Cleaning Out My Closet

Please excuse this image of me in a culturally insensitive costume in 1984. Somehow it's the only picture I have of me as a child! 

I remember the first time I was ever ashamed of my body. I was five years old, and one night at dinner, which we ate all around the table, I was looking forward to dessert. We always had dessert, just a small, usually home-baked treat served on plates with silverware. That night we had a Pepperidge Farms coconut cake that, to me, was exciting and exotic because it was so pretty in its glossy white box in the freezer. But that night, my mother told me that I couldn't have dessert. I was confused. The cake was cut, and everyone else was eating a piece, even my closest sister Heather who was three years older than me. "Why can't I have any?" I asked. I don't remember what answer I was given, but I immediately filled in the blanks.

I was not ok and, therefore, did not deserve a piece of cake. I was unacceptable. Over the next few months, I paid attention to what I was given to eat compared to others and the conversations my parents had with my siblings about food. Yep, that was it. I remember worriedly stepping on the bathroom scale in my mother's bathroom and seeing the number "50" reflected in digital numbers. I didn't know what that number meant, but I guessed it was not the right one. My mother, who never weighed more than 115 pounds except when pregnant, always monitored her weight. I remember her telling people that she could "eat whatever I want, I never gain an ounce!".  When I asked her if I weighed the right amount, she told me that she hadn't weighed 50 pounds until 5th grade. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t like her. I have one picture of us together, taken when I was 2 or 3 years old. It looks like my head is the same size as hers and we couldn’t look less alike if she had picked up a child at random on the way into Olan Mills.

Soon after, I was washing in the shower, and looked down and saw my rounded belly and my convex ribcage and thinking that it was not right for it to stick out like that. I had an outfit at that time which I hated, jeans and a Hawaiian shirt under which I was supposed to wear a white t-shirt. I remember thinking that my rounded torso in my white t-shirt made me look like "the Dad" from the TV show, "The Munster's," which was on reruns and I used to watch on TV. Yes, six-year-old me likened myself to a Herman Munster.  I wanted to wear prairie dresses every day like Laura Ingalls Wilder (I still do!). I had a closet full of frilly 80’s dresses and I loved the “twirly” ones the best. I would have happily worn them 24/7. My parents explained that dresses were only for special occasions and for church on Sundays and that I had to wear pants for everyday. I didn’t feel like myself in jeans and pants and complained whenever possible about them.

The summer I turned six, I was sexually abused on multiple occasions by a trusted family friend. Like most children, I had a sense that something "bad" had happened, but I immediately blamed myself and was too afraid to tell anyone. I started becoming overly emotional, once bursting into tears when I came down for breakfast and my brother said "morning" in a perfectly reasonable tone. I spent a lot of time crying that summer. So much so that my exasperated parents started sending me to my room when the waterworks began.  I also kept telling my parents that something was hurting when I went to the bathroom. I remember being taken to the pediatrician, who said I didn't have any visible signs of irritation or infection and told my mother to change the laundry detergent just in case. I became obsessed with being "clean," wiping myself with dry toilet paper until I bled. These are textbook sexual abuse signs, but in my parents' defense, it was the 1980's, and this was a subject that most people knew nothing about. What I cannot defend is how my mother reacted when I finally told her. As the singer/songwriter Kesha sang, “there are some things only God can forgive." Needless to say, these experiences cemented to me that my body was wrong. I had a deep shame about my body that I’ve never quite conquered.

One day when I was about seven,  I tried to put on a pair of corduroy pants and couldn't button them. When I brought this to my mom's attention, she chided me for outgrowing them and told me that I needed to stop snacking. I will always remember those children's size 6X pants. They were a hand-me-down from my much slimmer older sister, burgundy color and made a swishing sound when I walked and my thighs rubbed together. After that, I asked my mother how many calories people should eat every day. She was doing something and said offhandedly, "a thousand." That answer became my reality. A few years later, when I developed a restrictive eating disorder, I allowed myself to eat no more than 1,000 calories per day. Years later, I realized that she probably thought I was asking how many calories a CHILD should eat, but I should point out that that number is low even for a child! I do not want to portray my eating disorders as if they were caused by my mother; they weren't. Eating disorders are very genetic, and looking back, I realize that my mother had a very disordered relationship with food. I know that she didn't purposely put her own issues onto me, but it happened.

Which brings me to 2019. After six sons, I had my only daughter in 2017. When I was pregnant with her, I failed my glucose tolerance test. I chose to move forward with treatment rather than taking the longer 3-hour test. I wanted to be proactive because having high blood sugar can have all sorts of effects on the fetus later in life. I was scrupulous with my treatment plan, and my blood sugar was so well controlled, my daughter was my smallest baby by over 2 pounds. From the beginning, she's grown quickly. She has been over the 95th percentile in height and weight since she was two months old. But because of my own body image issues and the unresolved pain and trauma with my mother, it has been my worst fear that I will pass my issues onto her. Having a daughter that is big for her age has been surprisingly hard for me. I suppose because it reminds me of....well me. I have to fight against the idea that she's "too big" and that she, as a girl, should be smaller.

Yesterday she was very sick and had to go to the doctor for a breathing treatment. The scale registered a decent weight gain since her last checkup, and I am ashamed to say, THAT is what upset me about that visit. The rest of the day while I gave her breathing treatments, I was googling different weight charts in an attempt to reassure me that her size is "ok." How messed up is that? She's beautiful and brilliant. She correctly uses words like "actually" and "probably," and at age 2.5, she knows all her colors, shapes, and many of her letters. Every morning she tells me all about her dreams, but since she doesn't know what a dream is, she excitedly tells me about her adventures. She loves vegetables and playing outside with her brother. A "normal" parent without all my baggage would probably be more mindful about the example they're setting and make more of an effort to offer healthy food and cut down on snacking. Modeling healthy eating and an active lifestyle is the responsible thing to do.  But there I was, panicking. I must do better for her, she deserves it. I deserved it too. I can't change my past, but I am determined to change my future. No more secrets, no more shame. That blonde little girl with the big head was ok. She deserved love and acceptance. And my brilliant daughter does too. Even while I recognize the flaws in myself and my mothering, I need to show compassion for both that little girl and the almost 40-year-old she became. My daughter looks up to me, and I feel that responsibility heavily.  When I was pregnant with her, I saw a registered dietician who specializes in disordered eating and had twice-a-week therapy. I always thought that the universe was telling me I couldn’t be a good mother to a daughter and that’s why I had six boys in a row. But maybe the universe was just waiting for me to be ready to shed the effects of my trauma in order to become the mother she needs me to be?

I think I can, I think I can...