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The worst thing anybody ever said to me (the eating disorder that will not die)

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Redhead Erin:
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?

 

Hopalong:
I know it's backward in a way, but
you are not your body.

I think we are trained to over-identify with our bodies. For "good" and "bad" reasons.

I mean...it's not that one should disconnect and not feel the pleasure/health/ill-health of our physical wellbing. I don't mean that.

It's just that in our culture (much less with insane Nmothers who appropriate daughters' bodies as accessories) -- women are taught to believe that the vessel is the content.

YOU are the content. All the good alive interesting loving bright trying learning creative Erin -- that's the content.

I think you should treat your body lovingly, but not love "it", if that makes sense.

Love YOU. Then, healing from her appropriation of your body, and healing from other ways you've hurt YOU, will accelerate. And a natural outcome of that, will be a fitter, healthier body that you can enjoy more. How it looks may be part of that, usually is, but how it feels will be the real motivator.

(Your face is beautiful and I'm sure your body is too. Right now, as is. But back to the subject -- YOU.)

I told my ex2 who had bad scarring and a host of physical damage from an accident: I really like your body, just as it is I find it interesting and beautiful. But your body is just a house. I'm in love with the man who lives there.

love
Hops

sKePTiKal:
Well, Erin. Really you're not alone, in the situation you wrote about - I've posted some about the same things, too.

At 16, I was 5'6"... but I weighed 110 lbs. and no amount of food could overcome my metabolism and nutritional deficiencies (the metabolism was probably anxiety-driven). Even pregnant, the doc was concerned I wasn't putting on enough weight - but both girls were full-term and weighed over 7 lbs. Then, more recently, after all the menopause dramas... my metabolism has totally flipped around. Easy to put it on; hard to take it off... and to make matters complicated, there's all my auto-immune crap to sort out, too. It's all a legacy malfunction of the mind-body connection and how Nmoms interfere with the normal functioning of that...

thinking you're hungry, when in reality you're eating to "manage your emotions"...
not eating because your emotions are in such a chaotic state of turmoil... (I get nauseous even looking at food, in that state)
eating/not eating... to please someone else... or letting their choices of food/portions dominate yours...

These are all a sort of delayed reaction to the complicated (and screwed up) primary caregiver (Nmom) attachment relationship. (I'll bet you're saying GEE, that's soooo helpful, right??) How each piece fits together into that explanation will only become clear after a long time of studying it - if you're even willing to do that much work. Suffice it to say - there is an almost magical result... where an infant/small or developing child - simply will not "thrive"... whether this manifests as being sickly, eating disorders, learning challenges... if there is not a strong, loving bond from the beginning with dear old mom. It's like that infant KNOWS and has enough consciousness to recognize... where he/she rates with mom. From that early, on...

and then it gets MESSY; all the different threads of colored yarn start to get knit into bits and pieces of identity... but tangled, not properly joined... until the result turns out to be this knotted up, jumbled, messy ball of yarn.

Some of the things that jumped out at me, in what you wrote... about where/how and what got messy:

Even when you were 5, she was projecting her body image issues onto you; not allowing you to simply be who YOU were - a separate, complete, self-contained package of YOU. Sounds like her specialty was "enmeshment". (You can look up all these words here and see what we've talked about before... and there are other websites.) The forced dieting at that age should've - could've been stopped by a doctor - but I imagine that was never brought to his/her attention. It's the opposite of what happened to me: I was bullied and browbeaten to eat and clean my plate every meal... and put down as being "skin and bones"... and boys wouldn't be interested in such a skinny-minny... until I was so upset, I'd throw up if I ate. I was never hungry; wouldn't dare start that whole mess. That was my way of taking back my power; exerting my control.

I think our unconscious selves go into resistance mode: YOU CAN'T MAKE ME. And so that part of ourselves gains, maintains and reverts to "control" over those fundamental mind-body connections: knowing when you're full, or hungry, food cravings for specific things...

The thing that I know from my own experience, is connected to self-sabotage - is what your said Nmom said to you; the way she crushed your fresh bud of the flower of confidence and self-esteem for reaching the goal - which was obviously so important to HER, that surely she'd be pleased at your success, isn't that the way it works?? - but no. She still found a way to put you down - and you came to the conclusion that what you did/didn't do... didn't matter; i.e., you didn't matter enough to even warrant that simple recognition of a job well-done. There is a lot of messy, not totally focused anger in that feeling... and it goes in a lot of directions - not just at mom. Hence, self-sabotage.

The takeaway from that (which I admit, is probably more my experience than anything I could possibly know about you)... is simply this: YOU get to decide whether it was a job well done and how you feel about it - Mom's words, treatment of you, and attempts to put you "in your place" - say a whole hell of lot more about HER... than about YOU. If you did it once - you CAN do it again; you have all the inner resources to accomplish your goals. Stop being her sock-puppet - don't let her jealousy of your success (and her withholding of praise for it) - rain on your parade. She has been trying her whole life to export to YOU... all of her issues, feelings about herself... and then she is able to put them down... by putting YOU down. And when you don't understand and comply with her "stated desire" - to control your weight, you're missing the message that really matters to her in the "under the radar" kind of role you're supposed to play... (you did what she can't do herself)... well, then she gets nasty and has to hurt your feelings and put you down. Like she's allowed to do that and get away with it... simply because she's "Mom".

Inhale. Exhale.

For the sake of your own health, you need to try something on for size. That's the idea that "Mom" - and I mean the whole complete warped, perverse package of memories, feelings, life lived or postponed that include her - "Mom" is just another person, like a stranger on the street or in Walmart. She has no special knowledge of who/how you are... she barely sees you; all she "sees" (and even that is questionable) is a reflection of her SELF. She doesn't see Erin; know Erin; and anything she thinks she knows -- is about her.

And when you can really experience what it feels like - to be ERIN... not mom's idea of Erin (that weird reflection version)... and you WILL feel that...
then that messy knotted up ball of different colored yarns... will start to loosen and separate and organize all the threads into separate colors again... order from chaos... and it'll be easier to understand, you'll be free-er of the old crap, and you'll feel so light (and colors around you will appear brighter) you'll feel so light, and totally able to simply "do" what you know is in your best interests... you'll even start to forget that this person called "mom" was such a factor in who you are... and wonder how you could ever think that in the first place.

Then, it'll be a whole lot easier to untangle that other ball of yarn of mixed messages about what is/isn't true of women and how women are healthy. Then, your needs - to be healthy - will just be natural and nurturing and disconnected from the experiences that were the opposite.
Then, it won't be such a conflict.

BTW - everything Hops said is true and invaluable in the stuff I've suggested above, too. In fact, it's probably a very necessary complimentary new "habit" to help you get through the other stuff. Just giving you my way of thinking about these things - for what it's worth. Your mileage may vary! Good luck, kiddo... you're about to discover (and doing really, really well I might add) some amazing things about YOU.

Redhead Erin:
Ohhhhhh, thanks Hops.  You always say the nicest things.  

It seems like I have 2 separate but related things going on:

1) I really don't like the way I look.  Objectively, I do not have the look for pin-up modeling, which has been a hobby of mine for years.  So whenever I have a photo session and get the pictures back, I am really disappointed with the results.  And while I know this is entirely about the vessel, it is still sad and disappointing, to the point where I am ready to take down my website and call it quits.  Looking at my pictures lately only reminds me of my lack of progress in the last 3 years. This makes me feel bad for being undisciplined and doing all the things I know I shouldn't.

2) I have a lot of negative programming around food/body/sexuality/social life/my personal likability.  It's easy to make the jump from "Why did I skip the gym and eat those cookies yesterday?  I am never going to reach my goal like that!" to "I am an undisciplined pig who always eats way too much and nobody would ever like me if they knew what a horrible glutton I am."   (Learning from my mistakes is sort of a new concept here.But I am getting it, a little)

3)  On the other side of the coin, I am also sort of afraid of success because what if I do reach my goal and make Pin-up Queen of the Year or something? Then will everybody hate me because they will think I am a tamp and a whore and trying to steal their men? I don't want that either!

So, I want to look the way I want to look.  I'm not striving for an unhealthy weight, and I know the limits of what diet and exercise can do.  Part of my obsession with this is that I want to master my body and my eating, and be able to say to myself and the world, "I AM DISCIPLINED! I AM COMPETETANT! I CAN DO THIS! I AN IN CONTROL!"

And also, I feel that once I do that, and have the actual weight loss goal out of the way, I can focus more seriously on the rest of my issues.  I have tried all that "Love your body the way it is" and it is seriously difficult for me.  My subconscious always screams, "What? Love this mess?  Are you crazy?"  It seems like fixing the mess is the better alternative.

Redhead Erin:
Phoenix--Your reply posted while I was typing.  I want to go through it more later but right now I am on the way to help paint a bus for the 4-H club to run in the Schoolbus Demo Derby.  See ya!

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