"Too fat"

I was an active fifth grade girl. Average build and outgoing. One day at the pool an older boy told me I was too fat for a bikini.

For the next five years I wore suits that covered my stomach and wouldn't show a lot of skin. I still have self image issues.

It didn't help throughout high school, my "BFF" would tell me that they needed to remodel the school to fit my fat ass. She would tell me to stop eating and poke my stomach.

I look back at my high school pictures and wonder how no one noticed how sickly I looked.

"You're too miserable."

Said to me by my best middle school friend, who would often sit me down and confront me about all of the things that were wrong with me. 

Before I met her, I was a happy-go-lucky kid. If she perceived me as being miserable, it was only because her presence made me miserable. 

Of course, at the time, I couldn't recognize this, and I took her comment to heart, thinking that this was just another part of me that was inherently bad or inadequate.

"You are stuck up"

In the 7th grade, I befriended a girl who I became incredibly close with. But before we grew close, she told me that she thought I was really stuck up. I had never heard anyone describe me as "snobby" or "stuck up" before and it hurt my feelings very much because although I'm stubborn, I didn't think of myself in that light. It was a description that I associated with kids who had wealthy parents and spoke over their classmates with arrogance.

It was always in her character to be bluntly honest, so I put my trust in her because I thought she would always tell it to me straight. I started to think that other people may have the same impression of me but never told me.

In the end, we grew apart. I endured an emotionally-abusive friendship because I was a self conscious 13 year old and I wanted to be edgy and "fun." She took advantage of the fact that I was highly impressionable and I trusted her; she was clever, charming, and could argue her way out of any situation. I wanted so badly to be more like her and less of an uptight "snob." 

I don't think of myself as stuck up anymore. I am now 24 and much more confident than I used to be, but I haven't forgotten what she said.

"Are you manic?"

A competitive high school acquaintance asked me this very bluntly, and in a very cutting way.

It was one of the first times I realized that my depression was apparent on the outside.

These words still echo in my head any time I hit a really high high, or a really low low.

I don't even think she'd remember asking me that, but it's one of the cruelest things anyone has ever said to me.

When I was in college, my friend was struggling with coming out as bi. I wasn’t understanding the struggle, nor did I understand the coming out process. Our mutual friend accused me of not being supportive of our friend and told me I was insensitive, and that I’d never understand how difficult it was.

A few months later, I came out as gay, and the mutual friend’s voice played over and over in my head, telling me how difficult it was to come out. It made me feel like the sudden peace and understanding of who I was was somehow wrong. I felt like I was doing something wrong and I should have been struggling so much more. To this day, I still wonder if I should have struggled more.

I moved around a few times growing up. Right before I moved across the country the summer after 9th grade, a close friend filled my yearbook pages with lovely memories but most importantly a note that said, “No matter where our lives take us and even if we drift apart, we’ll always have these memories from this past year.” Her words stuck with me after that and helped me get through the tough times when friendships faded or when I needed a push to see the bright side of things.

This friend and I did drift apart when I moved, but nearly a decade later we found ourselves living in the same city and our friendship picked up right where it left off. 

I was in fourth grade, it was the first hot day of the year, and I was so excited to finally be able to wear my new tank top from Gap Kids.

When I got to school, the first person I saw was this girl who I had recently become good friends with. She was standing by the door with a group of people, and she said to me, loudly, “You should NOT be wearing that!” They all laughed. 

I was so shocked and caught off guard. I don’t even remember what I said in response. I think I laughed and kept walking.

To this day I’m not sure exactly why she thought I shouldn’t have been wearing that tank top. Maybe it was because I wasn’t wearing a bra, or maybe my arms looked weird or something. But it makes me really sad to think that I’m still trying to figure out what was objectively “wrong” with my nine-year-old body.