When I was 11, we would sometimes tell grandpa we can’t come play with him because cartoons are on. Now grandpa’s been dead for 17 years, but I can watch all the cartoons I want on YouTube. But they don’t feel the same anymore and I’d rather just be with grandpa. I can’t believe how dumb I was at 11.
OMG I’VE BECOME A PREACHY OLD PERSON WHO WANTS TO SPEND TIME WITH HER FAMILY INSTEAD OF WATCHING TV.
but don’t worry I’d still rather watch a good show than spend a day with my parents, they drive me nuts
And I do realize my grandpa would still be dead and it would feel horrible now either way, but I bet he felt hurt that we didn’t want to spend time with him, and and. Is there anything you can do about stuff like this?
((hugs)) I’m so sorry, sending my love to you and your family. It’s always so shocking, even when you know someone is sick, to have them deteriorate so rapidly. Fuck cancer. :(
fahrbotdrusilla replied to your post:
*hugs* I’m sorry, my sympathies to you and your family
The look in my eyes is sad, because I took this on a self-loathing moment. But lots of people will see this and think it’s beautiful and brave instead.
If you reblog this for reverse thinspo or mockery, you should feel bad, and I feel sorry for you.
arevhat replied to your post: This is the point I’m at with my mother. She fucked me up. But she didn’t do it on purpose and she’s fucked up too - at least I know how disordered my thinking was and sometimes still is. I’m the lucky one; she’s still blind.
That is so true. She’s 62; she’ll probably never learn that it’s OK for her to be fat, that she doesn’t binge enormously just bc of her size; that people don’t consider her unusually large, etc. She is to be pitied, really.
*hugs* I hope I get to the point you are at, some day. Maybe therapy will help with that.
*le hugs* mothers can be awful. We just need to remember that we can make our own families out of supportive people and friends and stuff.
arevhat replied to your post: *hugs*
*hugs back* Thank you guys :* :*
I just hope one day I’ll be able to say that she did her best but she was fucked up by her own mother who was fucked up by society. It’s not really anyone’s fault.
I kinda hope she feels guilty for my ED, but on the other hand I don’t, because she can’t undo anything at this point.
I just wish I could warn parents to NOT do this to their kids.
I’m overcome with bitterness against my mother, so I’ll indulge just for a moment.
Whenever there was a fat woman on TV, she said “Ah, she looks like us,” long before I was fat.
When I got fat, she made jokes at my expense every time we met. She always had to slip that into conversation.
When I gained weight, either as a child or later, she always seemed to take pleasure in it in some weird way. I felt she became mean then, filled with Schadenfreude or something else I couldn’t quite understand.
When she visited the school nurse with me, she wanted her to say I was overweight, said “The weight seems more varied than the height, heh”. The nurse said, “The weight is quite normal”. She was disappointed.
When I binged and tried to purge, she told me “We all binge in our family, honey” and refused to get me a therapist.
When I told her my online friends were surprised I wasn’t fatter, she said “They probably think fat means 500 pounds.”
When I talked about fat acceptance, she said I’m fighting windmills and it’s all about health anyway.
When I told her I have binge eating disorder, she was silent for a moment and then said, “..so the same thing I have,” as if jokingly.
I know I’m 33 and she isn’t responsible for my thought processes and feelings anymore, but I still do blame her.
This morning my daughter, who is nearly four, saw the stretch marks on my hips and stomach. She ran her hands over them and asked what they were.
“I got them when I grew up,” I said, “and a few more when I had you.” I grinned down at her. “They’re my stripes. You’ll get stripes too when you grow up.”
She was overjoyed. “Really?”
I think she’s in her room now, pretending to be a tiger.
This is what we need to teach.
I was six when I asked Daddy in the sauna what his stretch marks were. He said, “fat stripes,” ashamed. I was quiet and didn’t ask more.
My parents are loving, but they screwed up this aspect. (And yes, I saw my Daddy naked in the sauna, it’s normal in Finland.)
Do you feel like there’s a difference in experiences between women who have been fat all of their life, and women who have become fat in their late teens/early adulthood? I have a friend who was skinny her entire life until late high school, and she talks about how she has never had a problem…
I wonder if this is a common thing or if it’s just really not related at all, and just depends on the person and situation.
I think it’s both in a way. Other factors change the effect-making it stronger or weaker-but overall, the least exposure you have to being fat hated as a child, the more likely you are to maintain a greater sense of your own importance.
One of the biggest things fat hate does to children is to interrupt their sense of valuing and connection with their own feelings and emotions. I was just talking about the way HAES for many people is about connecting the idea of well being, with themselves now, rather than in a slim future version of them that never happens.
People who are fat later tend not to have that kind of self erasure/ lack of connection with their own needs
I think it depends on the amount of fat shaming, not on being fat. I wasn’t a fat child, but my mother always commented on my weight gains, patted my belly etc., and made me feel like I’m fat. (I was a bit chubby, but another mother may not have commented at all.)
I feel like I lived the fat childhood without actually being fat, since I was also bullied (not for my weight though), and my weight was always An Issue. I was always sure I’d get fat as an adult, even if people told me it’s up to me. I’m not sure if it’s true or not.
phrenical replied to your post: Short hair is really nice to keep (I mean, mine’s shorter than yours, but yeah). So glad I switched from long to short years ago.
I can’t imagine having completely short hair, I had that as a child and hated it. I like having some hair hanging down for some reason.
But it took some courage to ask for bangs and only shoulder-length hair, when I’ve had long hair for so long. I had to think about it for a while and ask myself what I want to LOOK like, but I didn’t consider that it would FEEL so much easier!
The only problem is that bangs like this might grow out very fast. There are cheap haircuts available in my town though, as long as you have the shape there, it might still look really good. (I cut my own hair for two years, and it wasn’t BAD but compared to this…)
