What was the most hurtful thing that anyone has ever said to you?

Had a bumpy road through University, changing majors once and was generally aimless while my dad and mom and brother had found their passions in life. (Mom as a speech and listening therapist for children, dad running a software business, brother doing volunteer/nonprofit work). I was trying and failing to find steady work (though I did do odd jobs) and was succumbing to pretty bad social anxiety.

I know that 'social anxiety' gets thrown around so much it loses value, but if I hadn't needed to walk my dog I probably would have ended up locking myself away from the world. Going out in public was cause for incoherent thoughts, gastric distress and sweating bullets, and nights were ridden with insomnia. The gastric distress played into the anxiety, which fed back into the gastric distress, just spinning off into utter misery. At first it was mostly in class, but it hit the point where I was feeling it while walking to the corner store. I couldn't fathom a way forward that didn't involve me just enduring all that at some job somewhere and struggling forward just like I'd done with University.

I ultimately stepped away from University much sooner than planned, with three years of study finished and no plans. I focused on my writing, which had been getting some attention online, and it was actually starting to pick up. It was my passion, but a lack of self esteem and a (fairly realistic) view that most writers don't survive off their writing had made me dismiss it. I decided to try, even if it was a one-in-a-million shot.

I was actually picking up some attention, and doing pretty well, and then I get an email from my brother.

In short, to paraphrase, "You don't deserve to succeed with the writing. You've dicked around too much over the past few years and you just haven't tried, and if you achieve anything here, it's purely because you got lucky, and that isn't right and it isn't fair."

In the years since, I've gotten to the point where I make a living writing, which very few do. I put in an incredible amount of work (writing basically a book a month) and 'made it', in a sense. My brother has recanted his view and taken a softer stance, but he's never apologized.

/r/AskReddit Thread