Passive-agressive detractors in denial. Get the **** off my

cherdan

My mom makes me so, so angry. First of all, there was a loss in my family, and subsequently she has gained about 40 lbs in the last year, per my estimates, resumed drinking after many years of sobriety, is a junk food/sugar addict, watches tv all day now and used to be an active cyclist, etc. All those habits began before the loss, but since then it has gotten really bad.
Alternately, in the last year and a half, I found MFP, lost about 60 lbs, quit drinking, cut down my tv time, etc etc. My mother has not been very supportive of my journey and more often than not makes disparaging remarks about how I'm too skinny and am "obsessive" with my weighing myself, etc. I usually just ignore it and can shrug it off being that I know she is resentful, bitter, immature and in denial, but this time she's gone too far.

I had inherited a scale which I realised was definitely not totally accurate. My baby brother is a varsity football athlete and has lost a lot of weight since he began playing a few years ago, became very built/muscular, etc. He likes to keep up on his weight, so he asked me if he could use my scale sometimes, which I let him borrow. On Sunday I purchased a new Taylor scale that is far, far better than my old one and demonstrated that the old one was off by about 5 lbs. Before when I left out my old scale for him to use, I did mention to him that he might want to hide it after, as my mom is extremely anti-scale, as you can imagine, but he told me she wouldn't care. I was seriously afraid she would throw it away. I told her this and she laughed and said she could care less.
Anyway, I get the new scale, and leave the old one for my brother in his room, who I thought would appreciate it. Lo and behold, my mom found it and promptly "confiscated" it. She confronted me and angrily told me not to to influence my brother with my "obsession," that she doesn't want him to be like me, etc. Nice, huh? She said she doesn't want her child to have a scale, and I said, fine, sorry, you're the parent, I'll never have the scale out for him again. Nevermind the fact that she is meddling and not within her right to influence my brother's lifestyle choices, as he is now 18 and is quite capable of making such decisions for himself. I ask for the scale back, and she refuses. "I got rid of it," she says smugly.
I, to put it mildly, flip my **** and insist she give it back, it is my posession, not hers, she made her point, she has no right to take my belongings as "punishment" for her messed-up self-denial. We get into a full blown fight over it, with her finally THROWING it at me down the hall.

She's a psycho. I have a lot of anger and resentment toward HER, as I partly hold her to blame (albeit passively) for my obesity through nearly all my life, from ages of 8-25, with the exception of about age 15-17, when I had an eating disorder. My older brother passed away complications from morbid obesity. There is a history of it on both sides of my family. My parents tried very hard to get my binge eating older brother fit, to exercise, eat right. He resisted defiantly and when confronted would dive even deeper into his food addiction. When I was born (I am my parents first child together.. my older brother was from a previous relationship of my mothers'), my mom, who is the dominating force, took the path of least resistance. I was simply never taught to watch portions, not eat too much, avoid sweets, how to lose weight. I just never knew I even had a PROBLEM until my crazy Korean pediatrician began telling me I was "fat," every time I saw her. I can't remember a time she didn't tell me I was overweight. I cannot help but to feel my mother has some share in the blame for this. I never remember her approaching me about weight. She simply lamented that the doctors were "all *kitten*." Till this day, she still says that about her own doctor whenever she comes home from a visit, declaring, "Doc says I'm fat!" This is EVERY time she has a physical. Notice a sick, self-propagating pattern?

When the teasing, the tormenting about my fat became too much to bear, around age 14, age 15, when I decided I'd rather die trying to be thin than to be reminded of my fat every waking hour of every day by my peers, I looked for a solution, and the only thing I knew were the diet pills my mother had in her top drawer that she had warned me never to take. Again, I didn't know calories in, calories out, and I could safely lose weight. I just knew those pills made you skinny. That and not eating. That's fast, right? So I became a speed freak, who didn't eat.

My baby brother is very lucky and that he never really had to deal with the hell I went through with weight issues, because he was always an athlete, really. He loves crap food but he's always been able to eat what he wanted because he'll go and run 8 miles at school. Me, in AYSO I could barely run the mandatory 3 laps around the soccer field without becoming deathly short of breath. That and I think he inherited some of my dad's skinny male genes. Dad used to be obese as a kid, but once he hit high school he quickly shed the weight and it never again was an issue.

It's all coming full circle now. My mom is an abuser, the product of abuse, and one way abusers exact their control over others, exert their power, is through the withholding of information. Abusers keep the blinders on. It is one of the most psychologically perverse things you can do to a child, I think. To hold their hand while you harm them. I feel as though that's just what she did to me. Her own ego/inability to come to terms with her failing to parent another child subsequently manifested itself in complete apathy with me. Now she dances on the extreme opposite end, the path of least resistance by way of complete control. HOW DARE YOU TRY TO INFLUENCE MY CHILD'S PERSONAL HABITS AND WEIGHT MANAGEMENT. While she taught us absolutely nothing and chided us for trying to take personal responsibility.

All the years that were so wrongly stolen from me, from my childhood, I will never get back. But I will one day find solace in closure in the form of my child, who I will so lovingly and fully love and nurture, not just with affection and sustenance, but the KNOWLEDGE and the PROCLIVITY to take responsibility for ones body and health, and to be fully aware that it is not an inevitability to be fat. There is always a choice, and it sure as hell isn't inherited. Your predecessors' mistakes are not your own. Echa pa'lante.

cherdan

OOPS. Please delete I meant for this to be a blog!! This is the 2nd time I've done this. Embarassing. Oh, well.