Hearing those words stung. It hurt, like needle sharp pains stabbing at your soul. It made me want to cry. My ex-boyfriend had yelled at me because I had forgotten to check the expiration date for the milk. I was in a rush to get home before traffic so I’d have time to make him dinner so I didn’t get a chance to check the expiration date.
The second time he said it was when I forgot how to properly address his grandparents in Chinese; it was my first time meeting them so I was very nervous and I tried my best to leave a good first impression. But instead I said the wrong thing and he ended up mocking me in the presence of the very people I was trying to impress.
What I had hoped to be rare occurrences quickly became a habit. He started calling me stupid more often, whenever I made a mistake, wore clothes he didn’t like, asked him for help with my Chinese, or when he was just upset in general. He lashed out at me, berated me, calling me “笨蛋” (aka idiot in Chinese), in front of his friends, in front of his family.
I remember telling him once how I felt, how much it hurt when he called me “stupid”, but he only looked at me and proclaimed that it was his way of teaching me not to make mistakes instead. He said I was over-sensitive and that I was “stupid” for even feeling bad about it. He said it was a joke and that it was my fault for making the…
