What did you do to them first to make them tease you?" "You're lazy and don't apply yourself." "The only way I can get through to you is by hitting you." "You need to stop being such a baby."
By high school, I finally just stopped asking why I was different. Stopped telling her in detail about how cruel kids were to me. I just started saying "I'm fine," and, "School was fine."
I started dating someone at age 19, got married and divorced, and didn't speak to my birthgiver for eight years.
When I finally reached out to her, I hoped that she had realized her faults in our relationship. Instead of taking accountability for what she did, she just said. "Oh, yeah, I guess I did screw up minorly by not telling you that you have autism."
That has always stuck with me. If I had known I had autism sooner, and she had gotten me some additional help from outside school, maybe I wouldn't have struggled for so long.
As a kid I was always taller and more shapely than everyone else my age. In 7th grade when all of my little petite friends were getting "boyfriends," one of my friends asked my crush if he liked me.
His response was, "Oh, she's pretty, but she's just way too big for me to be with. If she were smaller, then sure."
I have never forgotten that. And now, ten years later, I still have anxiety every time I look into the mirror.
I had a summer internship in college at a summer camp. The boss was terrible to work for and always felt off, and a news story eventually revealed him to be a pervert who had groomed, molested, and raped one of the campers, a 14-year-old girl. He had given her a ride home one day, but instead of taking her home, brought her back to his place where he sexually assaulted her.
I told my mom about it and her immediate reaction was, "Why did she get in the car with him?!"
This reaction irreversibly changed the way I saw my mother: as the kind of woman who would blame a 14-year-old girl for being raped.
To this day she still does not understand why I don't want to put that internship on my resume.
When I was in 5th grade, we took a class trip to Canada.
While we all walked around a beautiful mansion/ castle, my best friend's mom looked at me and said, "Suck your stomach in. In a year you will lose some inches off, and you won't look as fat."
When I was in school, teachers didn't know about dyslexia, ADHD, or PTSD. They didn't understand my stutter, so I stopped talking, and just did the best I could to keep up and not get noticed by my teachers anymore.
They did notice. All through my youth I was told I was "stupid," "deliberately acting dumb," and "failing tests on purpose." I was told I would never graduate. I got lumped in with the bad crowd, and wore my "dumbness" with pride. Until I met my 8th grade math teacher.
Math was always my worst subject. Dyslexia turns timed multiplication tests into an instant panic attack. My former math teachers told me that they let me pass their classes just so they wouldn't have to deal with me again.
But this one teacher. He kept me after class and helped me with homework. He walked me through tests so I would slow down enough to finish them. And then one day, out of the blue, he told me I was smart, and that my brain just worked too fast for anyone else to keep up.
In all of my 15 years, nobody had ever called me smart.
With that one little comment, I started passing classes. I ended up graduating not only high school, but college, too. My stutter slowed, and now, years later, I still truly believe that I'm smart.
That one math teacher that took time out of his overworked days to tell the dumb kid she was smart. That's what stuck with me.
When I was 14 or 15, I tried to kill myself.
I woke up in the bathroom of our trailer park, covered in blood, with a razor blade in my hand. I had shallow and deep cuts all over my arms and legs. I grabbed my cell phone from the bench next to me and called my mum, crying. She walked down from our trailer and flipped out when she found me. She called an ambulance and my dad.
When the paramedics arrived, I was drifting in and out of consciousness. I remember being strapped to the gurney and loaded into the ambulance. I could hear my mum talking to one of the EMTs. When they asked her why I would do something like that, she said, "She does this when she doesn't get her way."
I have never forgotten that night and the betrayal that I felt.
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.
