900Jennifer Jacobs sent this in from Akron, Ohio, USA, via the SOTM Flickr group. She wrote: “This was probably the most hurtful thing anyone ever said to me. I was in a ‘relationship’ with a guy.

"It was messy and undefined, and he liked to love me one day and hate me the next. I'm not going to evaluate the whole relationship here because there's really no point. But one day he said (and it was over IM, so I saved it and have the exact words): ‘I AM better than you. I AM smarter than you. I AM more than you. ... It ticks me off to have you anywhere near my level. You belong below me.’

"I'm not sure what effect he wanted those words to have, but ultimately they really helped me see him for who he was, and really made me feel better about myself, not worse. I don't think about that relationship much anymore, but sometimes I think of these words to remind me of how much better I have it now.”