I have told this story here before, but I want to do it again. In a minute I'll explain why.
My mother has always had a "thing" about my body. It has never been good enough for her. I have known I was fat from the time I was about 5 years old. That is when NM too me to the pediatrician and wanted to know why I was so chubby. Then she called all her friends and told them that the Dr. had told htem it was "just baby fat," and that I would "grow out of it." That was when I first looked at my body and saw (real or imagined) rolls of fat, and I began to hate the way my body looked.
From that time on, NM was constantly manipulating my food, telling me what I could and couldn't have. Like everything in NM's and my world, the rules changed when she wanted them to change. For instance, ice cream was forbidden until she wanted some, then we would have giant ice cream sundaes instead of dinner. She was constantly starting some new cockamamie diet, coercing me to go on it with her. I started my first highly-structured diet, Diet Workshop, when I was 12. When I was in high school, about 16 years old or so, My mother convinced me that for Christmas i should allow her to give me Nutra System as a gift.
I probably wanted something for my horse, but I let ehr convince me that I would look much better in the saddle if I lost some weight, so off we went. Nutra system is one of those brutally expensive things that require you to buy all your food from them, plus weigh in, take classes, and have 1-on-1 counseling. At the time, their food really sucked, too! I started in the fall, and the counselor (Mother of the ridiculously over-achieving editor of my school paper) and my mother decided for me that at 5'6" I should weigh 133 lbs. This is actually too low for me, according to the Met Life tables, which is what they should have been using.
Needless to say, I had a horrible time of it. I ate those horrible dehydrated dinners on thanksgiving, Christmas, my birthday, Valentines day, and my1-year anniversary with my then-boyfriend. I don't think I even had a cake on my birthday. the BF gave me candy for valentines day, and I hid in my room to eat it, even though NM insisted I should put it in the living room for "everybody" (her and the dog) to enjoy. I still didn't make my goal, so they put me on a 500 calorie a day liquid diet. This was ridiculous because I was a pretty active kid as a teen. I had a paper route and a horse and I must have been working somewhere, because I worked all the time after I bought that horse when I was 14. I had to have a doctor's note to skip gym class; it was THAT bad.
Well, sometime in the spring, I reached the magic goal. I somehow managed to get down to 133. My mom bought me a couple of snazzy new outfits in my new tiny size. My grandma bough tme new show clothes because my old ones were now far too big. I went on the maintenance at Nutra Systems (where they teach you how to eat real food) and all seemed well.
Then one morning, MN had a jones for some pastry. I already knew what I should eat for breakfast, but she wanted me to stop on my way home form the paper route and grab some stuff from the bakery. I would have been glad to get her something, and then eaten my eggs and toast that I had planned. But NO! that was not good enough. Apparently she needed me to eat WITH her! So she screamed at me, the worst thing anybody ever said to me:
WHY CAN'T YOU EAT LIKE A NORMAL PERSON?
That was all it took. The light at the end of the tunnel went out and all those months of struggle came crashing down around me like the walls of the tunnel. Hundreds of dollars--wasted! Months of my life--gone! Herculean effort and saint-like self denial--pointless!
The weight came back and stayed back. I began a secret binge-eating cycle that stayed with me for years. In a few months the new clothes were too tight and I was told I looked like a hooker in them. The new riding jacket hung in my closet, barely touched. I quit riding competitively. I turned my attention to a boy (NM's choice) who turned out to be a toxic blight in my life to this day.
I became overweight and stayed over weight for the next 7 or 8 years, until I found Overeaters Anonymous. Then I joined the Army, which forced me to control my weight, then I went though a period when I really could not afford much food. So I had a lot of external influences controlling my weight for me. As soon as I had some money (Ironically by becoming a lingerie model) I returned to my crazy and self-destructive eating habits. the first time O got on a scale after my son was born, I weighed 230 lbs!
I have lost most of that weight (My son is now 11) but for the last 2 or 3 years I have been fooling around with the same 15 lbs, just out of my goal range. My doctor and my trainer both agree that 145 is a reasonable, safe, and attainable goal for me, but I just cannot seem to go there. I know for certain this is more a case of self-sabotage than anything else. I know it because, any time I have any reasonable progress, I do something to wreck it. For instance, just last week, I had a better than average loss. So I binged all weekend.
I had a big meltdown over this today. I wanted desperately to "get back on the horse" with my diet, but hubs wanted to go out for dinner. As soon as he suggested it, I began to panic. (This happens a lot) We talked about it some, but I feel unhappy using Hubs for a therapist. Especially since his father recently died and he has his own burden right now. I hate to pile all my problems on him, too.
Anyway, this is what came out of the talk:
1. That moment, and the statement "WHY CANT YOU EAT LIKE A NORMAL PERSON" resonates because it sums up my wntire relationship with food and with her at that time.
2. I still do not feel like a normal person. Even in a society where more than half of adults are overweight, I feel as if my efforts toward healthy eating are somehow deviant or obsessive.
2a. Actually I frequently do not feel normal in any respect.
3. I have come to believe it doesn't matter how hard I work on my diet, I will ultimately fail. Therefore, it does not matter if I try or not. Why not have the treat now, if there is no reward later?
4. My needs do not matter. NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, NOT ONE BIT. Even those months of struggle as a teen ager became null and void compared to my mothers "whim of the moment" (Ted's phrase, so apt!)
5. Asking for what I need makes me a food weirdo, and also very selfish.
6. People will not like me if I constantly (read: EVER) refuse to comply with their whims and partake in things that are bad for me. (Way to teach me about peer pressure, MOM!) In other words, I have no right to decline form participating in activities that may hurt me.
7---No , wait!--unhealthy eating activities CAN'T hurt me,
because I wasn't going to make my goal anyway! (Cue the Queen music: "Nothing really matters/anyone can see/nothing really matters/noting really matters....to meeeeeeeee............any way the wind blows........")
Then there are all the horrible associated mixed messages that are only halfway related to food:
Nobody likes a fatty<==> thin women are out to steal your man and can't be trusted
You will never get a man looking like that <==>women who are interested in attracting a man are tramps
A woman without a man is nothing <==> a woman who wants to attract a man is a tramp
Women are not really your friends, they are your competition
So apparently I should strive to be attractive and get a man, but I should expect that other women will hate me for being attractive. I should also understand that attempting to get a man makes me a whore, so I should never REALLY attempt to get a man, just sit around with all my shallow competitive friends and try to look pretty without them noticing.

I, um, I have some stuff to work out here. Can you tell?