And I wonder if you know… what it means to find your dreams come true?

All my life I have been battling my weight. As long as I can remember it was at the forefront of my life… My affliction and preoccupation began early when I was in the second grade. That year, I started my first diet with full support of my parents. Every morning, I began drinking Slim Fast for breakfast, and making ill-attempts at eating salads for dinner. As I think back, the only thing that comes to mind is my God, I was only seven! What could my parents have been thinking about? To say the least, the dieting pre adolescent weight loss attempt failed simply because I just wanted to be a kid; A regular seven year old kid with red lips and a sweet, sticky tongue from too many strawberry now-a-laters and pop rocket packages. Moments with no other ambitions but to be in that moment, free of the pervasive thoughts of adults and diet rhetoric that I couldn’t possibly understand at such an immature age. A little girl, a kid, maybe a fat one, but HAPPY…

However, the message from that first dieting experience has stuck with me far into adulthood, that somehow because I was heavier that there was something innately wrong with me. Something which could only be fixed if I were smaller, more “normal”…

I know that my parents meant no harm in their decision to encourage me to diet. Their act was one built on the knowledge that “fat” was somehow and in some way unhealthy and socially unacceptable. And so they in their interpretation... Their painful remarks about my weight, or their decision not to allow me to eat what the rest of the family ate was a testament of love directed towards me, and parental responsibility for them. They really just wanted their baby girl to be “normal”, or at least just look like it because good parents had “normal” looking children, right? The unfortunate thing is that I only know that now in hindsight, some twenty years later. But as a child, to know that somehow your actions don’t please your parents and that they find ill-will in you wanting an ice cream made for one humongous ball of pressure, silent pain, and growing insecurities. Frankly, it was detrimental to my self-concept. I was often confused, angry, and felt personally assaulted because no one would simply just let me be. I remember my reflection in the mirror. A beautiful, brown eyed girl with thick furry brows and a cute gapped toothed smile; I thought I was beautiful and I was confused as to why them didn’t see that. And so, I would sit there wondering what was wrong with me, why I wasn’t enough, and if I would ever be.

In fact, to deal with the pressure of it all I wrote and wrote and wrote some more; penning these words “See me for the inside, and not for the out; for it is only in my heart, can you see my pain, know my struggles and understand my doubts.” It has been a decade and years later since I wrote those words on some old crusty notebook paper, and those words still speak to me, they still enfold themselves around me… I still feel exactly that way.

Mom and Dad, despite it all, and perhaps because of it, I appreciate you much more than I could ever verbally express to you. It was rough for me at times, very rough, but we got through most of it, and thankfully I grew to understand your actions… Bismillah Ir Rahman, Ir Raheem…

Love,
Your “babygirl”

I don't have any advice or anything like that, but hugs. Parents do the best they can I guess and back then, who knows maybe the doctors were gung ho about kids dieting. Medical opinions on things like diets change often . Anyways, congrats on your weight loss (18 lbs is amazing!!).

Thanks... I really appreciate that... The further I go on this journey, the more I realize how internal it is for me... Emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually... So this blog for me is just a matter of getting to the essence of some of my "baggage" in a sense... making an honest attempt at trying to figure this whole thing out... I'm working on me... and just taking it one day at a time...

When I was a kid...and mind you, this was in the 50's and 60's...my mother was considered to be a "health food nut/freak" and our diet was considered extremely odd by the neighborhood, schoolmates, etc....which I was NOT happy about. In high school, I remember my best friend laughing and saying, "everyone else's brothers have beer cans under their car seats but your brothers have tastycake wrappers under them instead" because once we became old enough to get to the store ourselves, we went a bit crazy with the forbidden foods.

Of course, now I realize my mother was ahead of her time and appreciate this.

The lesson to be learned here, I guess, would be that there has to be a way to do this that would not negatively affect a child's self-esteem in the process. One way could be to have the entire family eat a very healthy/clean diet and hopefully have no one even have to deal with weight issues.....and therefore, self-esteem issues.

But of course, back in the day, they didn't even realize that what they were eating and feeding their families was unhealthy. When I was a kid, they didn't even know smoking cigarettes was harmful.

However, the majority of people today still don't know or completely know what a clean/healthy diet is. In fact, my opinion of what one is would likely be different from many others. There are still many disputes in the scientific/medical/nutrition community and many hypotheses rather than facts.

You CAN come to peace with the effects this had on you. As a young child, we moved from the Bronx, NY down to Delaware. I ultimately grew up with the impression that I was somehow faulty because I was so dark and because my mother clearly admired the blond children in the neighborhood. My mother was schizophrenic and her issues with health food were probably rooted on her paranoia regarding the food supply. She also had paranoia about us looking different from the neighbor children....but her conveyance of this was done in a manner that made us feel we were faulty.

But I"ve come to realize that in its own way....this taught me the ability to get along well with everyone. I learned how to make people like me for my personality.....and years later, actually reveled in how different I look. Turned a negative into a positive.
You can do this....sounds like you're in the process of doing it already. You have an excellent attitude...you are not blaming them, realize that they meant well and wanted the best for you....and are letting go of any anger you likely had from this...and anger/resentment is toxic for us and counter-productive to healing. Great outlook.

deena

PS...honey, you wanna see some thick furry eyebrows, check out my photos on my thread on the Atkins forum. A few birds could nest in MY eyebrows.

BF, your words are powerful and profound. This journey is about so much more than weight loss. It is about finding your one true self and it is a very personal journey, at least it was for me. Keep writing. I have a feeling that you will find your answers there.

thanks for sharing your experiences. I thought your post was very moving.

I haven't done it yet, but the suggestion was made in the 100 lb club
to write a "dear john" letter to your larger sized self. I'm letting the idea percolate for myself. With your talent for writing and self exploration, I bet you'd find that kind of exercise useful and interesting.

http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/100-...pful-idea.html