14.
“I remember being forced to count how many peanuts I was allowed to eat and put on diet pills that made me shit myself (which she laughed about). She also constantly brought up weight loss surgery, followed by complaints about how I didn’t meet the minimum weight requirement for insurance to cover it. In high school, she regularly told me I looked pre-diabetic and pointed out where fat hung out in every outfit I wore. She would pat my stomach and tell me to ‘suck in my gut.’ Whenever I ate, she would make faces and say, ‘You’re going to eat that!?’ My dad was negative and critical of her body, and as I grew older, that passed to me.”
“He used to make me wake up and go running before school while he and his friend would run behind me, yelling fat jokes. I look at pictures from high school now, and I was normal and healthy. It breaks my heart to remember what a fat, ugly cow I believed I was.
One day, my mother told me she and my dad were having problems in their marriage and that it was all because of me. Instead of feeling ashamed and guilty like she intended, I saw her and her narcissism with complete clarity and realized how broken things truly were. Now, I’m a few weeks away from the one-year anniversary of blocking both their phone numbers and moving away. It’s amazing how much my self-esteem has improved. This was my upbringing, too. These stories really hit home.”
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