Weight issues/self esteem exacerbated by relationship with mom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Daily calls are simply you still trying to ingratiate yourself to your mother. Her relationship is sour with your gorgeous brother and you call her everyday. See! You are the good kid, after all!

That is a direct and harsh way to tell you to please, for your own mental health, please stop calling her and talking to her every day. Skip a day or two. Make her call you even, wondering where you are! Eventually get it down to every week at the most. Her opinions and perceptions of your looks are no longer important. Respect yourself, OP. Your opinion and perception of yourself is everything.

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Daily seems like a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do you talk to your mother every day?
You should limit it to once a week.
Work on setting some boundaries.

Once a week? I talk to my similar mom when I see her, which is mostly holidays and when she asks to come over and see my kids. Super transactional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. I haven’t lived with my parents since I started college. We are now in different time zones and see each other 2-3 times a year. So since I left home I called each of my parents separately daily. And we just stayed with the same schedule. I can’t completely separate from her. Her relationship with my brother is sour. No relatives left alive. It’s just my dad and she. My dad is sick and she is taking really good care of him. Objectively she was not abusive when I was growing up. It was mostly snide remarks about my looks. I think I more upset over my reaction than the comment itself. Like here I am, mid 40s, and my mom is still able to push my bottoms and send me into a crying spell.

When I left for college I called home twice a week. Daily is too much.

What you describe IS emotionally abusive. I’m so sorry OP. Do you have a therapist? I’d suggest one with experience in Internal Family Systems.

[Anonymous]

I agree that you should confront her on it. Call her out, ask where she got that information from. And since I’m petty I’d figure out what she’s most insecure about and start making up fake stories about the times bad things happened due to those insecurities.

She sounds awful OP and I’m sorry she’s such a jerk.

[Anonymous]

Hugs, OP. Looking at this from the outside, it would appear your mother's behavior is abusive. Look how it's stuck with, shaped and continues to hurt you. Her behavior continues to damage you. It's difficult for you to wrap your mind around because you love her and she's had a lifetime to condition you to accept it.

Counseling can really help you overcome this. It can help you better understand how you were shaped, help you see how warped your self-view is and help you establish boundaries with your mother that promote a healthier you. If you doubt that you need this, answer the question the PP asked, why haven't you called her out on this? Why haven't you corrected her fantasy about the club? A 'normal' person would absolutely call her out and correct her. I also have to ask, even if the club incident were true, who the f@ck recounts that to the person who was rejected? That's cruel and f@cked up. Your mother is f@cked up and you continue to allow her to do it.

Also, talking daily is overkill. Making separate calls to each parent on a daily basis is waaaaay overkill. You're on vacation, tell them you'll speak to the when you get back.

[Anonymous]

Call her out on it! Mom, you make me feel less than when you make comments like that. They are hurtful and have impacted my self esteem as a person…

She’s just an insecure person and I’m sorry she put all that on you OP. Just remember you are more than your body/weight. You are a soul. You are special just because you are alive and because you are you.

[Anonymous]

I'm so sorry, OP. I can relate. Why is it that even as grown women with kids of our own we still look to our moms for validation? Tale as old as time, I know.

My mom is mostly lovely, but she has a mean streak and super disordered eating. She's visiting soon and I already told my (skinny) sister that mom's gonna kill me when she sees me. I've gained quite a bit of weight recently, some peri-menopause, some depression, blah blah blah.

I love my mom, but I am constantly training myself to recognize that I cannot change her dysfunction, I can only control my response to her comments. It's a daily exercise, but at the end of each day I get a tiny bit closer to choosing to make my own happiness rather than waiting for my mom to tell me I deserve to be happy with myself.

I am so sorry you are hurting. Words cut deep, especially from mom. Hugs to you.

[Anonymous]

OP, my first thought was why you would call your mom every day, if she’s that mean to you. I would call her once or twice a month, if that was my situation. My second thought was that she maybe has an onset of dementia if she makes up stories that didn’t happen. People with early dementia often imagine things that never happened, it’s some trick their mind plays on them. Have you noticed other signs of confusion or does she not understand you intellectually sometimes? Either way, do not seek validation from your mom, seek confidence within yourself and build up other family relationships and friendships. Fwiw, my father and sister criticized my looks all the time (I was too thin and thus ugly, imagine that). Don’t have a good relationship with either of them, but my mom is very different, luckily.

How’s your relationship with your dad?

[Anonymous]

Moms can pass on very toxic messages about food and bodies to their daughters, usually inherited from their moms.

When I was eleven my mom came home and freaked OUT because I’d eaten a sleeve of cookies. She made me do sit-ups and didn’t feed me dinner. She never had/has anything to say about my brother’s rather chunky frame, but never fails to comment on my body (but only if I’m overweight - when I’m smaller there are no compliments).

It’s messed up. I’m taking pains not to indoctrinate my daughter similarly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:push my buttons not bottoms

That’s a normal response to the unresolved trauma you experienced due to your mother’s criticisms. She’s not a safe person for you.

[Anonymous]

OP you said it’s objectively clear she wasn’t abusive in your childhood, but your response to her now is very much like the response of an abused child. A mother who constantly criticizes or makes snide remarks is engaging in psychological abuse, whether intentional or not. Children subject to frequent verbal abuse in childhood have self esteem issues and often also attachment issues. Please don’t minimize what was done to you and make some space for yourself now - a weekly call seems a better idea than daily, or keep the daily very brief and only one longer conversation each week.

[Anonymous]

I have completely changed my mom’s ability to make me feel bad about my weight, looks, clothes, etc by completing reframing what those comments mean to me as an adult. I always took them as a dig on me but it’s actually about her own insecurities and issues and she puts them on me because I’m a “reflection” of her. I can never change her but now when she makes comments I just feel sad for her.

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry. Our moms can really mess us up, can’t they? My mom is a great mom in many ways and I’m very close to her but her obsession with weight and her weird fixations on certain things—along with her emotional fragility—have really shaped who I am. Not for the better!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Moms can pass on very toxic messages about food and bodies to their daughters, usually inherited from their moms.

When I was eleven my mom came home and freaked OUT because I’d eaten a sleeve of cookies. She made me do sit-ups and didn’t feed me dinner. She never had/has anything to say about my brother’s rather chunky frame, but never fails to comment on my body (but only if I’m overweight - when I’m smaller there are no compliments).

It’s messed up. I’m taking pains not to indoctrinate my daughter similarly.

My mom did this too but for me it was an entire Entenmann’s raspberry danish. I got a huge lecture followed by forced exercise. 🙄

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry for all that your moms inflicted on you.