permission NOT to be the fat friend and daughter...

i have been batting a couple blog posts around in my head the last few days and today seems like a good day to talk about them....

i have a good friend.  she is my closest straight mommy friend.   she has been one of my biggest cheerleaders and supporters since day one of this process.    when i told her i was going to have surgery she started saving her money so we can go to NYC, LA or Vegas on a shopping spree when I am at final goal.   She called me the other day while i was shopping and i was telling her i was in the dressing room trying on the size 14 dress you see in the picture.  her response?  "shit.  i am a size 12 i better start losing weight before you catch up with me!"  ouch.

my family has camped during the summer weekends at the same place for many years.   we have become friendly with the staff.  this weekend one of the staff members came over to me and asked me if i was still "working hard" at losing weight.  i told her definitely.  and the conversation went along the lines of:

her: you don't want to lose more, do you?

me: oh yeah.  at least 40 more.

her: but then you will be skinny.  huh?  is that the point of this little journey?

today i sent my mom the picture to the right.   she told me in her kind of kidding/kind of sarcastic tone to stop sending her pictures like that because she is stalled out (medical diet) and it depresses her.  i told her it was a size 14.  she told me that *they* must be making size 14s bigger these days.  double ouch.   she then went on about my sister and her husband -- both who we rarely see -- and how he "keeps" my sister from losing weight because that is his way of controlling her.   it was then that i was grateful for all of my work in therapy because i understood right then and there that my own mother's painful responses to my success is a result of her losing "control" over me. 

i can not stress how thankful i am that i forced myself into the painful process of therapy.  i know there have been comments here and there on my blog about readers not understanding my need to over analyze things.   but i know me.  i know for me to be successful in anything i have to have thorough understanding of it and own it for me to master it.   as they said at my book club last night -- they can always count on me to not only read the book, come ready to discuss it but to also gone the extra mile and researched the subject, the author, etc. and that my extra analysis is reflected in my discussion of the book.  (read Jamie Ford's Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, btw).

it is because of my own work on myself the past 6 months in therapy that i know that my friend does not care what size i am, she has her own issues.   the woman at the campground does not want me to stop losing weight.   she in her entire life could not imagine herself in anything but a size 14.   and my mother.   sigh.  my mom.   she is doing the best she can with what she knows.    i was never neglected.  i was never abused.  i was never deprived.  i was loved too much.   too much to the point of enmeshment.   she was enmeshed with her mother.  and that is how i was raised (by both of them, no less).   her comments come from a place of fear.  fear of losing me.   my job is to still be her daughter, but to do it in a healthy way she may not recognize at first.

thank you, heidi, for taking care of yourself.   in the past you would have sabotaged your weight loss to remain close to your mom.   you know you would have.   today, you have the skills to process it, call her on it and move on.