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May. 27th, 2009 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liptonrm_backupI've been feeling rather serious the past few days. Not emo, just ponderous. So here is another thinky post brought to you by the letters O, M, and G.
I'm sure ya'll have noticed that I haven't talked much about the trip to Richmond, VA that I took with the family. There are a few reasons for this, one of which is delightfully illustrated by an exchange that occurred between me and my mother. She offered to buy me a year of Jenny Craig which I said wasn't necessary. She then said she would really like me to accept it because she was worried that I wouldn't be able to find a job.
Somehow I was able to politely end the conversation, though I don't remember what exactly I said because inside I was exploding with a plethora of emotions. And yet, it's just the same old story that's been told my entire life.
Body image and, especially, the way we view our own bodies, is something that is created by a number of outside stimuli; the media and schoolmates and parents and any number of factors mold the way we view our own bodies. And, just like everyone else, the way I view my own body has been strongly affected by all of these factors.
But the largest factor, I have to say, was my mother. Weight is something she's struggled with her entire life and it's something that her mother used to judge her worth as a person and a daughter so it's no wonder that those issues passed to her when she became a mother. It's actually deeply sad that for her entire adult life my mother has been sure that every person she encounters is judging her and deciding that she's an ugly, gross fatty who should never leave the house. And for years she didn't leave the house. There came a point where Mom wouldn't go to the movies or out to eat or participate in any kind of social situation because she was so deeply sure that everyone hated her on sight. She allowed her weight to make her feel worthless and was incapable of recognizing the fact that a lot of people thought she was a pretty swell human being.
Last year she got bariatric surgery and while I'm still not entirely sure it made her physically healthier it did do a lot to repair damage to her psyche and help her overcome her incipient agoraphobia. She's now involved in life again in a way I haven't seen since my childhood a fact which makes me extremely happy.
However, her opinions about body size have not changed and never will. And what's so frustrating about that is that when she says things or does things they come not from a malevolent place but rather from a charitable place. She thinks she's helping. She wants her child to have a better life than she has and one of the ways she thinks that will be accomplished is if said child maintains some ideal weight.
I've been getting those loving words of advice my entire life and, frankly, they make me feel like crap. I was a late bloomer as an adolescent and introverted, more interested in books than boys, so I believed my mother when she told me that, in essence, no boy would ever like me because I was so fat and ugly. It's no wonder that I kept my distance, then, because I knew I couldn't handle what that kind of judgment and rejection would do to me.
It's taken me years to get to the levelheaded place I'm at now. And, yes, I have bad days where I think I'm the ugliest uggo who ever existed but they're counterbalanced by the days when I look in the mirror and see someone who's really quite attractive. I'm certainly not physically limited by my weight, heck, I find the fibromyalgia to be much more disabling than my weight could ever be. I mean, yeah, I'd like to lose some of the weight I put on over the winter, I'm not completely immune to the forces around me. And there's still a voice in the back of my head that tells me to back off everytime I meet a guy because he won't be that into me but in general and on average I am genuinely happy with myself.
I just wish my mother would understand this, but she won't. Body acceptance is a completely foreign concept to her, one that she would never support because it so violently opposes her world view. So she'll never stop trying to help me or, in her words, let the world see the beautiful person that she knows I am. But I don't let her issues inhibit me anymore. It's just a shame that she'll never recognize how many types of beauty there are.
I don't have many pictures of myself at the moment but I thought I'd post one that I do have, for general reference.
I'm sure ya'll have noticed that I haven't talked much about the trip to Richmond, VA that I took with the family. There are a few reasons for this, one of which is delightfully illustrated by an exchange that occurred between me and my mother. She offered to buy me a year of Jenny Craig which I said wasn't necessary. She then said she would really like me to accept it because she was worried that I wouldn't be able to find a job.
Somehow I was able to politely end the conversation, though I don't remember what exactly I said because inside I was exploding with a plethora of emotions. And yet, it's just the same old story that's been told my entire life.
Body image and, especially, the way we view our own bodies, is something that is created by a number of outside stimuli; the media and schoolmates and parents and any number of factors mold the way we view our own bodies. And, just like everyone else, the way I view my own body has been strongly affected by all of these factors.
But the largest factor, I have to say, was my mother. Weight is something she's struggled with her entire life and it's something that her mother used to judge her worth as a person and a daughter so it's no wonder that those issues passed to her when she became a mother. It's actually deeply sad that for her entire adult life my mother has been sure that every person she encounters is judging her and deciding that she's an ugly, gross fatty who should never leave the house. And for years she didn't leave the house. There came a point where Mom wouldn't go to the movies or out to eat or participate in any kind of social situation because she was so deeply sure that everyone hated her on sight. She allowed her weight to make her feel worthless and was incapable of recognizing the fact that a lot of people thought she was a pretty swell human being.
Last year she got bariatric surgery and while I'm still not entirely sure it made her physically healthier it did do a lot to repair damage to her psyche and help her overcome her incipient agoraphobia. She's now involved in life again in a way I haven't seen since my childhood a fact which makes me extremely happy.
However, her opinions about body size have not changed and never will. And what's so frustrating about that is that when she says things or does things they come not from a malevolent place but rather from a charitable place. She thinks she's helping. She wants her child to have a better life than she has and one of the ways she thinks that will be accomplished is if said child maintains some ideal weight.
I've been getting those loving words of advice my entire life and, frankly, they make me feel like crap. I was a late bloomer as an adolescent and introverted, more interested in books than boys, so I believed my mother when she told me that, in essence, no boy would ever like me because I was so fat and ugly. It's no wonder that I kept my distance, then, because I knew I couldn't handle what that kind of judgment and rejection would do to me.
It's taken me years to get to the levelheaded place I'm at now. And, yes, I have bad days where I think I'm the ugliest uggo who ever existed but they're counterbalanced by the days when I look in the mirror and see someone who's really quite attractive. I'm certainly not physically limited by my weight, heck, I find the fibromyalgia to be much more disabling than my weight could ever be. I mean, yeah, I'd like to lose some of the weight I put on over the winter, I'm not completely immune to the forces around me. And there's still a voice in the back of my head that tells me to back off everytime I meet a guy because he won't be that into me but in general and on average I am genuinely happy with myself.
I just wish my mother would understand this, but she won't. Body acceptance is a completely foreign concept to her, one that she would never support because it so violently opposes her world view. So she'll never stop trying to help me or, in her words, let the world see the beautiful person that she knows I am. But I don't let her issues inhibit me anymore. It's just a shame that she'll never recognize how many types of beauty there are.
I don't have many pictures of myself at the moment but I thought I'd post one that I do have, for general reference.
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-27 04:48 pm (UTC)My mother's been on me about my weight most of my life as well, though her worries stemmed more from the health problems she's suffered as a result of her being overweight than social perceptions (diabetes, hypertension, arthritis in both her knees, back trouble, etc). And my situation was never helped by the fact that my siblings -- especially my older sister -- have always taken more after my father size-wise; they're rail-thin. It's been especially troublesome since I hit adolescence, but even before that, the fact that I had broader shoulders than most of the rest of my family has lead to many sizist comments that I'm sure my mom never even realized were hitting me so hard.
But being told at age 8 that "you'll never be a size four" is something of a blow.
So . . . yeah. My mom's never actively offered to buy me a weight loss program (she lost faith in those back in the late eighties when she was doing Weight Watchers), but she's been on my ass since high school to be more active and athletic, and it's only recently that she's started to realize that her helpful comments have never actually helped.
Well, either that or she's given up on me.
But, yeah. I know how you feel.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-27 07:00 pm (UTC)You are so amazingly coherent and intelligent about this (and all things), I'm just flat out impressed. I can see how having your mother sincerely thinking that she's helping and showing her love when she says these things can make it worse in some ways. I mean, not that it would be better if she were nasty about it, but it's like you said--it shows how deeply affected her own worldview is and what a grip those impressions have on her, and that's just sad. And also I'm just like *fistclenchwave* WHY, world? Why must we be so shitty to each other/ourselves? Why can't we just be how we are and be happy about it?
Anyway, rambleramble. You are really smart. And cute as heck (I totally saw you in the corner of one of the pirate-pool party pics and was all, DANG girl!). And adored to little bits.
See you soon! Talk to you sooner!