what's the worst personal comment you have received from a person ?

ViceVersa

I admire those of you who can brush off hurtful comments, but for some of us, those things can leave a lifetime of misery. Sticks and stones may break our bones - but words can scar too.

But why?

PinkCosmos

My mother telling me I had 'footballers legs'', that I should wear a girdle, that I should wear empire line or princess line dresses as they were more slimming.

This was when I was in my early teens. I was 5'4", 8 1/2 stone and a old size 12, which is probably a size 10 now. All of my adult life I have had no body confidence.

8.5 stones is absolutely standard weight for a 5'4" woman. I don't know what "build" your figure is - but the old height/weight tables is what I still go by and I remember that as being bang on perfect weight for a medium build woman of that height. The weight range for that height and build goes from just over 7.5 stones up to 10stone 2 lbs if my memory serves me right.

Darn nearly everyone of medium build/that height (which was most of us) weighed 8.5 stones or thereabouts and that was fine. It was acceptable to be up to real size 16 (now relabelled as vanity size 14).

Yep I was 5' 3.75" exactly and weighed 8.5 stones and wore a "real" size 14 in clothing (ie which would now be labelled as bottom half as vanity size 10 and top half as vanity size 12).
The "perfect" sizes to be are real size 8 up to real size 14 - so basically knock one number off that to see what the clothes are in modern-day vanity sizes.

At my normal size (errrrm...which I've not been for a while now - whoops! one day...one day...I'll get back to normal) my figure is 36C- 26 -36 and the absolute smallest I've been was real size 12 and weighing 7stone 12 lbs. That was all absolutely fine and I wouldnt have expected criticism if one part of my anatomy was bigger than that size woman usually had - and the thing is for the body as a whole to be in desirable size range and provided the whole picture is okay = not a problem.

Many years ago, we flew with Emirates with a stopover at Dubai Airport. The airport was so chaotic, they were building a new terminal.

At the airport, I told my husband and daughter to wait there whilst I checked out whether we were in the right queue.

When I went out of the glass sliding door, an Arabic looking stewardess shouted at the top of her lungs at me ‘MADAM !!! WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?’ because she thought I was a foreign maid from Asia from the way I dress.

That was the first and last time we flew with Emirates. After that incident, it’s back with Singapore Airlines.

I have posted about that occasion before.
My friend is quite a social climber and after redundancy her H was offered a part time job at a very small family firm .
He was in charge of one girl doing accounts.
He ended up on the death certificate as a Company Director.
This was giving a monthly report to the owner of the company.

Not really nasty but quite funny really.
When a friend’s H died, her S rang me to ask if I would go with his Mother to register the death.
Some time later it came up in conversation with other friends.
My friend remarked on how I had gone with her on the sad occasion and then ruined it by saying , we had already asked M but she was busy so A was only second choice.
I was shocked then burst out laughing saying ,well at least I know my place.

I was looking through some photos yesterday when I came across a photo of me, my daughter, and granddaughter.
They both had a top on that was once mine 😂

I admire those of you who can brush off hurtful comments, but for some of us, those things can leave a lifetime of misery. Sticks and stones may break our bones - but words can scar too.

crazyH

Lots of nasty personal things have been said to me, by people who were very closely related to me. If I write them down, it will only remind me of the hurt and I will hurt all over again, so I’ll leave it for now. The tongue is mightier than the sword !

Same

My mother telling me I had 'footballers legs'', that I should wear a girdle, that I should wear empire line or princess line dresses as they were more slimming.

This was when I was in my early teens. I was 5'4", 8 1/2 stone and a old size 12, which is probably a size 10 now. All of my adult life I have had no body confidence.

From my son's ex- that I am a terrible grandmother and a very bad mother.

45 years ago by my Mum.... don't know why you ever had children........and boy did it sting and stay with me.

Personally - I find it best to mentally turn nasty comments on their head and think "Now what does that say about the person that made that comment?". Followed by thinking "Well I know and/or can see that they are awful in such-and-such respect - so they have no right to talk" or "They're not very bright - so what are they doing saying that to me?"

It's usually the case that I clearly have seen or "know" that they have some bad characteristic themselves - ie dishonest or what I call a "greedy grabber" or something. So why would I take anything they say seriously then in that case? I'd only take seriously a nasty comment from a nice person - but then nice people don't tend to make nasty comments anyway.

Basically nasty comments are something that are deliberately done and used as a "weapon" from my experience. They're trying to make you resign from a job "of your own free will" or trying to force you to decide to sell your house and move (ie they've got a friend that wants your house) or they're jealous of something you've got.

When I had a job at one point where there was lots of nasty comments coming out I'd think "Well she's got a lot of missing teeth and is fat and so I guess it's jealousy in her case" or "I've analysed her appearance and, most unusually, there is absolutely nothing good about it - not hair, skin, figure, anything (highly unusual as most people have got at least one good point - eg good hair or good skin)" or "They're unhappily married - and I expect it's at least partly their fault from what I know of them".

I can't agree, I'm afraid, M0nica. Maybe it depends on your own personality, but the horrible things which have been said to me over the years (many by my own mother) have stayed with me all my life. I can't remember any good things anyone has ever said - but I can remember bad things said more than 50 years ago.

'I wish I had never had you', said by my mother when I was 3 years old. She was very unhappy in her marriage and blamed me because she was pregnant when she married.

Surely as we go through life, we have nasty things said to us and about us and similarly had good things said to us and about us, and if we then take into account all those comments completely misheard, misinterpreted. that these things should just drift out of our memory except for the occasional one.

Lets face it most of us will at sometime said something themselves, and I do not beleive anyone who says they haven't. if nothing else you will have said something anodyne that someone else has completely misinterpreted.

At her wedding my sister said something to me that was so devastating I thought I would never recover, then 10 minutes later, I realised that the few words she had said, had two meanings, the second a simple statement of a fact, and this was the meaning she had meant to convey.

Months after the wedding I told her what she said and my first interpretation, she was horrified, that meaning had never even ocurred to her, but she could see why i had misunderstood it.

I just think that in most cases people should shrug off what people say about them good or ill. Most comments are throwaway remarks. said without thought or in a moment of extreme emotion.

I agree crazyH, have had some pretty dreadful things said to me in the past 68 years. I don’t really want to consider which is the worst.

Lots of nasty personal things have been said to me, by people who were very closely related to me. If I write them down, it will only remind me of the hurt and I will hurt all over again, so I’ll leave it for now. The tongue is mightier than the sword !

sodapop

My daughter when I asked what she thought of my new top said ' it's alright for you Mother but I wouldn't wear it '.

That’s daughters for you😖

Men and my breasts. At a student 10 pin bowling match, one of the opposing team yelled "get yer boobs out" just as I was about to take a shot.
Another guy, another time, told me he'd seen smaller tits on a heifer!
Then there was the drunk stranger in a pub who just wandered over & stuck his nose down my cleavage & stood there swaying. My friends just stood their laughing!
Then people wonder why I always wear baggy tops???

My mum, who has never ever dressed up or worn make up said to me (all the time) “who’s going to look at you” 😔 I was very young, and really knocked my young teenager confidence 😢

Recently, a ‘friend’ told me there was ‘ ‘ ‘nothing of me’, and I had skinny arms. This is after very recent cancer treatment involving chemo and major abdominal surgery. Both of these have caused weight loss. Needless to say, I was very upset

When aged 50 a restaurant manager asked my husband and I if we'd like the pensioners menu. I was so deflated that day.

sodapop

My daughter when I asked what she thought of my new top said ' it's alright for you Mother but I wouldn't wear it '.

My mother always dressed very well. people used to comment on this to me even when I was a child.

I can remember, as a child aged about 10, my mother came downstairs dressed to go to some social occasion, wearing a new dress.

I looked at her and uttered the words I was never alowed to forget. 'Mummy, you look awful, just like something out of Vogue.'

I did not mean it as a compliment. My mother just laughed - as she said later she was free to take my remark as either compliment or criticism, though she knew that I did not see my remark as a compliment.

crimson

Not a personal comment per se, but when I go to the cinema, theatre etc the [oh so young] person selling the tickets asks if we are on any 'benefits', meaning are we pensioners. I know they're being helpful but I wince every time it happens because I know it wouldn't have been mentioned a few years ago. It's worse when I've made a [rare] attempt to look good .

Why word it like that? They just need to ask whether you’re of state pension age.
Or, as I used to ask people in the library when they came in for garden waste bags (half price for over 60s) - ‘You’re not over 60, are you?’
Especially if they pretty obviously were, they were happy to tell me!

My daughter when I asked what she thought of my new top said ' it's alright for you Mother but I wouldn't wear it '.