Eep, I wish I'd tried to write my own answer before asking this actually, because now I'm realising this is kind of HARD to respond to. Note to self about content creation - always road test it yourself first! 🙈😂
For the longest time I've carried around a terror of the label of "weird". It was crippling me through my teens, twenties and early 30s - growing up my sister called me it frequently, and to me it meant I was failing at life. Failing at belonging, at being 'normal' and right and wanted and good. My self-weirdness radar was in constant overdrive scanning mode - picking up on all those tiny moments of social interaction where I could tell I'd misstepped or and beating myself up (both figuratively and sometimes literally) afterwards for hours on end. Which, if you think about it, is pretty effing weird 🤡.
I even bought a book full of rules about how to be great in social situations, which was full of dazzling advice like "ask everyone what they'd like as their epitaph on their gravestone!". Yeah. You can imagine how helpful tips like that are to a 21 year old uni student lol.
One day I was speaking to my coach about this whole thing and said, "I feel like everyone else was born with a rule book that I didn't get", and she said, "are you kidding me? That sounds AMAZING! Lucky you!". It kind of blew my mind to look at it with this fresh perspective. I'd never really appreciated before how much all the rules for 'normal' and 'proper' are just a massive social trap. Between that and my work and my experiences of loving acceptance, I'm much less afraid of being weird these days. Sometimes it does still come up though - and it's interesting to see who triggers it in me, and notice it's always the hyper-'normal' people, who I have little in common with, who always intimidate me the most.
Right?? All my favourite people are weird, and the people my brain puts in the 'normal' category are all zero fun. Why did I spend so long seeking approval from the people I enjoy hanging out with the least??
Unique is a much nicer word! I'm going to try and internalise this! I remember going out for lunch with a group of work colleagues when I was in the NHS and they all ordered the exact same pizza and drink except me. I thought I was defective. Now I think that their matching orders were the thing that was a little strange!
I think the best words are quirky and whimsical! I use them all the time to describe myself and my artwork. I think they are kind and uplifting words for all the wonderfully weird and unique souls that we are 😍
I love your coach's approach now. At 21, I wouldn't have been able to take that on board.
I so recognise all of this, Sara. The word "weird" is negatively ingrained in me from similar experiences and comments. I also didn't get the freakin rule book.
Are you neurodiverse, Miranda (ADHD/Autism)? I'm wondering if there's a common denominator between us no-rulebook folks somewhere! But you're right - at 21 it matters so much more to belong than to be free. All in its own time, I suppose.
Probably? I've never been tested but I recognise a lot of the traits. Are you, Sara?
I think all the best people never got the rule book. I wish I'd worked out how to make my own rules when I was a lot younger. I still feel like I'm going to be told off for breaking the rules, even though I don't actually know what they are.
I have CPTSD. I suppose I always knew it, because I dealt with some stuff at a very early age that is forever part of who I am, but I didn't know the term or ramifications of CPTSD until a few friends were diagnosed as ADHD and ASD. I related to them, and my ASD friend asked if I might have it as well. Turns out there's a LOT of overlap. But since CPTSD is considered "acquired neurodivergence" we don't really get to know if we would've had ASD or ADHD naturally. In any case, here we are!
I think this may be a relatively new understanding within the community. I never encountered any of these terms when I was in therapy as a teen. Always good to do your own research, though. I'm definitely no expert!
Yep. CPTSD is generally associated with childhood. I suppose there could be other times, but even vets are typically considered to have PTSD, even though they are almost always still in adolescence when they enter the armed services. This is all stuff I've come to understand in the last year or so. The earlier you experience prolonged trauma, the more impact it has on your development.
I’ve got no idea about “ the rule book” and it trips me up often in friendships, in biz but NEVER in creativity.
I’ve learnt not to take it on but it’s still sometimes hard when I’m like tell me what your rules are because I can’t understand subtext or passive aggressive stuff nor should I have to either? 🤷🏽♀️
🤗 let’s be MORE weird and reclaim that word as our own!? ✨⭕️✏️🐛🕳️🐇
I love this manifesto! I'm always telling my son that it's ok to be considered 'weird' - those are the things that likely will bring him joy and make him interesting when he's older. I mean, he's three and a half and more than happy to be seen licking a supermarket trolly handle in public, but hopefully it'll get ingrained at the right age...!
Yeah society wants us to mask weirdness but being “accepted” while masking just makes you more lonely I think? I encourage my kids to celebrate their passions and they often lock on to a topic or a set of character or something physical and go hard into it - it’s beautiful self expression and I’m here for it. We were at a local garden with our friends son who is non verbal and autistic and often agitated. After being stung by a nettle on his leg, he took his shoes and socks off and put his feet in the ornamental Lilly pond - it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. He was still and calm and just at one with the Lilly pads. 😢 a reminder to take up space no matter what people think.
Oh gosh, that's beautiful. It's so difficult when we see our children start to feel that they need to conform and fight the kind of instincts that your friend's son displayed. I know it's got solid evolutionary roots, and is probably necessary, but seeing that perfect little person feel that they need to change to fit in breaks my heart a bit.
100% on masking making you feel lonely. Hopefully we're doing a good job of helping the next generation feel more at ease with themselves...
I think I agree with your coach. I can’t remember not having the rule book, I understood early on how vital it was that I followed it and spent the first few decades of my life trying my best to follow that path and be a good rule-following girl. The few times I strayed from it it was clear that was weird so back I went. Undoing that learning is freeing and a lifelong work too.
I wish so hard that I had embraced my weird. I remember having this amazing pair of patent leather heels that I found new in a charity shop. I distinctly remember a boy on my bus saying 'nice shoes' in a 'those shoes are hideous' kinda way and from that day on I adopted the same fashion sense everyone else had in school - boring. I know it may be impossible but I really hope my daughter embraces her weird and celebrates it. I envy anyone who managed to in school.
I got teased for ‘looking like a boy’, as I had short hair as a child and to me, that meant ugly. I never thought I was pretty and no one ever told me I was. Whatever the mirror, or photographs show or what others tell me now, deep down, I ‘know’ I’m ugly. And although I was slim as a child, now that I am not, I now get to be old, fat and ugly.. I say this not for sympathy or denials - my psyche cannot let go of the beliefs that grew when I was little. Now, I tell my children that they are beautiful and gorgeous and lovely and amazing all the time so they don’t grow up thinking they’re not 🥺
Now I’ve thought some more, I realise I don’t actually care about whether I’m ugly or pretty, it bothered me so much when I was young, but my 40s have brought a realisation that I really don’t mind!! How funny that I didn’t know until now.
Me too. I had short hair as a child because we lived in Australia and it was hot so my mum thought it best to keep my hair short. I was mistaken for a boy multiple times and so I have this long running conviction that I look even now mannish. Logically I know that I don’t, but it is so darn hard to shake off!
My GCSE art teacher openly laughed at me in front of my parents (parents evening) when I said I wanted to go to art college for my A Levels. I fight to prove that man wrong every day, and I think I’ve succeeded. I have a 6 figure business because of my art
Christ, what an arse. I'd say you've more than smashed that goal Niamh! Do you ever get tempted to track him down and email him to let him know, or are you more sane than me? 😂
This definitely rings true for me. At Art school my tutor told me that I had a skill for putting my crappy bits of work together and making it look quite good.
There are probably lots but the one I remember most is from the teacher in primary (junior school) when I was about 10, who told me to crumple up my art work I’d presented to her, and put it in the bin. Being 10 I didn’t really get sarcasm, so I did, and then incorrectly assumed I was rubbish at art! She tried to rectify the situation but I think the damage was done and I’ve never fully embraced my creative side as I didn’t think I had one!
I'm so sorry this happened to you, Collette! It makes me so sad when adults project their own issues onto children (I feel like being sarcastic about something like this is a sign of something deeper on her end!).
A 'friend' arrived for dinner with her partner. I was happy to be hosting them for a meal, so I was chatting away merrily and she turned to me and in a hushed kinda therapists voice, said 'relax' - it totally dented my confidence. Years later, she relayed how she had enjoyed undermining a woman she disliked, with the same putdown, also hosting a dinner party. Obviously she had forgotten she had used this trick on me. I remember the freedom when I removed myself from this toxic 'friendship'. Who needs enemies with friends like that! But that word... relax.. just transports me back and her smug face.
Omg this has me raging! What a spiteful, smug, selfish human being. I love that she outed herself to you in the end - these idiots take other people’s pain so lightly, forgetting that we carry it around for years and never forget. I wish you’d turned around and said “oh, that was me, don’t you remember?” but no doubt she’d have squirmed her way out of it anyway.
Wow, this is so horrible. Why do some people just try and bring others down. I have recently having these same conversations with my daughter as she navigates similar situations at school
I was laughed at my art teacher and it’s only 26 years later that I’ve started to paint for fun. I genuinely thought that I wasn’t allowed to because I had no talent for it.
Soo many people have been turned off all creativity by somebody like this! It slams the door in our face and makes us think art is something that belongs to everyone else. I glad you’ve found your way back to it somehow Rosalyn! But what a horrible loss of those years
Being told whilst at Uni and joining in a social kick about that “I had footballer’s legs!” Have hated my legs ever since - but would give anything for that 20 year old body now!!!
Omg! What is wrong with people?? It's easy now to look at that and hear how it was clearly alllll about that person's own baggage - I mean, who goes around commenting on other people's legs at all? So crappy. I, too, wasted my chance to appreciate my gorgeous 20 year old body with nonsense self talk. I try to remind myself that I'll probably say the same about my current body twenty years from now too!
That’s exactly where I am at now - whenever I’m unhappy with my current body/health/fitness I think to my 69 year old self and how much she would love to be in my 49 yo body!
I switched from one school to another mid-year when I was five because we moved. I remember feeling quite at home in the first school, but like a total weirdo at the second, likely because I had to wear bifocals and an eye patch due to one of my eyes being weak. There was never a particular comment, just a pervasive feeling of having missed the critical moment when people decided who was friends with whom. It worked out in the end, but I‘ve always found it odd joining groups.
Ah this is so relatable - and that feeling of not quite fitting in can follow us around for years. After a while it can sort of become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because then we approach every new group situation expecting to be rejected and trying harder to fit in, which makes us more different and fit in less... at least in my case anyway!
It took a while, but now I feel past this one. Partly by creating communities that feel safe for those who worry about groups. 💖 Perhaps it‘s similar for you, Sara?
My mother. "You never finish *anything*." I have three degrees, a career, a book, and a very successful business, and I still identify as a flakey sort of failure .
Ugh this one hits deep. It’s amazing how a comment like this can become a pattern we keep seeking out in our life. And of course, everyone has examples of unfinished things they can find if they look for them!
It is amazing how words stick, despite all that we do they still ring in our ears. I am so sorry Grace. I have gifted your book to both my mother and mother in law and have been so inspired by your beautiful writing
Oh, so, so many comments. There was the kid in the playground I'd never met before who charged up to me at the end of break and asked "Are you B's sister?" I nodded. "Why's he so brainy when you're so thick?" I still don't know who she was or where she got this little nugget. From my brother? I don't think so.
There was the RE teacher who, when I misspelled a single word, asked me kindly, head on one side, if I had always had difficulty with spelling. This was the same woman I had a stand-up row with when she told the entire class that the difference between humans and animals was that animals "don't have a soul".
There was the girl who used my name as an insult every time she said it, drawing the final vowel in Mirandaaaaah out so long to express her exasperation at whatever was wrong with me at that moment that I grew to hate my own name.
My favourite though, wasn't a put-down of me directly. “You’ve probably noticed that your mother’s a bit eccentric.” This from the head of year who had called me out of class for an informal "chat" to find out how I was getting on with my classmates (I wasn't) and must have thought this little observation would help.
It didn't help me in the least, but my mother loved it. She adopted it as one of her regular "funny stories" about herself. Every time she told it, I died a little. To me, it was a story about my being bullied at school and how a teacher’s response to it was to tell me my family was weird, that people don’t like difference, and that I was just like my mother. The triple whammy.
Sweet potato, there are a few, but one early one was doing really well at an assignment, literally getting a gold star, getting a compliment, and then in the next breath "imagine what you could do if you really tried". Combined with another comment "don't boast about your gold star, people will think you think you're better than them". With already well entrenched RSD and what I now know is neurodivergence, queue 4 decades of striving to be better than the best at everything, people pleasing, aggressively batting away any compliments or encouragements (as though they are actually secret code for telling me to try harder) and hiding my true self from everyone. Totally cool. Totally normal. 🙈
Thanks! I'm in my 60s now and I sometimes surprise myself at the reflective wisdom that has come with the years. If only it hadn't had to be so hard won! Do check out my other memoir essays - there may be other stuff that resonates with you.
I’d always loved writing and would write pages and pages, until I got to gcse English and my teacher was so discouraging. She had clear favourites and I wasn’t one of them, she really made me feel like I was no good at it and I didn’t really write much after that.
Me too, Lisa! We had a brilliant English teacher in the first few years of secondary. Then a man who should have retired thirty years earlier took us on for GCSE. I say that not to be ageist but because his attitude was SO archaic. He had no interest at all in the creative side of creative writing. His entire teaching was focused on grammar and spelling. Yes, they're important, but they should never be used as a weapon to stop people from communicating their own ideas.
I would have taken English for A-level but he put me off.
Oh! And he used to throw the blackboard rubber at us when we made a mistake. That was fun.
Ugh, the very opposite of what a teacher should do! I'm the kind of petty, spiteful person that would have to write a bestselling novel now, just so I could post a copy to her 😂
Two threads for me. One is the art teacher who told me I couldn't draw - the internal school art exam was the only exam I ever failed at school.
And second and more pervasive, my mother's refrain - why are you trying to be different. My response then, as now, I'm not, I'm just trying to be me. But actually I spent a lifetime trying to fit myself into other people's boxes to try not to be too different.
Soo interesting that she saw it as “trying” to be different - and that doing so would be a bad thing. Gives you so many early messages about what it means to be different vs fitting in, and how you’re responsible for both.
my mother telling me from as young as I can remember right the way up till I cut her out of mine and my children's lives how much she hated me, how she wishes I hadn't been born and how I was the worst thing that happened to her. Would have minded so much had I been the first or last but I am the 3rd of 4.
I made sure when my own children came along they knew they were loved and wanted, even the unplanned one, who was never told she was unplanned. They got kisses and hugs and nicely spoken to, encouraged and praised.
I’m so sorry Elaine. I relate to this deeply - being told you are hated and unwanted from such a formative age is devastating to our sense of self worth and it takes so much work and strength to find solid ground as an adult. Really glad to hear you’ve found peace and created your own family with love and belonging at the heart. I hope you know that you’re perfect, and you’re wanted, and you’re loved. And I’m very glad you’re here x
I'm so sorry that you experienced this. Well done on working so hard to break the cycle and not pass that generational trauma on to your children. It's a heavy thing to need to do - I hope you're proud of how hard you've worked to do it. So many of us in the same situation see you and admire you.
I was pulled aside by a teacher in high school and told that the friendships I had with the boys in my class (I got along way better with boys!) was detrimental to my learning and I should end those friendships. Fast track 17 years later, and I have been married to “one of those boys” for 10 years and he has encouraged and supported me through all my studies and education goals!
Eep, I wish I'd tried to write my own answer before asking this actually, because now I'm realising this is kind of HARD to respond to. Note to self about content creation - always road test it yourself first! 🙈😂
For the longest time I've carried around a terror of the label of "weird". It was crippling me through my teens, twenties and early 30s - growing up my sister called me it frequently, and to me it meant I was failing at life. Failing at belonging, at being 'normal' and right and wanted and good. My self-weirdness radar was in constant overdrive scanning mode - picking up on all those tiny moments of social interaction where I could tell I'd misstepped or and beating myself up (both figuratively and sometimes literally) afterwards for hours on end. Which, if you think about it, is pretty effing weird 🤡.
I even bought a book full of rules about how to be great in social situations, which was full of dazzling advice like "ask everyone what they'd like as their epitaph on their gravestone!". Yeah. You can imagine how helpful tips like that are to a 21 year old uni student lol.
One day I was speaking to my coach about this whole thing and said, "I feel like everyone else was born with a rule book that I didn't get", and she said, "are you kidding me? That sounds AMAZING! Lucky you!". It kind of blew my mind to look at it with this fresh perspective. I'd never really appreciated before how much all the rules for 'normal' and 'proper' are just a massive social trap. Between that and my work and my experiences of loving acceptance, I'm much less afraid of being weird these days. Sometimes it does still come up though - and it's interesting to see who triggers it in me, and notice it's always the hyper-'normal' people, who I have little in common with, who always intimidate me the most.
I’d agree with your coach - weird is so much better than normal or average (aka boring!)
Right?? All my favourite people are weird, and the people my brain puts in the 'normal' category are all zero fun. Why did I spend so long seeking approval from the people I enjoy hanging out with the least??
No matter what they might call it, I see it being unique in its own little way. Unique = being different and being the same as others is boring 😊
Unique is a much nicer word! I'm going to try and internalise this! I remember going out for lunch with a group of work colleagues when I was in the NHS and they all ordered the exact same pizza and drink except me. I thought I was defective. Now I think that their matching orders were the thing that was a little strange!
I think the best words are quirky and whimsical! I use them all the time to describe myself and my artwork. I think they are kind and uplifting words for all the wonderfully weird and unique souls that we are 😍
Ooh I’m going to steal this! And then give them a copy of my book! 😁
Love this!!
I love your coach's approach now. At 21, I wouldn't have been able to take that on board.
I so recognise all of this, Sara. The word "weird" is negatively ingrained in me from similar experiences and comments. I also didn't get the freakin rule book.
Are you neurodiverse, Miranda (ADHD/Autism)? I'm wondering if there's a common denominator between us no-rulebook folks somewhere! But you're right - at 21 it matters so much more to belong than to be free. All in its own time, I suppose.
The no rulebook is something Rachael put in the State of Grace and it resounded with me so much.
Probably? I've never been tested but I recognise a lot of the traits. Are you, Sara?
I think all the best people never got the rule book. I wish I'd worked out how to make my own rules when I was a lot younger. I still feel like I'm going to be told off for breaking the rules, even though I don't actually know what they are.
I have CPTSD. I suppose I always knew it, because I dealt with some stuff at a very early age that is forever part of who I am, but I didn't know the term or ramifications of CPTSD until a few friends were diagnosed as ADHD and ASD. I related to them, and my ASD friend asked if I might have it as well. Turns out there's a LOT of overlap. But since CPTSD is considered "acquired neurodivergence" we don't really get to know if we would've had ASD or ADHD naturally. In any case, here we are!
Acquired neurodivergence is a brand new term to me. I’ll have a read around this. Thanks for being so open here...
I think this may be a relatively new understanding within the community. I never encountered any of these terms when I was in therapy as a teen. Always good to do your own research, though. I'm definitely no expert!
Yep. CPTSD is generally associated with childhood. I suppose there could be other times, but even vets are typically considered to have PTSD, even though they are almost always still in adolescence when they enter the armed services. This is all stuff I've come to understand in the last year or so. The earlier you experience prolonged trauma, the more impact it has on your development.
I’ve always felt like this.
I’ve got no idea about “ the rule book” and it trips me up often in friendships, in biz but NEVER in creativity.
I’ve learnt not to take it on but it’s still sometimes hard when I’m like tell me what your rules are because I can’t understand subtext or passive aggressive stuff nor should I have to either? 🤷🏽♀️
🤗 let’s be MORE weird and reclaim that word as our own!? ✨⭕️✏️🐛🕳️🐇
I love this manifesto! I'm always telling my son that it's ok to be considered 'weird' - those are the things that likely will bring him joy and make him interesting when he's older. I mean, he's three and a half and more than happy to be seen licking a supermarket trolly handle in public, but hopefully it'll get ingrained at the right age...!
Aww the trolley!
Yeah society wants us to mask weirdness but being “accepted” while masking just makes you more lonely I think? I encourage my kids to celebrate their passions and they often lock on to a topic or a set of character or something physical and go hard into it - it’s beautiful self expression and I’m here for it. We were at a local garden with our friends son who is non verbal and autistic and often agitated. After being stung by a nettle on his leg, he took his shoes and socks off and put his feet in the ornamental Lilly pond - it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. He was still and calm and just at one with the Lilly pads. 😢 a reminder to take up space no matter what people think.
Oh gosh, that's beautiful. It's so difficult when we see our children start to feel that they need to conform and fight the kind of instincts that your friend's son displayed. I know it's got solid evolutionary roots, and is probably necessary, but seeing that perfect little person feel that they need to change to fit in breaks my heart a bit.
100% on masking making you feel lonely. Hopefully we're doing a good job of helping the next generation feel more at ease with themselves...
I think I agree with your coach. I can’t remember not having the rule book, I understood early on how vital it was that I followed it and spent the first few decades of my life trying my best to follow that path and be a good rule-following girl. The few times I strayed from it it was clear that was weird so back I went. Undoing that learning is freeing and a lifelong work too.
I wish so hard that I had embraced my weird. I remember having this amazing pair of patent leather heels that I found new in a charity shop. I distinctly remember a boy on my bus saying 'nice shoes' in a 'those shoes are hideous' kinda way and from that day on I adopted the same fashion sense everyone else had in school - boring. I know it may be impossible but I really hope my daughter embraces her weird and celebrates it. I envy anyone who managed to in school.
I got teased for ‘looking like a boy’, as I had short hair as a child and to me, that meant ugly. I never thought I was pretty and no one ever told me I was. Whatever the mirror, or photographs show or what others tell me now, deep down, I ‘know’ I’m ugly. And although I was slim as a child, now that I am not, I now get to be old, fat and ugly.. I say this not for sympathy or denials - my psyche cannot let go of the beliefs that grew when I was little. Now, I tell my children that they are beautiful and gorgeous and lovely and amazing all the time so they don’t grow up thinking they’re not 🥺
Now I’ve thought some more, I realise I don’t actually care about whether I’m ugly or pretty, it bothered me so much when I was young, but my 40s have brought a realisation that I really don’t mind!! How funny that I didn’t know until now.
Me too. I had short hair as a child because we lived in Australia and it was hot so my mum thought it best to keep my hair short. I was mistaken for a boy multiple times and so I have this long running conviction that I look even now mannish. Logically I know that I don’t, but it is so darn hard to shake off!
It is so hard to shake off. Although I find I’m not worried about prettiness, those words have stuck in my head..
My GCSE art teacher openly laughed at me in front of my parents (parents evening) when I said I wanted to go to art college for my A Levels. I fight to prove that man wrong every day, and I think I’ve succeeded. I have a 6 figure business because of my art
Christ, what an arse. I'd say you've more than smashed that goal Niamh! Do you ever get tempted to track him down and email him to let him know, or are you more sane than me? 😂
You know when you have imaginary conversations in the shower? Yeah that’s what mine are 😂
That’s 100% what I would do, have done, will do again. 😂
This definitely rings true for me. At Art school my tutor told me that I had a skill for putting my crappy bits of work together and making it look quite good.
🙄
LOVE this! My husband had similar - he’s an incredible artist but he doesn’t make anything to sell... yet!
There are probably lots but the one I remember most is from the teacher in primary (junior school) when I was about 10, who told me to crumple up my art work I’d presented to her, and put it in the bin. Being 10 I didn’t really get sarcasm, so I did, and then incorrectly assumed I was rubbish at art! She tried to rectify the situation but I think the damage was done and I’ve never fully embraced my creative side as I didn’t think I had one!
It’s made me quite sad to type this out!
This is heartbreaking - poor tiny you, facing that moment in earnest. I wish I could go back in time and hug you!
Thanks Sara - me too!
Oh I’m so sad for 10 year old you 🥺 that’s so unkind
Me too Emily. Perhaps not intentionally, but it made up my mind at such a young age that I wasn’t creative!
Wha--?? What was she thinking, Collette?
I know, really not a good idea. I remember her being quite a young teacher so maybe just a bit inexperienced. Left its mark though!
For what it’s worth, I bet she remembers this moment forever too.
Yeah I think you’re right.
I'm so sorry this happened to you, Collette! It makes me so sad when adults project their own issues onto children (I feel like being sarcastic about something like this is a sign of something deeper on her end!).
Thanks Charlie, it is sad! And yes I think you could be right, something else going on entirely.
So crushing and a horrible thing to say to anyone, especially a child. I hope you find a way to access your creativity 🧡
Yeah I do wonder what she was thinking, looking back. Thank you! 😊
This makes me so sad Collette
Thanks Kate, me too.
A 'friend' arrived for dinner with her partner. I was happy to be hosting them for a meal, so I was chatting away merrily and she turned to me and in a hushed kinda therapists voice, said 'relax' - it totally dented my confidence. Years later, she relayed how she had enjoyed undermining a woman she disliked, with the same putdown, also hosting a dinner party. Obviously she had forgotten she had used this trick on me. I remember the freedom when I removed myself from this toxic 'friendship'. Who needs enemies with friends like that! But that word... relax.. just transports me back and her smug face.
Oof that’s horrible. What a nasty thing to do.
Yes. Very destructive. The worrying thing is she's a therapist too.
They know what they’re doing. One of my most toxic friendships was with a psychologist
Omg this has me raging! What a spiteful, smug, selfish human being. I love that she outed herself to you in the end - these idiots take other people’s pain so lightly, forgetting that we carry it around for years and never forget. I wish you’d turned around and said “oh, that was me, don’t you remember?” but no doubt she’d have squirmed her way out of it anyway.
Wow, this is so horrible. Why do some people just try and bring others down. I have recently having these same conversations with my daughter as she navigates similar situations at school
I was laughed at my art teacher and it’s only 26 years later that I’ve started to paint for fun. I genuinely thought that I wasn’t allowed to because I had no talent for it.
Soo many people have been turned off all creativity by somebody like this! It slams the door in our face and makes us think art is something that belongs to everyone else. I glad you’ve found your way back to it somehow Rosalyn! But what a horrible loss of those years
That’s exactly it. I’m just glad I have found it now.
😢
I am happy that you have started to paint again, hopefully you can put the horrible memory behind you
Being told whilst at Uni and joining in a social kick about that “I had footballer’s legs!” Have hated my legs ever since - but would give anything for that 20 year old body now!!!
Omg! What is wrong with people?? It's easy now to look at that and hear how it was clearly alllll about that person's own baggage - I mean, who goes around commenting on other people's legs at all? So crappy. I, too, wasted my chance to appreciate my gorgeous 20 year old body with nonsense self talk. I try to remind myself that I'll probably say the same about my current body twenty years from now too!
That’s exactly where I am at now - whenever I’m unhappy with my current body/health/fitness I think to my 69 year old self and how much she would love to be in my 49 yo body!
My knobbly knees!! You've unlocked a supressed memory 🤣
I switched from one school to another mid-year when I was five because we moved. I remember feeling quite at home in the first school, but like a total weirdo at the second, likely because I had to wear bifocals and an eye patch due to one of my eyes being weak. There was never a particular comment, just a pervasive feeling of having missed the critical moment when people decided who was friends with whom. It worked out in the end, but I‘ve always found it odd joining groups.
Ah this is so relatable - and that feeling of not quite fitting in can follow us around for years. After a while it can sort of become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because then we approach every new group situation expecting to be rejected and trying harder to fit in, which makes us more different and fit in less... at least in my case anyway!
It took a while, but now I feel past this one. Partly by creating communities that feel safe for those who worry about groups. 💖 Perhaps it‘s similar for you, Sara?
Yes, exactly this! Realising that it was never us that was wrong, it was just that we weren’t surrounded by the right people ❤️
My mother. "You never finish *anything*." I have three degrees, a career, a book, and a very successful business, and I still identify as a flakey sort of failure .
Ugh this one hits deep. It’s amazing how a comment like this can become a pattern we keep seeking out in our life. And of course, everyone has examples of unfinished things they can find if they look for them!
It is amazing how words stick, despite all that we do they still ring in our ears. I am so sorry Grace. I have gifted your book to both my mother and mother in law and have been so inspired by your beautiful writing
Oh, so, so many comments. There was the kid in the playground I'd never met before who charged up to me at the end of break and asked "Are you B's sister?" I nodded. "Why's he so brainy when you're so thick?" I still don't know who she was or where she got this little nugget. From my brother? I don't think so.
There was the RE teacher who, when I misspelled a single word, asked me kindly, head on one side, if I had always had difficulty with spelling. This was the same woman I had a stand-up row with when she told the entire class that the difference between humans and animals was that animals "don't have a soul".
There was the girl who used my name as an insult every time she said it, drawing the final vowel in Mirandaaaaah out so long to express her exasperation at whatever was wrong with me at that moment that I grew to hate my own name.
My favourite though, wasn't a put-down of me directly. “You’ve probably noticed that your mother’s a bit eccentric.” This from the head of year who had called me out of class for an informal "chat" to find out how I was getting on with my classmates (I wasn't) and must have thought this little observation would help.
It didn't help me in the least, but my mother loved it. She adopted it as one of her regular "funny stories" about herself. Every time she told it, I died a little. To me, it was a story about my being bullied at school and how a teacher’s response to it was to tell me my family was weird, that people don’t like difference, and that I was just like my mother. The triple whammy.
Sweet potato, there are a few, but one early one was doing really well at an assignment, literally getting a gold star, getting a compliment, and then in the next breath "imagine what you could do if you really tried". Combined with another comment "don't boast about your gold star, people will think you think you're better than them". With already well entrenched RSD and what I now know is neurodivergence, queue 4 decades of striving to be better than the best at everything, people pleasing, aggressively batting away any compliments or encouragements (as though they are actually secret code for telling me to try harder) and hiding my true self from everyone. Totally cool. Totally normal. 🙈
I wrote about mine in my post today - coincidence! It speaks to both of your questions. I hope you enjoy reading it! https://open.substack.com/pub/junegirvin/p/youll-never-make-a-nurse-or?r=1isob5&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Brain twins!! I love stories like yours where the insult turns into fuel to prove the other person wrong and achieve brilliant things!
Thanks! I'm in my 60s now and I sometimes surprise myself at the reflective wisdom that has come with the years. If only it hadn't had to be so hard won! Do check out my other memoir essays - there may be other stuff that resonates with you.
I’d always loved writing and would write pages and pages, until I got to gcse English and my teacher was so discouraging. She had clear favourites and I wasn’t one of them, she really made me feel like I was no good at it and I didn’t really write much after that.
Me too, Lisa! We had a brilliant English teacher in the first few years of secondary. Then a man who should have retired thirty years earlier took us on for GCSE. I say that not to be ageist but because his attitude was SO archaic. He had no interest at all in the creative side of creative writing. His entire teaching was focused on grammar and spelling. Yes, they're important, but they should never be used as a weapon to stop people from communicating their own ideas.
I would have taken English for A-level but he put me off.
Oh! And he used to throw the blackboard rubber at us when we made a mistake. That was fun.
Ugh, the very opposite of what a teacher should do! I'm the kind of petty, spiteful person that would have to write a bestselling novel now, just so I could post a copy to her 😂
Two threads for me. One is the art teacher who told me I couldn't draw - the internal school art exam was the only exam I ever failed at school.
And second and more pervasive, my mother's refrain - why are you trying to be different. My response then, as now, I'm not, I'm just trying to be me. But actually I spent a lifetime trying to fit myself into other people's boxes to try not to be too different.
Unfolding myself now at age 52, but it's hard.
Soo interesting that she saw it as “trying” to be different - and that doing so would be a bad thing. Gives you so many early messages about what it means to be different vs fitting in, and how you’re responsible for both.
my mother telling me from as young as I can remember right the way up till I cut her out of mine and my children's lives how much she hated me, how she wishes I hadn't been born and how I was the worst thing that happened to her. Would have minded so much had I been the first or last but I am the 3rd of 4.
I made sure when my own children came along they knew they were loved and wanted, even the unplanned one, who was never told she was unplanned. They got kisses and hugs and nicely spoken to, encouraged and praised.
I’m so sorry Elaine. I relate to this deeply - being told you are hated and unwanted from such a formative age is devastating to our sense of self worth and it takes so much work and strength to find solid ground as an adult. Really glad to hear you’ve found peace and created your own family with love and belonging at the heart. I hope you know that you’re perfect, and you’re wanted, and you’re loved. And I’m very glad you’re here x
I'm so sorry that you experienced this. Well done on working so hard to break the cycle and not pass that generational trauma on to your children. It's a heavy thing to need to do - I hope you're proud of how hard you've worked to do it. So many of us in the same situation see you and admire you.
I’m so sorry that happened to you x
thank you, thankfully I broke the cycle.
You did, which takes strength and beauty x
I am so sorry to read this Elaine 🤍
I was pulled aside by a teacher in high school and told that the friendships I had with the boys in my class (I got along way better with boys!) was detrimental to my learning and I should end those friendships. Fast track 17 years later, and I have been married to “one of those boys” for 10 years and he has encouraged and supported me through all my studies and education goals!