"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.
I feel this story is a little silly, but it did really affect me when it happened.
I've dealt with bullying from preschool straight through high school. By my sophomore year, I thought I'd convinced myself that nothing else could hurt me, that I've heard it all.
I was in a club meeting after school and I wasn't really feeling it. I stepped out to use the bathroom.
The halls were quiet and the bathroom was empty. Then some girls came in after I started going, and one of them yelled, "Damn waterfall!" The girls laughed loudly and left.
I didn't see them, and they didn't see me, but it really bothered me for some reason.
I've had a very shy bladder for about 5 years after.
It's the same feeling people get when they're eating chips, like they're chewing too loudly, even if it's not actually bothering anyone.
One day, when I was in the first grade, I was playing on the playground at school. I was never very outgoing and I didn't have a lot of friends. A second grade boy came over to me. He looked at me and said, "You aren't pretty."
As a child, my first instinct was to say, "Yes I am! My momma told me I am!"
With that, he quickly lashed out with, "Well, she lied."
As I grew older, his words stuck with me. They took a bigger toll on my self confidence than I would like to admit. Something so seemingly small that happened to me as a child in the first grade impacted me for the next ten years.
Then, one day when I was a camp counselor, I met a boy who told me he loved me. I thought I was sitting among the stars. No one outside of my family had ever told me they loved me before. For the first time since first grade, I felt like I was pretty enough. Like I was wanted.
Time went on and so did the relationship. Then one day, he spoke four words that cut me deep. "I don't love you."
I felt unwanted, unlovable. I was depressed for the longest time.
Eventually I figured out how to enjoy just being me. I loved being myself again.
Then, one day, I met an amazing man with a great personality, and equally great looks. I was a second semester freshman in college. I quickly learned about him: his past, his family, his likes and dislikes, his dreams. He made me feel loved, wanted, and important. I loved him more than I ever thought I could love someone. And for the first time in a while, I knew I was good enough. Life seemed to fall into place. We talked about marriage, children, and growing old together.
Then, one day as we were Skyping, he dropped his head in silence. Then he uttered the words I thought he would never say. "I don't think we're going to work. I don't love you".
I was more than devastated. I was so heartbroken, I couldn't even cry. It was almost like my heart broke into two pieces, and then a million more. I could feel my heart shatter like glass in my chest.
Days went by and I tried to hide the pain, but the nights were long. Often times I cried myself to sleep, other times I fell asleep from the pure exhaustion of crying so hard the night before.
Weeks went by and I still missed him, but the tears stopped. Slowly but surely, I started to be me again.
With the help of my best friend, I realized I was depending too much on others making me happy, that I had forgotten how to make myself happy.
Now I am happily single. I enjoy every day. I'm going to take life by the horns. I'm going to keep knowing that I am pretty, I am wanted, and I am loved.
Then, one day, I'll get make someone else feel the same way.
As a kid I always knew that college was the end game of going to school. You do well in school so that you can get into college. It was an assumption I had.
Then one day when I was about 7, my college dropout mom said to me, "College?!" Followed by hysterical laughter. "You won't ever go to college! There's no way we could ever help you pay for it. And good luck paying for it yourself!"
I've struggled in school since then. But not because it was hard. I always tested well. I just never put in any effort. I wasn't going to be a doctor or a lawyer, so why did it matter? I just wanted to be a mechanic or a construction worker after that. That was what everyone in my family did that had dropped out of high school, and they had their own lives, nice trucks, houses. I just wanted to quit school and get to it. I felt like I was wasting time there ever since my mom made those comments.
But I had to stay because my family wanted me to have a high school diploma.
The same people that told me I could never go to college.
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 could never commit to school. I've always been very anxious and weird, and of course that's blood in the water for the horrific nightmare sharks that are children.
The one thing I actually liked doing was writing, because I could express myself without feeling overwhelmingly self-conscious.
A teacher that I genuinely liked and respected, who I think came to know me exclusively through the essays I turned in, once told me, "You're the winning team. People root for you."
I don't necessarily think there's anyone screaming my name from the bleachers, but for one meaningful second, I felt like maybe things would be okay.
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.
Throughout my entire elementary/middle/high school experience, I was bullied. If it wasn't my weight, it was my scars; if it wasn't those, it was something I said. The way I walked. Anything.
In grades 6 & 7, there was a specific group of kids that bullied me, and they had a ringleader. He was always the worst - he tried to start real, physical fights with my boyfriend at the time - and I was pretty tired of it, so I reported him.
Of course it only got worse. But the weird thing - the odd, wonderful thing - was that, a year after these incidents, he apologized. He sent me a message asking my forgiveness for all the things he'd said to me.
And then, years later, in our junior year of high school, he really floored me: I was tired one day, and I decided to lie on the floor during lunch. He and his friends (the same group that had bullied me for so long) were standing across the hallway, talking amongst themselves. I was lying on the floor, my eyes closed, wondering if skipping class was worth my parents' anger, when someone touched my arm.
I looked up, and there he was. The kid who'd spent a good portion of our middle school years making my life miserable.
"Hey, are you alright?" He asked. He looked sincere. His friend, another big bully, stood behind him, nodding. "Yeah, you okay?" He added.
It's stuck with me ever since, that a kid who was so awful to me and so many others could have such a huge change of heart.
When I was 9, my older sister told me I looked like Littlefoot (the dinosaur from The Land Before Time movies) when I wore turtlenecks.
I haven't worn a turtleneck since.
In fifth grade, I started taking choir class. On the first day, our teacher taught us how to sing high notes. I was really excited to be learning this, because I loved singing and had never taken formal lessons, and my singing voice was naturally lower and I always wanted to learn how to sing higher.
After a few weeks of choir, I was so excited to share my improving singing skills with my friends. During one of our regular 5th grade academic classes, I gathered a bunch of friends in the back of the classroom at our cubbies to show them what I had learned in choir.
All of a sudden, our teacher yelled to the back of the classroom in an irritated tone, "Whoever is making that horrible noise, please stop! You sound like a dying cat!"
It was clear from her tone that she thought that whoever was making the noise was doing it to be annoying and irritating.
I stopped taking choir after 5th grade, and have never taken the signing lessons that I had always wanted.
Writing this now is actually really helpful for me. Now after all these years, I might actually pursue singing lessons.
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.
