The Family Heirloom

I've never kept it a secret from anyone that I've suffered with what is described as a distorted view of my body and I've also battled with anorexia and bulimia for many years. Thankfully I am past the ana/mia issues, but the distorted view of myself continues, as anyone close to me could attest to.

Where others see a slender frame, I see loose, jiggling skin. I know it is wrong, but I can't seem to change what I see in the mirror. I'm like many other OCD people out there who know what they are doing is wrong, but they can't change it.

What I am able to change is my vocalization of this distorted view. I have a daughter now and I'm terrified that she might take up such terrible self-loathing. I never want her to hate herself, or feel bad about herself. I want her to know she is beautiful, just as she is.

Many days I find myself thinking, what if she is bigger than me? I'm not saying this because I don't want her to be. It is nothing at all like that. I'm just scared that if she is bigger than me and I happen to say something like, "gosh, I look fat in this," she might look at herself as being fat. I think of this more often than I care to admit. The other day I considered having ice cream, but said, "I don't want to get fat."

Where the hell did that come from? I haven't said anything like that in so very long. It scared me.

Anyway, someone posted this on Facebook today and it literally made tears come to my eyes. It reminds me so damned much of my own mother and me. I have to share it here.

When Your Mother Says She's Fat

Reading this REALLY makes me want to try even harder to get myself under control. I never want my daughter to go through what I have gone through....both from watching my mother and from scrutinizing myself to the point that I can't even see me anymore. It's like when I look in the mirror, I no longer see myself, just a bunch of lines that contain among them flaws and deformities that I can't seem to ignore.

This is one family "heirloom" I don't want to hand down to my precious daughter.

I will try.
I will over come this.
For Kathryn.