When I started dating my first boyfriend in 11th grade, I had been anorexic for roughly 4 years, and was trying to go into recovery.
In the midst of this, my boyfriend told me one day, “I’m glad you have an eating disorder, you could lose a few pounds.”
5 years later and 4 years into recovery, I still think of his comment any time I step on the scale and think about relapsing.
For a long time, I felt like my depression was ruining my marriage, but after I started going to therapy, I finally felt like I was making progress towards being "normal."
One day, my therapist told me that often with her married patients, improving their sex life was pivotal in improving their self-esteem. This made sense to me, because my sex life was nearly nonexistent.
I picked my husband up from work that evening, and told him about what my therapist had said. Before I could go further, he interrupted me to say, "I would want to have sex with you, if only you had a rockstar body."
Even when I was thin, my body image was terrible. But this shot what little confidence I had. His cruelty in that moment made me never want sex again, and I've not since initiated.
It's been five years since then. He's had affairs. I've been suicidal. He's told me to kill myself. And one day, I might.
Growing up, I was always on the bigger side. My grandma would try to "help" motivate me to lose weight by saying, "Boys won't think you're pretty if you're fat."
This started when I was five years old.
I was a sophomore in high school, in the second or third week of my relationship with my boyfriend at the time. Homecoming was just around the corner, and I was really excited about going with him.
But then he suddenly broke up with me and said he wanted to go with one of our classmates because, "She dresses hot."
I'd never thought anything about what I wore until that day. Now I'm extremely self conscious and picky about what I wear.
When I was 8 years old, my sister and I went to my grandfather's house in Arizona. His wife loved my sister and bought her anything she wanted. But when I would even look at something, she would tell me, "Fat girls don't get to wear pretty things."
That was 20 years ago, and to this day I believe that fat girls can't wear pretty things, which is why I wear nothing but sweats and t-shirts. It was just in the last year or so that I started wearing tank tops.
Towards the end of my junior year, I was wearing a skater skirt and tight crop top. Our school doesn't have AC and gets extremely hot near the end of the year, so I wore this a lot.
I was talking in art class with two of my girlfriends and three of our best guy friends. We were all chit chatting and laughing when the art teacher called me over to her desk and told me to think about what I wear next time, and that I was violating dress code because half an inch of my mid drift was showing and my skirt was too short. Even though the skirt was at finger tip length, which meets the school requirement on skirts.
She proceeded to say in a sarcastic and degrading way, "There's a reason five guys are standing around you right now." Even though it was three guys and they in no way ever even flirted with me. I was about to explode, so I walked away from her desk and sat and talked to my friends about it. They all were shocked and outraged. The teacher overheard us and then proceeded to talk about it loudly to the whole classroom, degrading my outfit.
My friend spoke up and said, "Stop sexualizing women's bodies."
Then the teacher tried to give me detention and keep me after class for the commotion SHE caused.
I went home bawling for two hours because I felt so awful and embarrassed. She never apologized. And I forever am worried about seeing her in the halls with whatever I wear.
When I was in high school, I was never really skinny or popular. I was a band geek who played the sousaphone, did shot put, and discussed homework. I usually kept to myself and life was good.
I remember being at home just kind of lounging, my homework was done and dinner was being made. My mom, dad, two older brothers and I sat down at the table to eat. I love food, so I went to grab a second helping, but my dad stopped me. He said, "Sweetie, you know, you'd be a knockout if you just dropped 25 pounds."
I wasn't a huge individual, I was around 145 at the time and I was roughly 5'6"-5'7". I thought I was fine, but apparently I wasn't according to my father.
He isn't a bad dad or person, he just goes about saying things like that the wrong way. I love my dad, but that statement has stuck with me for years. I was about 16-17 when this took place, and I'm now 29.
I was a pretty awkward middle schooler. I was shy, un-athletic, and didn't have many friends, so I mostly pretended to sleep on the hour long bus rides home. One day in 6th grade I had to "sleep" near the back of the bus where the cool boys from my grade were sitting, flirting with my older sister.
They were complimenting her when one said "Your sister is so ugly. She'll never be as pretty as you." The other one emphatically agreed. My sister just sat there.
It's been 18 years and I can count on one hand the number of times I thought I was pretty.
Growing up, I was always a bit heavier than my peers. I never really noticed, though, and never let it get in the way of having fun.
The first time someone pointed it out was humiliating. It was in second grade gym class.
The coach allowed certain people to slack off in class, while remaining very strict with a select few. I was in the second group. The coach always told me to work harder and do better, and I never understood why.
When I finally asked, the coach admitted that he was trying to "help" me by making me do more so that I could lose weight.
Needless to say, it hurt.
When I was 16, I started experimenting with makeup. There was some family party I had to go to, and I spent a lot of time getting myself all dolled up for it. When I came downstairs to leave, my twin brother looked at me, made a disgusted face, and said, "Ugh, too much makeup!" Like I was personally offending him and hurting his eyes.
I still went to the party looking as I did, but I felt really self conscious the whole time.
And now, more than 20 years later, the entitlement and disgust he expressed in his reaction to my face still sticks with me.
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.
