Very critical mother (very long)

GoDawgs · March 26, 2004

I hope that this isn't so long that no one will read it!!!

My mother is impossible to please. When I started high school I weighed 160 pounds and I'm 5'5". My mother was always telling me I needed to lose weight and I knew that I needed to lose it. After a year of exercising and watching what I ate I got down to 126 pounds. This still wasn't good enough for my mother. When I wanted to buy a two piece swim suit she'd tell me that I didn't have the body for it and I'd believe her and buy a one piece that hid my tummy. Once when shopping for formal dresses she told me that if I would lose just five more pounds I'd look like a model. Of course as an insecure teenage girl I just heard "you aren't thin enough". Being in marching band helped keep me thin b/c we had to run laps and do a lot of walking. My sophmore year I quit band and started working at a department store. I got up to 140 pounds and was in a size 12. My mom started criticizing my weight more often. Once she said right in front of my boyfriend that I needed to lose at least 10 pounds to look good in the outfit I was wearing. His jaw dropped and he told her that I looked great. However, for some reason what everyone else said to me just didn't register - all I took into consideration was what my mom thought about me. I felt fat and disgusting and thought that I never had any hope for being thin. I thought that when I was working hard at 126 that I was gross, and I knew that I could never get below that without starving myself, which I tried but just didn't have the will power to do. So I just gave up. I started dating a guy whose family owned a restaurant. We would pig out together - but he stayed thin b/c he worked out all of the time. I was back up to 160 by the time I graduated high school.

I got up to 180 my freshman year of college. Of course my mom would comment all of the time about how I needed to lose weight and every time we talked on the phone she would ask how the diet was going. When we were opening presents on Christmas day I opened a really beautiful sweater from my grandparents. It was a Large and I wore an XL. Mom asked me the size and I told her it would probably be too small she acted really sad and said "Jeanette, PLEASE lose the weight". She could't even leave me alone about it on Christmas day. I started crying and shut myself into the bedroom, and my dad was really pissed off at my mom. I really did try to lose weight my sophmore year of college. I worked out like crazy and barely ate anything, but I didn' t lose a pound. I think I screwed up my metabolism by always going on diets eating 500 - 800 calories a day. I thought I was a fat failure and gave up. I just kept gaining and gaining. When I hit 210 my mom told me that I had "lost my face". This led to another crying fit and an argument between my parents about her being critical. The comments became more fequent when I got up to 230. She would tell me how bad I looked and it would make me cry.

I'm now 25 and I just recently exploded at my mom about her criticism. I told her that my entire life, even when I was thin, she made me feel horrible about myself. I told her that I KNOW that I'm fat. I'm constantly reminded of it when I look in the mirror and when I have to shop in special stores for fat people. I told her that I feel like I'm always judged by people and am treated differently b/c I'm fat, and that the ONE place that I should always feel loved and beautiful is when I'm with my family. That no matter what she should always tell me that I'm beautiful.

Since then she's gotten a lot better about the critical comments. She and my dad are also both very supportive of the surgery. However, the other day she made a comment that made me start to worry. At 258 pounds I'm finally at a point in my life where I realize that the focus needs to be on being healthy, not being very thin. I look back on pictures of me when I weighed 160 and I honestly think I'm beautiful. When I see the pictures of me at 126 I can't belive how thin I look. It's so sad to me that when I was at those weights I felt so horrible about myself. So my goal with the band is to not get skinny. I will be VERY happy if I get to 160, which is technically still overweight, but I will be able to wear a size 14 at a regular store and I think that I look great in pictures at that weight. My actual goal is 140 - 150, but I will still be thrilled at 160.

The other day my mom and I were talking about the band. We were talking about what weight I should get down to, and she said "you probably wouldn't want to go below . . . " and then paused as she was thinking. I finished her sentence and said "140". She gave me a funny look and said "You probably wouldn't want to go below 125 or 120". WHAT??? I can't believe that now that I weight 258 pounds she still wants me to weigh 120 pounds. Hasn't her perspective changed?

The other day she started talking to a woman next to her at a nail salon and it ends up that she has the lap band. She's gone from 290 pounds to 150 in two years. My mom called me and handed her cell phone to the lady so I could ask questions. She was so nice and told me that people she works with are actually telling her that she needs to quit losing weight - words that she never imagined she would ever hear! Later when I told my mom that the lady said this, she gave me a funny look and said that the lady was certainly not getting so thin that she needed to stop losing weight, and that the woman was "very average".

So now I'm worried that once I start losing weight everything that I have gone through will start again. I'm worried that when I get down to 180 and am so excited that her attitude will focus more on the fact that I have a long way to go (in her opinion) then the fact that I have lost 80 pounds. I don't WANT to weigh 120 pounds. I want to weigh 150. My husband would hate it if I didn't have a little meat on my bones. I love the pictures where I weigh 150 - I look healthy and curvy. But I'm so scared that the same thing will happen where I want my mother's approval so much that her opinion is the only one I believe. I worry that if I only get down to 180 pounds with the lap band that she will see this as a huge failure and make me feel horrible about my decision and for spending so much money when my husband and I are just starting out.

Any advice?

GeezerSue · March 26, 2004

Therapy. And I'm not kidding. And I'm going myself. (And I'm probably older than your mother.)

I am probably WAY off base, but here's what I read in what you wrote:

My mother and I have always battled over control issues. She knows I want her approval, so she withholds it when I'm not doing everything her way. I know that one of things she wants to control is my weight, so I eat whatever I want, even to my own disadvantage, just to show her which of us in charge.

It appears to me that as long as she tries to control you, and as long as you crave her approval, things may not change much even with surgery. She needs to be able to say--and really mean, "While I care about your health, I adore you just the way you are." And you need to be able to say, "I love you, but I am a whole person, with or without your approval."

Therapy will probably help.

Sue

GoDawgs · March 26, 2004

You may be right about needing therapy.

I know that the reason my mom makes comments is because she wants the best for me. My mom has struggled with her weight for her entire life, and up until two years ago my mom has always been fatter than I am. So I know that she just doesn't want me to go through what she has gone through her entir elife. But her expectations are just unreasonable. I don't know why she thinks I'd be so much happer at 120 than at 150.

MeganA · March 26, 2004

I agree with Sue 100%. The issue is not your mother, dear. The issue is your need for acceptance. You know what is really interesting? Your mother has her OWN issues that she's dealing with- and her comments are not a reflection of you, but a reflection of herself.

I know, because I'm a former mother(or insert another any other relative's name)-acceptance junkie myself. It only took about three therapy sessions for me to make some boundaries with my mother. But ******I******* had to do the work to get the results and to see any change. She is who she is.

The best news- this is totally something you can get a handle on. And you'll feel so much stronger when you do.

Best of luck, and keep us posted,

Megan