“You look at me, and you don’t like what you see. But this is the price, Mother – the price of belonging to you.”

I’ve had a few slips but no binges which is huge for me. There are no valid excuses for slips of course but I am moving forward, I am not going to beat myself up over this or it will be another 7-8 years of obesity for me! I started gaining weight around 2000, 2001 and this is an uphill battle for me. I was religiously following “cambridge greysheet” for years as a teen and in my early twenties and maintained a somewhat emaciated 105 pound weight for several years. I was successful in CGS however it made me anemic, made me lose my period, my hair fell out and I couldn’t climb stairs without being faint.

Due to a series of tragedies; dealing, or rather not dealing, with my mother’s mental deterioration from schizophrenia, a death in the family, relationship ups and downs, post graduate ennui, and a propensity for bouts of depression and vacillating between guilt and relief at an estrangement with my mother since 2001 – all of these have been contributing factors to my weight gain. 

Food addiction is real, compulsive overeating is real but i think they developed because of said factors above. Alcoholism and drug addiction, depression and mental illness run in my family on both sides, so there are genetic factors to my possession of the mind of an addict.

I was also brought up first in a drug and drink fueled, rough and tumble, South Boston home. Later came Alcoholics Anonymous for my mother, when I was 6, which streamed in hope and a thousand overheard drunkalogues whilst I played with my Barbie’s in countless church basements. Then the mental institutions for her and the foster homes for me. I clutched my (then boyfriend) husband’s hands the whole time we watched “White Oleander” in 2002 because of the similarities between myself and Astrid, Ingrid and my mother, excepting some sensational specifics.   

 

“My mother was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was also the most dangerous.”

 

There comes a time in a woman’s life when she has to stop hiding from her problems and her past so she can lead a fuller, less hidden life in the present. I’ve talked a lot of ‘gonna be, going to do, will change’ for the last 7 or 8 years without lifting a finger in my own recovery, weight loss, or future. I can pay lip service to my aspirations all I want – it means nothing without action. My action. Now.

 

My mother’s sad story is for another time. I think I may have to courage to tell it finally. I think I have to, in order to continue mine.