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Blog > Thoughts > Other's Thoughts > Sophie's Thoughts > My Self Image

My Self Image

Written by Sophie on Sunday, November 9, 2008

This isn’t necessarily directly transabled related, but it is to do with my self image, and BIID is a self image problem as well.

My mother has always struggled with her weight. She has tried every diet you can think of in the years she’s been alive. She also comes from a family where women are women, men are men and the women wo raised her were extremely critical and bossy. I can see that those traits have become a part of who she is as well.

All my life Mum has constantly yelled at me telling me "don’t eat that you’ll get fat, you don’t need it, your eating too much, your gaining weight". I thought I was fat when I was 11. I look at pictures of myself from back then now and I wonder how the heck did I think I was fat. Mum had me convinced that I was fat and ugly. She may not have been doing it consciously (in her mind she was helping me, like her family helped her) but she was doing it. If I’d known then what I know now I wonder if things had been different. I ate more and more and more back when I was growing up because it seemed no matter how hard I tried to be good with my eating habits Mum always found fault with it.

It’s left me with a weight problem now that is contendable with my mother’s weight problem. To make matters worse I’m living at home. Mum made me go to the dietician and I had my first appointment today. I told the dietician what I eat during the day, what my living habits are, who I live with, what they’re like. She ended up telling me she didn’t think I was eating much at all. She was proud of me that I’d given up Coke. She told me my immediate goal wasn’t to lose weight. It was to improve my lifestyle. So we made some small goals together that we felt I could achieve.

1. Get up earlier (preferably at 8:30 am)
2. Have breakfast (I normally don’t eat breakfast, I wake up too late and mum always told me when I was growing up "It’s too close to lunch time, you don’t need to eat anything").
3. Aim for 10 mins of exercise each day.
4. Have one glass of water each day (ever since I had kidney stones when I was 7 I’ve never been a big water drinker, I have heard/read that other people who had kidney stones report the same problem).
5. Start a diary of food, exercise and drinks every day. Feelings when eating (before and after) and also where you ate.

The dietician told me not to share these goals with my Mum, that I needed to do this for myself. Annoyingly my Mum was outside the hospital after going to an appointment herself so she took me the local food coart, bought (bribed?) me lunch and drilled me about my appointment. Needless to say Mum’s still focussed on me losing weight, eating rabbit food every day for lunch and listening to her opinions as to how well I’m doing. Later on tonight she even went so far as to tell me she would get me a double bed if I went down four dress sizes before my birthday next year. I really need some sort of an attack plan for dealing with my mother (beyond moving out, that still isn’t an option so please don’t suggest it).

When Dad got home tonight I told him "I will do everything the dietician asks of me if you do one thing. Keep Mum off my back." Dad had a little giggle then agreed to it. We shall see if that makes any difference.

Just like the fact that I can’t imagine living without BIID, I can’t imagine living without being fat, I’ve always thought I was fat.

Tags: BIID, Mother, Self-Image

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