Beth,
I'm with mudpuppy on this one (and your other thread). You have done nothing wrong.
Ok, maybe it would have been better if you hadn't drunk so much at your sister's wedding, but everything else you did was just fine. You were angry. You were probably feeling very deprived. But as I think about it, I think it took an enormous, enormous amount of courage to do what you did. Even if it wasn't the optimum way of coping, you stood up in the only way you knew how. And, knowing full well how hard it is to lose any weight, I think your willingness to put your body on the line and risk something that would be hard to undo (lose the weight) says an enormous amount about how important this issue was to you. You were screaming in the only way you knew how, and that's just fine.
You are not responsible for your mother's behavior, she is. You are not responsible for meeting her needs, she is. You are responsible for meeting your needs, which you did.
Ok, so maybe the ultimate goal with the wedding dress would have been that you were able to speak up and say No! I don't want to wear this and I won't. And hash it out with your sister. But that's what voicelessness is all about, Beth. We don't know how to speak up and it's a long continuum up that spiral until we can be totally honest like that. And I have found that, while I'm not bad at talking to people on the "outside," talking to my sister is a whole other ballgame. For me there is so much competitiveness and deprivation involved (my mother gave her everything, so did my dad; she was the golden child). Plus, she is just so emotionally incompetent that I don't expose myself to her at all. I don't expose myself to her because I will get nothing back. I do try to model behavior for her here and there, but that's about it. I love her fiercely, but I know what I'm going to get and what I'm not, and I live according to that. I no longer take responsibility for meeting her needs. (Extending myself because she has no emotional competence.) She'll be 60 on her next birthday; if she wanted to learn by now, she would have. Not my responsibility. End of story.
Your aunt knows who your mother is. She grew up with her. She may have unanswered questions, or suspicions that she's never verified ... but she knows her sister. In a way no one else does, because that's how sisters are. If anything, you probably helped her confirm for herself, things she'd already been thinking.
Something about this thread is bringing up a lot of anger in me!!!!! Hmmm. Will have to look at that.
You're not responsible for your father, either. You surely love him very much; but that doesn't make you responsible for anything about him. He's had his chance at life and has done with it what he can or wanted to or whatever. You are only responsible for yourself.
I think when we're raised to meet our parents needs -- which is the opposite of how it's supposed to be -- that feeling of responsibility is a life-long battle. It's almost a psychological death not to respond and meet them and/or cover for or protect them, etc. It feels very foreign to us.
But none of us is responsible for our parent. Even when they're elderly, the care we give should be the care we want to give, not the care we feel obligated to give. If we don't want to care at all, that's just fine. That's being honest about who we are.
I'm going to say this one more time -- you are only responsible for yourself. There is no need for you to protect your mother or collude with her to keep up the mask. You simply aren't responsible for that. You are responsible for speaking up and speaking your mind, appropriately, and I think you did.
Everyone who has responded on this thread has given you great suggestions. I think it's fine if you want to write your aunt; I think Hops' letter is fabulous!! Just make sure it's a genuine choice for you, okay? And nothing you feel obligated or shamed into doing.
...I think there was more I was going to say, but I forget.
xoxo,
Lily
