Love yourself!

I'm cheating and posting this on both blogs, but I think it's important to spread this message as far and wide as possible.

I have a really vivid memory from when I was about 15. We had just done BMI in school and I was so excited to find out what I thought my weight was  (based on weighing myself about 2 yrs earlier) meant I was just inside the healthy index. I made about 25 on the BMI scale and I came home so happy about this.

Mam was in the kitchen when I was jabbering on and her immediate reaction was: 'There's no way you're that weight, don't be ridiculous.' Cue a long, tense, tearful, stressful argument between us.

I couldn't believe it, I had been betrayed (as I saw it) by one of the people that was always meant to have my back. I read all these stories and magazines about how the mother-daughter bond is so important; how your mother is meant to be your best friend, the shoulder to cry on; about how no one could ever replace her. I felt bereft. I remember crying myself to sleep that night after she tried to physically force me onto the scales to prove that she was right.

Looking back, there's a fair chance she was right, that I was over the magic number. But what did she really achieve that night? I went into a pit and I didn't come out of it for months afterwards. I couldn't talk to her without crying for the rest of the weekend (I was told I was overreacting, truth hurts, gotta face the truth, etc, etc). When I stopped talking, I was told to stop sulking. I couldm't win. It wasn't ok to act the way I was acting. To my 15-yr-old self, that meant it wasn't ok to be me.

It's 17yrs on. A few weeks ago, my mother helped me move house and I happened to mention I had period pains and by the way, I was going to have my coil replaced that weekend. Mam said, oh, why not just leave it out, that's when you piled on the weight. She says since that she wasn't thinking of my weight at the time, that I brought it up, etc,etc. To me - she brought it up and was looking for an excuse to do so. I swallowed my feelings after a few mins and we left it, but the fact that she brough it up at my hen do this weekend to a friend of mine means it plays on her mind as much as it does mine.

Why am I bringing this up now?

Well I'm doing something thinking about my weight and why I am the way I am. I can't stand looking at photos of myself. I hate seeing videos of myself. Everyone I know knows not to point a camera at me or it is likely to be taken away. I'm dreading my wedding for this reason.

I had the horrible thought the other day that possibly, things will be easier when my mother passes on. This isn't likely to happen any time soon btw, she's a fit and healthy 59 year old, but possibly my life would be easier without that constant criticism. (Regardless of whether she sees it as criticism or not, I see it that way and I take it deep inside me).

But then I think - well most of the time, the criticisms come from inside my head anyway. It might be my mother's voice, but it's my mind. I go through phases of hypnosis, affirmations etc, and I get so happy and think I've solved the issues and weight is a neutral word to me. Then something happens. I backslide. I see my mother. I see a photograph. I have a binge. And it all comes back. The words might at some point appear in Mam's mouth, but most of the time, they've been in my head for a long time beforehand.

I will never be good enough until I lose weight.

That is the core belief I live my life by. It's not good enough, is it? I am addressing this. NOW. As I type, my brain is going over ways to get though this, to get over this, to get around this.

I am good enough. I am plenty good enough. I have a good life. I have a good job. I have a good fiance. I have a good.  My mother (and everyone else for that matter) is allowed to have her opinion, nothing I can do can change that. But I am also allowed my opinions, thoughts, feelings. They are all valid. They may not be explicable, or proveable, but they are valid.

If there was one thing I would say to that 15yr old me it would be that weight is the last thing she should have been worried about. She could have been worried about rape, alcohol poisoning, health issues....but actually, at the time, she was pretty healthy. She ate well, she exercised, she was pretty ok. But the sprial of yo-yo dieting had already begun and she ended up close to 20 stone at one point. (She's damn close to it now as well!) Love yourself.

Until you love yourself, how can you expect anyone else to?