Anastasia, I don't think you can completely overcome it, well I didn't have it as bad and I can't seem to overcome it. Of course I have an in-law who has to put others down to make herself happy, she is clearly larger than me but she will talk about how I'm big or how I have a big ass so it's like, I feel like SO MANY people have done this they must be on to something? Plus I'm fatter now. I hate that I let it bother me and I know that I'm worth more than that but I think when it's put in your head as a child from family members who are to love you and shape who you are, it's not something you can just get past.
Thanks so much for being honest and sharing your story with us Anastasia. That takes a lot of guts.
As to eslbee's question I truly believe that what happens to us and how we are treated when we are younger - especially by those who are supposed to love us - has a huge impact on us later in life. It's up to everyone to deal with it the best they can.
Some move on and some continue the cycle. Anastasia is lucky not to be involved with her abusive husband any longer. She has broken the cycle by leaving him and is working on moving on. Good for her!
Too many others stay in abusive relationships having children and continuing the abuse cycle.
I remember when I was 118, I had to weigh myself everyday and worry about what to eat. i evolved gradually where I don't have a scale and don't care as much about weight. I am not at an ideal weight, but i know if I stop eating the extras, like sweets or chips(not that I have those every day)I will lose some weight. I just need to be mindful, i have done this before.
Anastasia, I read a quote on the net that sums up your situation perfectly. The reason family can push your buttons so easily is because they are the ones who installed them.
(10-18-2009 02:27 PM)Eddy Wrote: [ -> ]Anastasia, I read a quote on the net that sums up your situation perfectly. The reason family can push your buttons so easily is because they are the ones who installed them.
That IS a good quote!
So, even when you later realize they are the damaged goods, and not you, and that, although they were supposed to love you, and instead violated you, you can't place all the blame on them and damn them to hell? I ask because my spouse was successful with this approach after a very bad time in her childhood. I understand also, that we are not all alike. I just wonder about how the whole thing works. Does anyone know of any resources?
Of course you can blame them. But you can't blame them entirely -- at some point, we all become thinking, reasoning, intelligent and educated adults, and from that point, the choices we make are our own. Once we have the power to realize that we aren't ugly/fat/disgusting/whatever, how we behave from then on is our own responsibility. That's not to say it isn't tough -- it's VERY hard, because you spend years with their influence, and it molds you in many ways. Breaking their pattern means re-molding ourselves. Those who choose NOT to remold themselves are still making the choice to live with the way their family created them.
When I saw the news about the Ralph Lauren model, I thought how disgusting men can be. I think my dad was very disgusting man. I remember growing up and being raised by a dad and mom who both truly believed that being thin was to beautiful and attractive. It all do to do with being sexy. For years I really thought I had to be thin and sexy in order to be attractive, which I never really was.
I remember when I was teen and heading out the door to go to high school in the morning. My mom rushed to the door to make sure we had a "diet pill." My mom was always getting all kinds of prescription drugs from Mexico, being she was Mexican and went there every summer. I looked at it and recognized the pill right away. It was a Black Beauty, speed. I was already taking them with my friends at school. I told my mom as much.
It was years and years later when it dawned on me that being thin equated with being beautiful and attractive wasn't true. Slowly I began to understand that having good character had more to do with being beautiful than how one looks physically. We really do live in a sick world. It is so twisted and upside down sometimes. The good part is when I can recognize it is not right and not let it bother me. Unfortunately I still get bothered by it.
I was very interested in becoming a 'plus size model'. Plus size is a store is generally considered to be Size 14 and above, honestly, this is average women! Anyway, I used to be Size 14-16 and now I am wearing about Size 20 sometimes for pants, and 14-16 for tops. In regular modeling, the models are much smaller than real women, and the same goes for plus size modeling. I thought I would be a good size to be a Plus Size Model... guess what... I am too big!
I think this is all really sad... When I was 13 years old and wasn't even plus size then, I was a normal active teen, a classmate told me I needed liposuction and breast implants, at that age? What are kids being taught?
Good points about plus-size modeling. Notice, too, they are just larger in scale, but they ALWAYS still have womanly curves, and don't have fat rolls at their waist, or cellulite on the thighs. They are "acceptable" plus-size women. It's still unrealistic.
From BBC website, another evolutionary biology theory, kind of funny:
Curvy women may be a clever bet
Nigella Lawson: Curvy figure and an Oxford degree
Women with curvy figures are likely to be brighter than waif-like counterparts and may well produce more intelligent offspring, a US study suggests.
Researchers studied 16,000 women and girls and found the more voluptuous performed better on cognitive tests - as did their children.
The bigger the difference between a woman's waist and hips the better.
Researchers writing in Evolution and Human Behaviour speculated this was to do with fatty acids found on the hips.
In this area, the fat is likely to be the much touted Omega-3, which could improve the woman's own mental abilities as well as those of her child during pregnancy.
Men respond to the double enticement of both an intelligent partner and an intelligent child, the researchers at the Universities of Pittsburgh and California said.
The findings appear to be borne out in the educational attainments of at least one of the UK's most famous curvaceous women, Nigella Lawson, who graduated from Oxford.
But experts are not convinced by the findings.
"On the fatty deposits being related to intelligence front, it's very hard to detangle that from other factors, such as social class, for instance, or diet," said Martin Tovee of Newcastle University.
"And much as we logically like the idea that men are interested in the waist to hip ratio, it actually features relatively low down the list of feature males look for in a potential partner."
Great! Fat makes you smart! I knew it had to be good for something.