Mothers, Weight, and Self Worth. All about Mom!

[bellabloom 2,467]

Another user posted a thread about her mother and their awful relationship due to fat shaming. It made me think a thread on this subject could be therapeutic to some of us.

First off I want to say, I LOVE my mom. She is a wonderful person and I forgive her. She has her own body image issues and I forgive her.

My mother has tortured me about my weight almost my whole life. It started when I was 11 and she put me on a diet for being a little tiny bit chubby and taking second helpings. This was the first time I thought of myself as fat and I became very insecure.

Whenever I would see my mother she would ALWAYS have a comment about my weight, first thing out of her mouth. I was too fat, or too skinny. Never perfect. Always one or the other. It hurt my feelings and made me miserable. It really messed with my self esteem.

I was never overweight, always about 150 pounds, until I got pregnant. I ballooned to 250 pounds. Pregnancy was the first time in my life I wasn't on a diet!! I went nuts.

My mother just couldn't handle it. Constantly telling me how concerned she was about my weight, how she didn't understand how I could let myself go. She would watch what I ate and make comments about that. She would discuss my weight with family members and my spouse as if to stage and intervention. It was very hurtful.

But she did support me having surgery and she was there for me though my complications. Thank you mom. She is amazing and I know she loves me.

Now the tide has turned and she is freaking out about how thin I've gotten. Calling me anorexic and telling me she can't stand to look at me. It's hurtful in a similar way. But I admit it does give me some pleasure that I'm no longer being told how fat I am.

I just wish I could hear, you look beautiful! Just once.

Edited October 16, 2015 by bellabloom

[Nologoz 18]

I just wish I could hear, you look beautiful! Just once.

This is a topic that hits a nerve with me.

My mother was the same way. I was forced to go on a liquid diet at 16.

My entire life I have had to hear her opinion about my weight. It makes me mad because the main reason I turned to food was to cope with her verbal outbursts.

Your Mom sounds like she had her good points, but unfortunately for me, my mother is mentally ill.

My mom has borderline/narcissistic personality disorder. The emotional abuse I endured as a child left me afraid, insecure, and destroyed my self esteem. The way I coped with the chaos and the family dysfunction was to "treat" myself with food. It calmed me down and made me feel better.

It has taken 44 years to finally understand how I became obese. Sure there are definitely hormonal and genetic factors that cause obesity...but throw in emotional abuse by a parent and you are left even more vulnerable to the disease.

I have never heard my Mother say I was beautiful without a "BUT" attached to it.

"You are so pretty BUT you just need to loose weight" or "You have such a pretty face BUT you are way too heavy to wear that outfit".

You would think after loosing weight everything would be better....wrong!

If she can't complain about my weight she turns to other things. When I'm thin I'm either "too young or too old to wear that outfit".

No matter how well I do professionally I should always "go back to school to get a better job/make more money"

In her mind, I have never been (and will never be) good enough, as is.

Now that I understand her mental illness, I no longer care about her opinion. It used to affect me horribly as a child and as an adult. Now it just makes me really mad. I have gone "No Contact" with her and I have no idea if I will ever be able to have a relationship with her in the future. All I know is I feel better now without her than when I was in contact with her.

[newmebithebypass 713]

I didn't had a step mom growing up and man life was hell I was put on slim fast at age 8 and if my meals looked to big I had food taken away in in therapy now to deal with my bed so that's good

[Sleeve_Sistah85 193]

It's such an unfortunate relief to hear these stories. I never had a great relationship with my mom. I was raised by my older sister because my mother suffered from depression since she was sexually abused as a child. Unfortunately my sister passed away when I was 11 and I had to go live with my mother.

Now..everyone in my family is overweight and obese and my mothers way of showing affection was to feed me as much as I wanted. Despite her being fat too every now and then she takes a stab at my weight which I used to ignore cuz she's fat too, but once I got older and started to try and lose weight it hurt that I wasn't losing and she was making fun of me.

She would make comments like "you're too fat to wear that"...made me so self conscious as a teenager. I'm so grateful for the department store Torrid because it gave me so much confidence in college and I was able to see myself beautiful.

Unfortunately my mom waited until I was damn near 30 to try and get close with me. She NOW tells me that I'm beautiful...but I kinda feel like it's too late.