The worst thing your parents ever said

[tblue]

to you, about you?

When I was a teenager, my dad called me stupid. The stupidest person he ever saw. I never forgot that. I still have to tell myself I'm not stupid.

[olddots]

1. My parents never called me a failure to my face

but I overheard them calling me one way too many times.

I have grown to become a world class success at failing .

[AllenVanAllen]

2. I hear ya. I love my dad....but he was a fiend.

He called me stupid over and over when I was a kid. Are you stupid or lazy? was a common question. He was my step-dad but he was the only father I ever knew and I know for a fact he was abused as a child. Parents, they do the best they can with the tools they have. Shit, it wasn't until I reached my 30's that I realized I was actually smart. We just have to realize we define who we are not them.

[Heidi]

3. !

[tblue]

19. My dad had a really rough life

I understand why he said what he said. And I honestly forgive him. But it's amazing how profoundly his words impacted my self-image. I have to work hard not to put myself down and I won't even go into my professional work life. Suffice to say I am a well educated underachiever. But I'm a great mom! And very creative! YAAY!

I'm so sorry your dad said that about you. I bet you were never lazy, and you sure as hell don't sound stupid to me!

[datasuspect]

33. my dad showed me love with his belt

[MountainMama]

59. Mine did too...

There is absolutely no pleasing him. If I got pretty good grades, he'd hammer me about the low one I did have. I could never do anything exactly right or fast enough for him. He raised his hand to me as recently as 8 or 9 years ago, but he did not strike. (I'm 46.) I decided that if he ever did hit me again, that would be the last time I'd go in that house. He busted my nose and would "box our ears." There was no affection, love, good humor, anything.

My mother's weapons are words and a pitying look. Same thing...since I graduated college, I've gotten endless criticism and I'm sure she thinks I'm hellbound. I don't want to believe in HER God; I'll take my chances, thank you.

But the worst thing? My youngest sister turned up pregnant at 15. She said to me, "Your father told me he thought if any of you got pregnant, it'd be you." Why did she feel she had to repeat that to me?

A year or two later she found out that I was sexually active. (I was 21--didn't lose my virginity until I was 18.) She called me everything but a slut and gave me no other choice but to move out. When I did approach her about maybe having a baby (with my ex), all she said was, "It's a lot of work." Gee, thanks.

I love and respect my parents and I will make sure they are taken care of as they get older. But I will live in a box on the street before either of them reside with me or I with them.

[Ron Obvious]

4. My father called me a psychopath once...

He was a good, practical guy, but he had no imagination whatsoever. He was born into a family construction business and it was only WWII that changed his destiny and made him leave his home village. I took more after my mother and read Fantasy and Science Fiction all day growing up and had zero interest in practical things like carpentry, bricklaying, and plumbing and told him so. He was dumbfounded and clearly couldn't relate to me in the slightest.

He told me I was obviously no good since I lived in fantasy land all day and would end up in an institution.

I haven't yet, for the record.

[tblue]

21. Maybe DU is the institution.

And all of us are inmates!

I think both of our dads suffered from a lack of imagination, and a good vocabulary. You didn't fit the mold he thought he'd made for you. Good grief--you'e your own person! Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. But it sounds like you already know that. More power to you! March to your own drum!

[Gravitycollapse]

5. "The universe will get you for what you've done! Now get the fuck out of my house."

Screamed at me by my father after a very painful argument over me coming out as bisexual.

That was nearly 4 years ago. I haven't spoken to him since even though he has attempted contact several times.

Life is too short to spend time on such horrible people.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

62. Maybe he wants to

apologize?

[Gravitycollapse]

63. Tough shit for him.

No decent person would ever say something like that and I would not accept his apology.

[LAGC]

6. When I was 10 years old...

My dad made me swear on the Bible that I wasn't lying about some trivial matter. (So trivial I don't even remember what it was about...)

He told me if I lied while my hand was on the Bible I'd be going to Hell.

I placed my hand on the Bible and repeated the lie anyway.

Needless to say, I seriously began questioning my faith after that, quit believing altogether by age 15.

What's funny is, both me and my younger brother turned out to be atheists, and we got our parents to quit going to church as well.

My mom was never a big believer, but my dad was raised staunch Greek Orthodox. They enjoy their Sundays off now though.

[Chan790]

7. "I should have had puppies." n/t

[Flashmann]

8. The worst thing your parents ever said

"Don't do as I do...Do as I say!"

[femmocrat]

9. "I hope you end up with kids just like you!"

But I didn't. My kids are angels compared to me. I was a teenaged terror who caused my parents endless grief.

(i'm sorry, Mom and Dad.)

[tblue]

22. My sister's response when my mom said that:

"Does that mean you acted like us when you were a kid?"

[winter is coming]

31. That, I could have handled. But I ended up with a kid like my sister!

I don't really remember my parents saying anything awful, so I was either lucky or oblivious.

[baldguy]

10. It's not so much what they said, but what they didn't say.

I'm the youngest of four. But since each of my siblings found it necessary to drop of of their high school or colleges, I was the first in my family to get any kind of degree. And I'm the only one of us to get two degrees. I was the first of us to get a "real" full-time job, while my sisters were hitchhiking around the country and my brother was working in a bar washing dishes/frying burgers/pouring beer. And when I moved out when I was 23, their attitude seemed to be, "Well, it's about time."

I was the "safe" kid. They never had to worry about me doing something stupid or crazy. But they never found the time to tell me, either. Did they feel proud of me? Were they relieved? Happy for me? I have no idea.

[irisblue]

11. you're fat

I've found the pictures, a very few that exist, until about 10, I wasn't fat, I really was a normal slightly round looking kid, and active and healthy. When my parents started to break up, I learned to stress eat (mashed potatoes and butter) and during my 11th thanksgiving weekend holiday, my father, with my mothers help, forced me on to a scale. I was already 61 inches (tallest girl in 6th grade) 125#, and I started having my period 2 months later. He called me fat, I was devastated at that. I had been a Daddys' Girl. In the next year they separated (no fault divorce did not exist in the middle 1960s in Michigan), so the court stuff dragged on and on. I started my period, gained 75# to prove him right. It has taken decades to move past that. Shaming kids really hurts.

[pink-o]

17. Yeah, it was all about size for me as well...

I was always taller than the other girls and had to rent Size 4 women's ice skates by the time I was 6 yrs old. Needless to say, it took a long time for me to figure out how to fit in this small world, not to hurt my friends just by touching them, or not to trip every time I took a step. My dad would laugh and call me "ski feet" and "Clums Ox." Haha. Guess who wasn't laughing? When I called him on it later, he really had no idea how insensitive he'd been or how that could affect a young girl.

But the worst was when my Mom's friend sat in our living room, sizing up me and my chubby sister. She said to Mom: "You can put that one on a diet. I don't know what you're going to do about the other one!" Mom never said a word to contradict her.

Because in the mid 60s it was all about finding husbands for us, right?

Well, I reached my full height of 6'1" in 1969 and by then I was completely counter culture so I figured my parents didn't know jack anyway. But they were good parents, just caught in their social standards. When I hear about the horrible things my friends went thru with their parents, I realize just how lucky I was!

[a la izquierda]

27. Me too.

And I was not fat, just muscular and not built like a distance runner. Twenty years later, I still suffer from eating disorders.

[LiberalEsto]

12. My mother called me vicious (in Estonian). nt

[Aristus]

13. Any time I got a poor grade in school, my Dad would take me for a long drive,

and berate me with his visions for what I would become. I would be a loser, living on unemployment, drifting from menial job to menial job, in and out of reform schools ( he must have thought poor grades were a sign of fledgling criminality); and that I would be a bum.

My sister had it worse. She was overweight, and my father, a fitness devotee, would castigate her mercilessly for her weight. He wouldn't let up until long after she had burst into tears.

[Generic Brad]

14. That I was going to burn in hell

When my mom said it, she sounded sad. Then she explained, "I wish it weren't so, but then again, I don't make the rules".

[Tuesday Afternoon]

15. we're moving.

[HeiressofBickworth]

16. In addition to her regular slights, put-downs, insults, belittlements,

she came up with a real hum-dinger. And I was in my 50's at the time. When I refused to take out a second loan (she offered to contribute to payments if she had the money) on my house so she could buy some tech stock for my brother!, she called me stupid, selfish, thoughtless, brain-dead, just to name a few.

[OriginalGeek]

18. My real dad was awesome

Maybe even overly supportive of every dumb idea I ever had.

My step-asshole can die and rot. Although the mental abuse was often a nice break in between getting the shit beat out of us.

[rug]

20. "Never buy cheap condoms."

[Bertha Venation]

39. I'm sorry, rug

[alphafemale]

23. I wish I had had an abortion.

I wish you had never been born.

I was scaping the bottom of my uterus with you. No wonder you're crap.

When caught singing Que Sera...? (Ok I possess a handful of decades.) "You'll NEVER be pretty. You better be smart. No man will ever want you."

I grew up with this shit daily. I internalized it when I was a young child. I was miserable. I had no ally. I was slump shouldered and cowed in Kindergarden. A walking bully target.

It got better.

Way better.

I'm actually not at all ugly.

[pipi_k]

24. My father was

an alcoholic. He bought beer by the case.

One day, when I was about 11 or so, I came in for dinner from playing outside. I opened the back door, which entered directly into the kitchen, and tripped over his case of beer by the door.

He called me a "clumsy, long-legged bitch".

After which I was expected to sit and eat dinner like nothing happened, even though my stomach was churning, my face was red, I was feeling like shit, and I wanted to die.

I've since forgiven him for a lot of the cruelty he showed/inflicted on my mom and us kids. He had a very hard life, and no doubt was suffering from PTSD from things he did/saw during WWII.

He could be funny as hell, but he could also be cruel and frightening.

He died in 2002 and I still miss my funny dad...

[tabbycat31]

25. A few things

All from my mom, who has no filter when it comes to saying nasty things to me.

"You're never going to be pretty enough to get a good guy, so learn to settle for the first guy that likes you or accept being single"
"Your legs look like tree trunks" (that was the last time I wore shorts in a setting that was not the gym or to bed)

[magical thyme]

26. character assassination to the rest of the family

Supposedly lazy, stupid, whatever. It took a therapist to tell me she could think of a lot of words to describe me, but lazy didn't make the list. My IQ has tested as high as 155.

To my face?

When I was 10, my father forced his way into the bathroom when I was on the toilet and started yelling that I was wasting toilet paper. I was to use 1 square folded in quarters. My mother had to explain to him that girl's are built differently than girls and 1 square isn't going to cut it.

When I was 16, my father apologized to me. "It's my fault you're face is so ugly. You got your ugly face from me. Nobody is every going to want to marry you, you're so ugly." Then he walked away shaking his head and muttering, "I don't know what we're going to do about MT. She's so ugly nobody is every going to want to marry her."

My mother just screeched abuse and hit. Also when I was 16 and took a yoga class with 2 school friends, the first time we meditated I came home excited because I thought I'd found something that would help my mother. She took one look at my smiling face and turned into something out of the exorcist, screaming over and over again, "NOBODY HAS A RIGHT TO BE SO HAPPY!"

[Adsos Letter]

28. "It's your fault your mother drinks."

If you just behaved better she wouldn't drink."

My mom finally drank herself to death at 50. I lived with those words for a long, long time.

[Arugula Latte]

38. Gawd, that is horrible.

No kid should have to hear something like that.

[lindysalsagal]

29. "It's only 3 days." My mother, to me.

When my ex suggested he should have me put in a psychiatric facility for wanting a divorce from him.

Thanks, Mom.

[Major Nikon]

30. "Son, don't ever let me catch you drinking scab beer again"

This was my dad's response after my mom found a partial six pack of Coors in my room and after reading me the riot act she asked my dad if he was going to say anything to me about it. The Coors strike was going on at the time.

[datasuspect]

32. "daddy drinks because you cry"

[mnhtnbb]

34. My mother was constantly putting me down.

We moved across the country (from NJ to CA) when I was entering 9th grade. My parents sent me
to a private school for 2 years, then to a high school in another school district--all
to avoid going to the local public school (which didn't send enough kids to the 'best'
colleges according to my parents). The result was that all my friends in high school
lived 20 miles away which didn't make for much of a social life.

I had been at the public high school for one year (junior) and wanted to try out for
cheerleader. Good luck, right? Well, I spent a lot of time practicing, made an outfit
for tryouts and was voted in! What did my mother say? "Well, if you spent as much
time studying as you did cheerleading maybe you'd amount to something one day."

Thanks, mom.

I ended up at UCLA and received both my BS and MPH from there. When I was accepted
into the Master's program I had chosen (Hospital Administration) I was one of 3 women admitted
to a class of 12 students. What did my mother say? "Well, you'll probably always be able to
get a job as a secretary."

My mother's initials were GDB. See if you can guess how I refer to her.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

35. how about

god.damned.bitch? That's how I would have referred to mine if she had those same initials.

[mnhtnbb]

36. We have a winner!

Oh, and she never came to any of the football or basketball games to watch me cheer. My dad came to quite a few.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

37. I'm reading through the various posts...

and have yet to see one that equals my mother's abuse. Some people should never be allowed to raise children. Some make the occasional mistake, we all do, no parent is perfect. But too many exist in a love-hate relationship with their own children of their own creation.

My own mother was pulled out of school during 8th grade in order to help raise her younger siblings. By the time I was 8-years-old I was a devoted reader. It drove her nuts and to extremes of cruelty.

The real issue is how long we carry the scars or what measures we take to overcome the insecurities and anxieties we endured as children.

She would have rooted for the opposing team, you were lucky she didn't show her face!

[mnhtnbb]

47. My mother couldn't stand to have me be the center of attention.

I think it was a classic case of jealousy--plus she was an older mother.
She was 40 when I was born. Her looks were fading, her figure was gone
and her critical and demeaning comments picked up when I was a teenager.
As long as I had been a quiet, compliant child she was ok. I do
carry emotional scars from having been beaten--whipped with a belt--when
I was a pre-teen and didn't want to go to church one Sunday morning. What
a hypocrite! Church was a show for her--she was not 'religious' nor had
she been raised (her mother and sister were Christian Scientists) in the
Presbyterian Church she and my dad chose to start attending when
my brother and I were pre-teens (late 1950's).

Oh, the stories. I was a senior in high school in '68 and we were discussing
the Vietnam war at dinner one night (yes, of course both my parents were Repubs)
I disagreed pretty vehemently with her point and she threw the milk she was
drinking in my face. I responded by throwing the apple juice I was drinking in
her face. At which point she got up from the table, crying, and ran off to her
room. My dad just sat there saying, "oh, balls. oh, balls." It's funny thinking
about it now--and has been for the last 20 or 30 years--but I've never forgotten
that incident and what it taught me about showing respect for my own children
when they came along. It also wasn't the only time she attacked me with food--she did
it again, years later, when I was married to my first husband-- we were visiting my
parents one weekend. Don't remember what prompted it, just the action.

She was a real piece of work. She's been dead since 2000 and I don't miss her
in the slightest.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

49. Good Morning...or whatever time of day it is when you read this!

Yes, your mother sounds like so many others...jealousy mixed with disappointment because you were not living up to HER dreams, regardless of how unrealistic those dreams might be. Some people have dark places within them, that can never be fully understood.

My mother had a hard life herself growing up. Between the time I got married and the time I had my first child, almost 8 years, I tried to make allowances for her behavior. After all, she no longer had any control over me or my life, I could afford to be generous...or so I reasoned. When I had three children within 3 years and 4 months, I learned an entirely new perspective. My husband worked long hours and I was pretty much on my own with these infants and toddlers. As they grew and got into more mischief I realized just how brutally mean my own mother had been. How totally unnecessary the beatings and abuse. My father and I had always been close, another resentment on her part, so of course we would go to see them and they would come to visit us. One day she lit into my kids with the same horrific expression on her face with which I was so familiar...I entered the kitchen just in time, or she would have begun swinging, I'm sure. That was it...as much as I loved my father I couldn't remain in such close proximity to her. My husband had wanted to move to FL, after that incident I said I was ready to move and we left NJ in 1987.

I was 56 when my mother died in 2004. At her funeral an aunt, who just likes to needle people, said to me, "You haven't shed a tear, you're so cold. That's your mother lying in that casket" Some of the incidents of my life flashed across my mind before I looked her straight in the eye and said, "Yeah I know, about 45 years too late" That pretty much sums up my feelings toward her. I used to worry that my complete lack of affection for my own mother said something horrible about me. Perhaps it does...I no longer give a shit! One of the great things about growing older is that you finally learn what is important and what is totally superfluous.

[mnhtnbb]

58. I grew up in NJ (Chatham) but we moved to CA when I was in high school.

Left CA in 1988.

I have often wondered what it would have been like to grow up with a mother whose
company I enjoyed and who loved and supported me. I'm at the age--62--where girl
friends are losing their mothers and I never really know quite what to say. They have
had relationships and experiences that I can only imagine.

I totally understood my mother's instruction that there be no
memorial or funeral for her when she died. After all, she wouldn't have been there
to enjoy it, so why bother? And it bothered me not in the slightest to have
to arrange one. Still, she managed to die when my brother was out of the country (in Greece)
and three weeks after we'd just moved to Chapel Hill. My husband was out of town. I had
to wait for hubby to get home to stay with our boys so I could fly to CA to take care of cleaning out her
room in the nursing home and make arrangements for my dad to be moved to NC.

I think the fact that we both had no affection for our mothers says more
about them than us.

[Arugula Latte]

40. I didn't have anything major, just a couple minor things that are trivial compared to others here.

Last edited Tue May 28, 2013, 12:06 PM - Edit history (1)

However, years later I still remember them and how they stung.

I've made damn sure my kids will be able to say "My mother never said anything to hurt me." I honestly have not said a negative thing to them (other than behavior corrections). Every day I tell them I love them. I frequently tell them I'm so glad they're my kids and that I'm the luckiest mom in the world. I tell them they're smart and they're beautiful/handsome. I mean every word, too.

[Bertha Venation]

41. I honestly don't remember.

Which, given the way I was raised, is very fortunate.

My heart aches for you, those of you who have replied. Some of these stories have made me weep.

[backwoodsbob]

42. was in 8th grade at our local highschool football game

I was WAY into football(still am) and I intended to go out for team when I got to highschool.I was constantly asking my dad questions about schemes and stuff.Asked why our defense was playing power run on third and twelve,why we didn't have an end or corner tighter on there tight end since he had already caught 6 passes.That kind of stuff
He said to me *I have a question for you*
I said *what's that*
He said * do you ever shut the fuck up or are you always an annoying asshole*

That bothered me for lots of years.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

43. "Why are you ALIVE?"

Yep.

Strange that you would post this now. The 2nd. anniversary of the day he said it is around the corner. He said it a few days after tornado.

[In_The_Wind]

51. Damn!

[raccoon]

44. My mother wouldn't take up for me. This old bitch who ws married to an uncle

would pick on me, and my mother would just sit there like the cat got her tongue.

We did have a better relationship later on in both our lives.

My father was an abusive alcoholic and died when I was a kid. I have no good memories of him.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

45. My mother's mother lived with us from the time I was fourteen, and

she and my mother would tag-team telling me everything that was wrong with me, especially since I didn't want to be part of that tight little twosome that they had. I didn't want to dress in the dorky clothes they bought, and I didn't want to get my hair permed (something that was NOT in style at the time). I wanted to stay home rather than going along with my grandmother to visit her friends. I was an exceptionally docile fourteen-year-old, but to hear them talk, I was the most ungrateful wretch in the world.

The two of them would really get going, and I'd start crying in frustration, and they would say, "There you go, turning on the waterworks. You're acting just like (name of relative) with all her drama."

The verbal abuse finally stopped when my mother got a job as a secretary on the adolescent psych unit of a local hospital. She met seriously disturbed teenagers, including one who was a serial rapist.

I think the experience made her realize that her own children, despite their occasional rebellious streaks, weren't so bad after all.

[HipChick]

46. It is what they never said...they never told me my ex husband came to visit them

after we divorced and begged them to ask me to take him back...

It's a good thing....though...I'd prob still be in jail by now...

[Behind the Aegis]

48. Upon breaking curfew, and finding out I was on a "double date" with a female...

..."well, I can't be too mad about this, I always figured you were a faggot."

I am gay. I went on the "double date" as a favor to a friend.

Things are very good now between my father and me. He loves my partner of 11 years.

[In_The_Wind]

50. You have an after school job, you can pay room & board.

I was 15.

[Loryn]

52. I understand what my mother has been through.

I kind of always knew, even when I was young. I think she has been overwhelmed with grief and abuse all her life. I will take care of her till the end.


For all of us

But we are here, and have each other.

My mother never had that.

[Dash87]

53. "Oh, so that Apple juice was actually gasoline after all..."

[LWolf]

54. My mom was a positive person.

I can think of things she DID that had a negative effect, but I can't think of anything she said.

[Still Blue in PDX]

55. I can't think of anything.

I got a lot of mixed messages from my parents, and I always felt like their love was conditional, but they were never really mean to me. My mom resented me because my dad favored me over my older brother, but I don't blame her for it. My dad was an alcoholic and abusive toward both her and my brother. My mom self-medicated with alcohol. She had a lot to be depressed about.

My dad would say stuff to me like, "You're better than those people."

My mom would say stuff to me like, "What makes you think you're better than anybody else?"

Since raising four kids of my own I realize that they did the best they could with the skills that they had. If they made me the neurotic mess I am today, they didn't do it on purpose.

[madmom]

56. My dad once told me that he wished I was a son instead of a daughter...

My mom tried to "fix" it by saying he only wishes my brother was more like me. My brother is a wimp, I am totally opposite, don't take shit off nobody and say what I think.

[kwassa]

57. "I bet you don't do that very often."

After I hit a series of good serves against him while playing tennis together.

This little moment actually sums up most of our relationship.

I've internalized his critical voice, and somehow seek out others who will criticize me in the same manner.

[TrogL]

60. sucky lamb

I was afraid of water, having fallen in the river when young.

[nomorenomore08]

61. Whatever they said, it wasn't that bad, and they were probably right anyway. So I won't complain.

[steve2470]

64. "Use your head, it's not a hatrack"

My parents were actually very kind, that's about it. They were TOO kind, believe it or not. I know, a very rare thing it seems, and I feel for those who suffered abuse of any kind, verbal and otherwise.

[Jasana]

65. My Mom

threw a butcher knife at me when I was five. If was hardly the worst thing she ever did or said. Her favorite name for me was CU**. She was a sick, sick woman.

[AngryOldDem]

66. Where do I begin?

My dad was a total bastard. I don't think I ever once heard him tell me he loved me, but he was always there to berate and yell and demean. His favorite time of day to do so was at dinner. I think his problem with me was that I was a "late in life" child, and he wasn't looking to be a dad at 40. Well, there were ways to prevent that, even back in 1960, so I'm not taking the blame for that.

I put up with the SOB because of my mother. He was especially mean during high school, but by then I was getting sick of his shit and giving it back to him. I remember telling him not to show up at my high school graduation, where I finished 6th in my class and a member of the National Honor Society. He had not a damn thing to do with any of that, and I resented the fuck out of him taking any part in it.

I was the first in my family to graduate from college. Put myself through with no help from him (which I knew wasn't coming). Looking back, I think that was part of a big "fuck you" to him for being such a shit for most of my life.

Parents really, really need to watch what they say and how they say it. Psychological abuse is just as damaging as physical. I was lucky in that growing up I had some really amazing teachers who saw and nurtured potential in me. Otherwise, I don't know how I would have survived. But they weren't my parents.

Dad's been gone since 1984 -- he lived to see me graduate college. Not that he cared.

[Locut0s]

67. Not much. My father called me an asshole once...

My parents are both very loving and I never suffered any real emotional or physical abuse. In fact my parents have been something of an issue in my ongoing depression and anxiety as they have been enablers in letting me stay home for too long living off them instead of maturing properly. However my father has a bad temper that he hides extremely well. You would never know it to meet him. But if he finds himself at his wits end emotionally it can erupt and it comes out of the blue which is all the scarier.

There was a long period of hell for me during the early to mid years of high school where I complained and cried almost daily about not wanting to go. I would do everything in my power not to go but my parents usually still managed to drag me there anyway. One day I was being particularly hard and my father blew up in the car and called me an asshole.

[Myrina]

68. "I wouldn't want you" ....

My dad held a doctorate in verbal abuse, came from a long line of it himself.

Used to call all of us (his children) "you people".
Blamed us for having to sell his airplane (even though we were the result of him not keeping his damn zipper up).
Called our cute little Brady Bunch ranch house "a shack".

Once in my late teens one of my brothers saw me out at a dance club and narked to dad that I was (GASP!) dancing with a( n-word)! The next day dad commented at breakfast that if he was 'a guy looking for a girl to go out with, and saw that, (he'd) think I was damaged goods and wouldn't want me.

Even on his deathbed, one of my sisters asked him if he ever liked ANY of us and he COULD NOT SAY that he had any affection for any of us.

Hateful fucker. I've forgiven him because I understand he was a victim himself, but I still have to battle to not listen to those 'tapes' when they start to play in my head.

[Jokerman]

69. Nothing

My dad could dish out the criticism and insults but it was his complete silence about anything good or positive that hurt the most.

The last year or so of his life he pretty much refused to talk to me at all.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

70. Stupid and lazy. Cute when I was "fixed up".

Didn't have many dates in high school because I was smart.

Mother thought I was supposed to wear red lipstick and nothing else on my face. She thought you were supposed to look like Joan Crawford and overdress. She was furious at me when I went to college and didn't take a single dress with me. She thought we were supposed to have formal dances and wear ball gowns. I hated wearing a dress to school every day for 12 years.

In college I wore jeans and t shirts and long hair and no makeup. I had lots of dates. I dated smart guys--physics, math, engineering majors. She was horrified and didn't think I was ladylike. Dressed me funny. Gave me perms when I was little, so I would have damned Shirley Temple ringlets. Then she wondered why I came home crying b/c the little shits picked on me.

Now, fifty years later, my gray hair dries in ringlets when I wash it. She never appreciated what she had (a loving husband and daughters) and had borderline personality disorder. Loved to stir up a soap opera and be devious. She was a serious hoarder. Dad was a dry drunk who felt like she was a millstone around his neck. She would shop and blow money and hurt him emotionally.

I scored 145 on an IQ test when I was five, 3 SDs above normal. Earned 3 college degrees including a doctorate. Had a couple of serious health problems that gave me extreme fatigue. I was never praised for anything except being smart and being a trained monkey musician, although I loved music and was good at it. She didn't want me to have kids, because "it doesn't take any brains to have a kid". I did eventually have a kid because I had a very unbalanced life and wanted my family to live on.

The Smothers Brothers, you remember their "Mom always liked you best" routine?

Mom would say "This is a picture of my beautiful, smart and intelligent daughter" and whip out a picture of our beautiful collie dog who was prettier than Lassie. That hurt.

My big sister was the "Cute" one. She had guys follow her around. I was the "smart" one.
In high school I was convinced I must look like a frog since the boys didn't ask me out. My mom wanted me to join ROTC so I would have dates. That was embarrassing. I was already busy with school and orchestra.

My present hubby found a large picture of me I had had taken in 1982 when I was in law school and had given to my grandmother, when we moved into my grandmother's house.
He said "You're the most gorgeous brunette I've ever seen" when he saw that picture.

He tells me I'm gorgeous a lot.

[Sissyk]

71. Well, the worse thing I can think of..

"you can go if you take your little brother with you"

Reading this thread that now sounds really really silly, but it was bad when I was 16 and he was 14. Lol!

[MrSlayer]

72. Nothing that wasn't true unfortunately.

I gave them too hard of a time as a youth.

[WolverineDG]

73. that he never wanted to walk me down the aisle

I was shocked. He said it repeatedly, whenever I mentioned how I wanted my wedding to be like. He even said it in front of my uncle, who's jaw dropped. I even said "Don't worry, I'll pay for it." Didn't matter.

No wonder I think I'm worthless. I have never married, & rarely, if ever, find anyone who is interested in me.

[Demo_Chris]

74. My parents insulted me every day. Every single day. No exceptions.

My many failings were the topic of conversation around the table every night. If they hadn't discovered anything new (rarely) they would go over the previous day's list. I grew up a loser, a failure, and very loney.

[pinboy3niner]

75. "MickeyBobbyJimmySandyTammy!!!"

When we heard that spine-curdling scream we knew somebody was in REALLY BIG TROUBLE--especially with Mom throwing in the dogs' names at the end like that.

But I actually had a very good childhood, and it saddens me whenever I hear that someone didn't.