My mother's ex-husband was an alcoholic. His drink of choice was Captain Morgan mixed with Mountain Dew. I would smell it on him when he came home, I would smell it on him when he screamed at me, and I would smell it on him when he beat me. He would tell me how fat and useless and stupid I was, and I could smell it on his breath.
To this day, I have trouble accepting compliments, and I can't stand the smell of Captain Morgan.
When I was 12, I had to go swim suit shopping with my mother for a one piece to wear to my cousin's church camp. After picking an orange swim suit to represent our group's color, she pointed and the clear plastic mannequin the swim suit was on and laughed, "Oh look, even the mannequin has bigger boobs than you do!"
When I was only 7 years old, in second grade, I was teased about my weight and my choices in clothes. No girls wanted to be my friend and guys called me ugly all the time.
What stuck with me was that one day, a boy who I had a crush on told me the only way I would loss my virginity is if I got raped.
I wonder how he would feel knowing that that is how it happened. That I lost my virginity against my will.
I caught my boyfriend cheating on me again. I knew it was stupid to stay with him, but we had been dating since my freshman year of high school, and we were going on five years, so it terrified me to leave him. Each time he cheated on me was for a different reason, so I simply asked, "What's your excuse this time?"
He looked at me with fury in his eyes and blurted out, "Well just look at you! You've let yourself go. You do not look the same as when I first met you. I know I don't look the same either, but I'm not as bad as you."
I was stunned. I was a 150 pound 15 year old girl when we met, and stood in front of him as a 180 pound woman.
I didn't even cry. I just excused myself from the room.
I don't know what possessed me to stay with him for another year. He never even apologized. The most he ever said was, "That was a bad choice of words."
After that night, I exercised constantly behind his back. To this day I'm a fitness freak, only because I'm scared to death of gaining weight and having another person fall out of love with me.
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 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.
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.
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.
