Cruel Family Members

I don't know about cruel, but regrettably, my friends & family are of no help. I mean, they get why I am trying to lose weight:
1. Get healthy
2. Stop all the pain I live with on a daily basis due to the extra bulk I carry around
3. Get control of my Diabetes & Sleep Apnea
4. Clothes shopping made easier (LOL).

Often, they pick not so great places to eat out, & it is tough to behave & get something from the diet menu or a salad when they're getting cheeseburgers & pastas. I feel like I am on this journey alone. In fact, just yesterday when I weighed myself after the first week of starting again & discovered that I'd lost 6.2 pounds, I was ecstatic! Even if it is only water weight, it is a start. So, imagine my disdain when I told my best friend, (who is like a sister to me) my news & her reply was "How'd you do that?! It's not like you're excerising." Wow. Thanks. A little congrats would have been nice. After going back & forth with her, she eventually said "that's good, keep it up".

Now, maybe I am being a wee bit selfish, but in my opinion, that should've been the first thing you said. It makes me wonder if she is secretly jealous. She herself hardly eats & often times, she has a tough time keeping food in her system. She blames it on her meds & her Diabetes, but when told she needs to go to the doctor to get checked, she produces a laundry list of reasons why she can't go. Yet, she is the first to bark at others when they're sick, telling them to go to the doctors. She is also the first to tell you that you should start walking, dancing, doing this, that, etc. Yet, she does none of these herself.

My aunt told my brother he was "still fat" when he was greeting guests at my dad's funeral luncheon. She told me the same thing when I saw her inside. Seriously. Our father had just died. We were in mourning. And all she could talk about is how fat we were.

She has had counselling, sadly it gave her momentum, she declared the counsellor had said she's had such a hard life (not really, her parents/my grands are wonderful- I credit them for how I turned out) and it was all our fault and that the universe owes her everything, blah blah, blah.

A friend of mine from High School (who is now a psychologist) says in her now-qualified opinion that Mom has "Malignant Narcissistic Personality Disorder", she gave me some links to some websites that really blew open the doors on why/how/who she is, and how to deal with it. I'm not in regular contact with the friend, it must have just rung bells with her, I'm extremely grateful!
They term the children of people with MNPD as "victims" and when I read that I bawled my eyes out (and I'm not a cry-er), it was amazing! I definitely cope with her better now, especially with a great husband and my children to look after. It's just difficult having to deal with her still. I try to ignore her, but it does still hurt! Especially when she makes a point of being so public about it, and I still don't feel capable of defending myself, and I know it won't really make a difference anyway, if anything it'll encourage her.
I definitely agree it does say more about the mean people than you when they're being cruel.

Ah, that explains a lot. As you're still having difficulties dealing with her behaviour (and that's understandable), how about you seek counselling too? If for nothing other than getting some tips on how to deal with her better.