"She may be two years older, but she's not two years better."

I have a brother who is two years younger than I am. One night after I was supposed to be asleep, I heard my dad and brother talking downstairs. I opened my door so I could hear. 

They were talking about academics and our respective intelligence. 

I heard my dad say, "She may be two years older, but she's not two years better," and then he and my brother kind of chuckled. 

This really hurt because my dad and I are really close and I try so hard to impress him and to make him proud. 

It just made me feel like no matter what I do, it will never be more impressive than what my brother does.

"You're really pretty."

I used to always think the worst of myself. Putting myself down was part of my daily routine.

One day I was with a boyfriend at one of his family reunions. I thought my hair looked awful and my shirt look a little too worn.

Then a little girl came up to me. She looked me straight in the eye with the cutest face and said, "You're really pretty."

Before I could even respond she ran away with the biggest smile on her face.

That still puts a smile on my face still to this day. I'll never forget it.

"You should never wear sweatpants. Like, ever."

One summer in my early teens, I attended a co-ed sleep-away camp for the first time. I didn't have a ton of friends at home, so I was thrilled when the coolest kids at camp somehow deemed me worthy enough to be in their elite inner circle. 

It was the early 2000s, and midriff-bearing tops with Juicy Couture sweatpants were super popular. Protected by a cluster of popular friends, I strutted around camp like I owned the place, shrouding my long, gangly legs in sweatpants and mini tank tops. I felt free and beautiful and cool. 

There was one guy at camp who I had a crush on, but I was too shy to do anything. At that point, I had never had a boyfriend or kissed anyone. I got his AIM screen name, and once camp was over I started talking to him online. Maybe it was my newfound confidence that came with my brief stint as a popular girl, or maybe it was the safety of my computer screen, but I got up the courage to ask him what he thought about me. 

It took him a while to get it out, but eventually he told me, "You should never wear sweatpants. Like, ever." 

Apparently he and the rest of the guys all decided that I should not be allowed to wear sweatpants because they looked wrong on me with my long legs. 

I wish I could say that after that moment, I realized what a loser this guy was, and how dare he have the audacity to think he had the authority to tell me what I could and couldn't wear. 

But as a shy kid who just wanted to fit in, I felt like I had done something wrong, like I had failed. I felt ashamed. I stopped wearing sweatpants.

"The ugliest face I've ever seen."

I'm sitting in history and these two guys who I consider my friends sit behind me.

While we're all doing our classwork, the two guys start talking, and eventually I start listening. Then they start talking about me. One of them says, "You know, she has an okay body, but the ugliest face I've seen. " His friend agrees, and the bell rings for lunch.

I slowly pack my things up and go to the bathroom for lunch and just sit in a stall because I can't face anyone.

This happened in 7th grade. I'm now a senior in college, and I will never forget this day.

"You sound like a dying cat."

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.

"You're not going to contribute to the conversation anyway because you're so quiet."

My group of best friends in elementary school consisted of three of us. Once we got to middle school, our friend circle expanded, but I remained a very shy person. My "best friend" would always sit next to me at the long lunch table, turning her back completely to me, while she faced the rest of the group and I sat on the end alone with her back in my face.

She would do this any time we were in a big group. Even at my own 13th birthday party. I had invited a bunch of kids I was too shy to actually talk to. Everyone sat in a cluster with their chairs to talk, and she stuck her chair right in front of mine to block me from the group.

One day, I finally got up the courage to tell her to stop doing this. I guess a tiny piece of me still believed that she wasn't aware of what she was doing, that my best friend couldn't be that unnecessarily cruel on purpose. 

After I confronted her, she said, "I could stop doing it, but you're not going to contribute to the conversation anyway because you're so quiet, so it's pointless."

She never stopped. 

We are grown up now and haven't seen or spoken to each other in decades. I am much stronger now, and have acknowledged that I never deserved to be a victim of her sadistic acts of micro-cruelty. And that she was a completely miserable human being.

But nevertheless, the way she made me feel during adolescence will always stick with me.

"I love how tiny and adorable you are!"

"I love how tiny and adorable you are!"

Growing up, I would hear countless compliments on how small and petite I was. 

When puberty hit, anorexia took over. Because as a shy girl, my small size was the only thing people ever noticed about me.

Now "recovered," I hate myself even more.

"You sound like an evil witch."

My friends and everyone else always loved my laugh. They would tell me that it was unique and that it made them want to laugh, too. 

I remember sitting in the classroom with my friends, doing our work. We had a substitute teacher that day, so it was just fun stuff.

At one point I was laughing so hard that my friends were laughing with me. Then the substitute teacher interrupted and said, "That's your real laugh? You sound like an evil witch. Don't laugh."

The rest of the day I was completely quiet. She was the first person to hate my laugh.

Dirty Shoes

I was a new student, just moved from the south side of town. At age seven, I had no idea what class was, or that I was in a different social class. 

A girl told me I was poor and that my shoes were dirty.

She bullied me and picked on me all the way until high school, making fun of the way I dressed.

I will never forget her. She made me feel terrible about myself. She taught me what "poor" meant.

Worthless.

My biological father informed me at a ripe age of 7 that I would never amount to anything. That I was worthless.

When I was 8, my father disappeared from my life completely. My mother told me that he had found someone else, who happened to be pregnant, and he was going to raise her kids. 

I felt broken. I wondered what was so wrong with me that he would abandon me, yet choose to raise someone else's kids. Not a day went by that I didn't wonder why, where he was, how he was doing, etc. 

Approximately 25 years later, in 2010, I randomly searched for him on Facebook. Two profiles appeared on my screen. My heart sank. I did not even know if my father was alive. 

I clicked on the first profile. A picture of a young man, that looked surprisingly similar to me, appeared. I clicked on the second profile, and up popped a picture of my father.

I made contact with him and it was a bit awkward. He came out to Oklahoma to visit and meet his grandson. We still communicate, mainly via Facebook. I will definitely take that over wondering if he is alive.