My mother worked full time from my earliest memory and never spent time staying home on school holidays and I had a sister two years older than me and they were very similar in that they were very focused on their physical appearance from my earliest memories. My mother’s life consisted of the best clothes, the best of everything even though financially it wasn’t easy. I remember her going to skin clinics and hair dressers constantly and her sole focus and value system centred on the physical appearance of herself and her daughters. My sister was very blessed that she was born with good genetics and was always skinny and adored by my mother and I unfortunately was blessed with the genetics of my father’s side and whilst never really had a weight issue (from photos) was always made to feel like I was not worthy of my mother’s love and belonging because I was fat. This was a constant message and verbal dialogue that my mother continued throughout my childhood and also sadly up until my last contact with my mother about 6 years ago.
Unfortunately my sister also bought into this rhetoric and held the same belief and the relationship was broken from the beginning as set up by my mother’s values and beliefs to not only my sister but to others as well was that I was not worthy of love and belonging because of my weight. Whilst you might think that this was only my version of events people that are in my life now since childhood also have these memories. I have also unfortunately had others witness this behaviour from my mother in my adulthood as well and often brought significant shame to me.
As a young child we had family friends of my parents who were very much like family and we spent a lot of time together and ironically they had two daughters. Like my family one of the girls was skinny and stunning and the other was like me and not blessed with the good genetics and when I look back on the difference and way we were treated absolutely disgusts me. As the two overweight children we were treated so appallingly, their grandmother was a sewer and would make clothes for all of us as children and she would make the two beautiful ones the cutest outfits, dresses and best materials whilst we the ugly fat ones got the classic sack dress with the cast offs, this happened long into my childhood and has caused the most emotional and psychological impact on myself into my adulthood to this day and how I think and feel about myself and self-hatred self-talk that because of my weight and am not worthy of love and belonging.
The issues that I carried throughout my life with my weight and my relationship of self-hatred of my body carried throughout my life. My mother had an eating disorder that I recognised as such in later life and my early childhood memory of my mother having periods of starving herself, binging and then purging with swallowing a whole bottle of ford pills in one sitting and then having consequences of that was a very vivid memory of my childhood and very distressing for myself when out socially and having to witness the episodes in front of others. I don’t ever remember my mother having shame or conversations or apologising or explaining these events even well into my adulthood it was never spoken. The concept for me that this was just so normal that everyone accepted and didn’t address is just another example of the shame and hidden secrets in families that become normal.
From my youngest of years I was always very close to my father as we were both very alike in that physically and also quiet and shy. My father was always very shy and withdrawn from my memory when he was sober but was a very different man when he was drinking and he had issues with alcohol for as long as I could remember. My mother was very sociable and I recall childhood years of fabulous parties with our neighbours and family friends that often ended with being awoken in the middle of the night due to domestic violence between my parents and having to escape in the middle of the night to friends’ homes for shelter. I remember these nights vividly at times and became a normality for my childhood up until my parent’s separation when I was 13 years old.
I remember very vividly that my sister and I were split from an early age as children to a particular parent, my sister and mother were inseparable and I was always left with my father. As a child I never questioned this as I had the belief instilled in me that because my sister and mother were the beautiful social ones that they were more deserving of going on the fancy holidays to my Aunties house in Sydney whilst I was left to go with my father on holidays to Wagga Wagga for his annual football mates reunion holiday.. I was very much like my father in that very introverted and shy and quiet and I guess I was easier to take on holidays because of my quiet nature and not cause trouble and basically not like my sister and mother who were very high maintenance and also very erratic and manic in mood at times.
We need to appreciate that everyone is born different and everyone has different bodies based on genetics and so many varied other factors that are outside the control of the individual. Even though there is so much evidence to back this up from a value and belief perspective, you can’t break it down if you don’t have capacity to live and love with an open heart and pure acceptance of unconditional love for your children or anyone else no matter what. Clean up your mess, if you are a parent or adult that has values and beliefs that you pass onto your children and others that shows that this is what matters in life get some work on yourself, go to therapy and fix yourself and openly discuss your inadequacies and flawed thoughts to those you have hurt so they do not carry on the legacy throughout their whole live with the belief that if they are not pretty enough, not skinny enough then they do not deserve or worthy of love and belonging. It’s that simple, it’s not rocket science you have one chance to instil the beliefs and values into your children and others conditioning that will last a lifetime. The damage that those words and beliefs that have on a child from a mother are beyond any sort of rational or comprehension other than my mother did not have capacity to parent or love.
