21 Traumatizing Things Adults Said To Young Women That Have Haunted Them To This Day

Recently Reddit user LimoncelloShark asked the women of the community, “What’s something an adult said off-hand to you as a child that stuck with you?”

Unfortunately, there were many horrible stories women had up their sleeves to tell. Adults were completely careless towards them as kids and left some pretty damaging marks.

So, here are some deeply cruel comments adults made to women when they were kids:

Warning: Some submissions include topics of child abuse, eating disorders, suicide, and racism. Please proceed with caution.

“When I was around nine my parents went through a truly disastrous and toxic divorce (it stretched for three years). I was the only child in the middle of the whole thing. I was VERY close to my mom and was supposed to go away for two weeks with my dad, aunts, uncles, and cousins to a beach house for the summer. I was crying because I didn’t want to leave my mom. She bought me all kinds of things to take with me to try and keep me occupied, like sticker books, coloring books, and colored pencils. Well, one day, when we were there, I was crying, and my dad walked in and picked up some of the things my mom had bought me. He yelled, ‘Can’t you see she’s just trying to buy your love?!?!’ I ran out of the house and down the beach because I was so upset (I didn’t last the full two weeks). My mom picked me up for a day or two and then brought me back there. I’m in my late forties now, and I still remember this incident so vividly.”

—u/MamaMia1325

“‘Are you sure you want to wear that t-shirt with that belly of yours?’ and ‘Are you sure you want another sandwich?'” For reference, I was never ‘overweight’ — I was quite ‘thin.’ Eventually, I gained the appropriate amount of weight [for my body] when I was about 11. Then I developed an eating disorder until I was 15 — I became ‘thin’ again, and dealt with body dysmorphia until I got pregnant at 31.”

—u/ThinkLadder1417

“‘You’re going to make somebody a great wife someday.’ They said this when they were watching me suck the juice out of a big dill pickle. I was about nine years old.”

—u/tinydotbiguniverse

“They said, ‘Your hair is so pretty for a mixed girl,’ then they shoved their dirty fingers in my curls. I’ve always loved my hair, but I hate people touching it and I definitely hate other people talking about my race. I know who I am, but I don’t need to hear it coming from someone else’s mouth.”

—u/optimisticallyssad

“‘Your mother left because she didn’t like you. You made her leave.’ Cut to over 20 years of abandonment issues, settling for abusive relationships, and blaming myself for everything (including being sexually assaulted at age 13).”

—u/speworleans

“My stepmom would take me out shopping for clothes when I was around 13. She’d buy things slightly too small, force me into them, and just stand there clucking and saying, ‘If only you were a little ‘thinner,’ you’d be SO pretty.’ I have a thyroid issue, PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome), and Ehler-Danlos Syndrome. I’m 33 now and finally accepting that I’m always going to be this way — I’m beautiful how I am. But, her words have haunted me my whole life.”

—u/Anilxe

“I confided in my mom that I was feeling depressed and unhappy about some things going on in my life. She said, ‘I’m not surprised. You’ve never been happy with anything in life or satisfied.’ It was completely untrue, but it made me think that I was a complainer, ungrateful, and a terrible person for years.”

—u/Due-Celebration-9463

“My dad told me that if I had sex with any man outside of our race (white), then our oils wouldn’t mix, and I’d stink for the rest of my life. People would smell me everywhere I went…I didn’t learn that was a lie until I was 28. I was so scared to ask my OBGYN.”

—u/Valuable-Owl1971

“I was wearing a tube top (I was probably about 13 years old) in the comfort of my grandparents’ home. Our family friend said I looked like a ‘whore.’ I don’t remember anything else she ever said to me in my childhood except for that.”

—u/Gold_Knee_5182

10.

“My parents divorced when I was in the fourth grade, and they shared custody of my brother and me (alternating weeks) until I was in eighth grade and my brother was in ninth grade. It was then that we decided we wanted to live with our mom full-time. My male eighth grade teacher told me that I was going to grow up to be ‘promiscuous’ because I chose not to have my dad in my life (he molested me when I was five). I’m 32 now, and that comment has remained with me since then.”

—u/Schells91

11.

“I was in youth theater and took a stage makeup workshop when I was 10. Before we tried it, the instructor would bring kids to the front and demonstrate various tools/techniques (base, contour, cuts and bruises, fake hair, etc.). He was showing us what to do with the eyebrow pencil in our kit, particularly how to make eyebrows look ‘normal’ onstage. He brought me up and told me I had ‘half eyebrows’ that needed to be filled in (the hairs get lighter and more sparse from the arch out). I had never thought about my eyebrows before that day, and 15 years later, the phrase ‘half eyebrows’ still pops into my head sometimes when I see my reflection.”

“It’s a pretty innocuous comment that he definitely doesn’t remember saying, but it’s ingrained in my self-image now.”

—u/LimoncelloShark

12.

“My mom taught me how to write my name in cursive in the first grade. At school, I proudly handed in my worksheet with my name signed in cursive. My teacher started screaming at me in front of the whole class because we hadn’t covered it yet. She went absolutely bonkers. I was so embarrassed that I refused to participate or speak in the classroom. She sent a note home stating that she thought I was ‘intellectually challenged.’ She said she didn’t think I was in the right classroom, and in a panic, my mom and dad swept me off to a therapist and psychiatrist for evaluations. My IQ was measured at 115 (not nearly a genius, but fairly high).”

“Folks marched down to the school for a meeting and presented my evaluations to the teacher (they also gave her a note from my pediatrician). Basically, it questioned her qualifications, and they invited her in so they could measure her IQ.

They also agreed with her assessment that I should not be in her classroom. She avoided me the rest of the year.”

—u/That_Molasses_507

13.

“‘Your mom should’ve hit you — maybe then you would’ve bothered to learn,’ said by a teacher after I dropped out of school and went to visit her. I had untreated ADHD, adaptation disorder, and was suicidal.”

—u/OhMissFortune

14.

“I had really bad acne as a teenager, and my grandfather got irritated looking at my face. He told me to go wash it, and then said to my cousin, ‘Don’t ever let your face look like that.'”

—u/wannabe_wonder_woman

15.

“When I was younger I was really close with my uncle. On my eighth birthday, I ran around and told him to move. He bent down and said, ‘You will never be better than me, you will never be smarter than me, and you will never be anything more than me.’ I haven’t been able to look him in the eyes since…I’m 30 now.”

—u/wafflepopcorn

16.

“Many people (especially teachers) would say, ‘You are not pretty, you’re only cute. You are not as pretty as other girls, you’re ugly.’ My self-esteem was built on those things…it’s horrible.”

—u/imlazyandidontcare

17.

“I went in for career counseling post-school. The therapist clearly wanted me to visit more often, so instead of giving career advice, she started picking out other flaws. My mom accompanied me and the discussion turned into me not doing well in studies because I ‘have a crush on a guy.’ The therapist said, ‘She is not that pretty to be liked in return by the guy, anyway.’ An adult said that to a 16-year-old.”

—u/AnimalSignal4974

18.

“My dad told me at age 10, ‘Don’t be such a know-it-all.’ To this day, I don’t like to show that I know much of anything or have outward confidence.”

—u/One_Bicycle_1776

19.

“I was about 10 and in the school choir. I really enjoyed singing and many people complimented my voice. My choir teacher told me that my voice sounded like a chipmunk. It really hurt me, and I gave up, and still, to this day, it hurts me.”

—u/kindnessgirl

20.

“When I was in high school I was in honors three Spanish and made the highest grade in the school on the final (a 97). I brought it home to my dad, expecting him to be so proud of me, but instead, he said, ‘Why didn’t you make a 100?’ That goes through my mind almost daily now, and I’m 43. It really made me struggle with not feeling like anything I do is ever good enough. Please don’t do that to your kids.”

—u/Muted-Bobcat4299

21.

And, “The first time I remember my father calling me a ‘bitch’ I was about eight. He was haranguing my mom and I piped up to tell him to be nice to her. He said something along the lines of, ‘You don’t have to be such a bitch about it.’ I knew from that moment on that it was my CALLING to be ‘such a bitch about it.’ Wherever he is now, I hope someone else is being a total bitch about it. Forever and ever, amen.”

—u/Beloveddust

Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.

If you are concerned that a child is experiencing or may be in danger of abuse, you can call or text the National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453(4.A.CHILD); service can be provided in over 140 languages.