The FastDay Forum

I actually have more father than mother issues. My father is a very looks-ist person, and I feel that when I was a teenager he was ashamed of me and actually even disgusted by me. I wasn't gross or anything, just a bit lumpen and plain. I see other fathers who dote on their daughters, no matter what, and it hurts.
It's pathetic isn't it to dwell on things that happened over 40 years ago. But my 85-year-old mother-in-law is full of lamentations about how her family treated her as a child - it never heals.

Thanks @Debs - for your helpful & thoughtful comments - much appreciated xx

@Julieathome - I really feel for you. The more I read on here, the more I am reminded of a self-help book I have never read, but heard about - title of which is something like

"Parents - they f#*# you up"

The older I get though, the more I come to realise that our parents, like us, are a product of their upbringing. It doesn't really change much, but it does help me look a little more kindly on my Mother (...at times!)

The real question is: how to disassociate ourselves from the pain of the past....so that we can move forward?

Julie - you seem to have so much on your plate.....and on top of all that you are dieting....and you are contributing to this forum, offering support & advice to others. I am full of admiration for you! A while ago, I read one of your posts with great interest....as I too have a son on the autistic spectrum. He has just turned 21 & is classically autistic as opposed to Aspergers. Oh, I forgot to say that that was the diagnosis of a paediatrician. My mother, however, believes that he is merely lacking in discipline........and would benefit from much tougher love etc! Honestly!

@Kentishlass - don't even start me on fathers! I so identify with you on that. Mine has never cared about me & we have been estranged for years. Watching real life fathers & daughters interact, or even TV characters, is incredibly painful - like a knife twisting in my heart. The wound never heals.....

Hope we can all converse some more in days to come. Meanwhile, a big thanks from me & hugs all round xxx

[Debs]

It is never really about food is it?! @kentishlass, your MIL probably never had anyone to talk to it about. There are plenty of people you can whinge to but working your way through a problem and finding a solution is a different thing altogether! Sometimes, I just want to have a moan and get something off my chest, but I take a different approach if I actually want a solution to something. Of course there are those people who aren't happy unless they are miserable, your MIL may be one of those!!!! I know a few of them, the same sort of people who constantly whinge about their work, how terrible it is, how awful the people are, but never get off their bums and do something about it!

The fact that we are all on here trying to take control of our weight shows that we all are people wanting to seek a solution, however hard it is. For some it involves difficult choices, but we all know we are not alone in not having the perfect family. Julieathome, you have broken that self perpetuating problem by being proud of your children whatever they are doing, that is the start of not passing on the problems you have 'inherited' from your parents.

Group hug all round!!

I think you're very wise, @debs, when you talk about using your difficulties as agents for change. I'm currently reading a book by Geneen Roth called When Food is Love - she talks about many painful dynamics in herself and her workshop participants, particularly with their parents. But she also says," ..the messages we received as children, how we translate them into messages of self-hate, and how we pass this pain onto other people, including our children... The importance of taking responsibility for change in the present rather than feeling victimized by the pain of the past". That's how I feel about it too, I'm not really interested in rehashing the past ad nauseam, although that pain needs to be acknowledged, expressed and understood. But then it needs to be held and transformed.

Big thanks to you both for your insights @Debs & @Jools7

The book sounds really interesting Jools. It is so right to want to get to a place where you acknowledge what has gone before, but concentrate on moving forward once & for all. Knowledge is power, as they say.

Problem is, I find any number of reasons/excuses not to spend time in my head, trying to work things through. Guess that's where therapy comes in......

Am so grateful for this lovely tent!

Bless you all xxx

[Debs]

Thank you ladies. That is indeed where different types of therapy come in, I used Cognitive behavioural therapy and mindfulness and now I recognise when I am thinking negatively and pull myself up and 'smell the roses'. I don't have the anxiety attacks I used to either. You have to find what works for you, I didn't find that blocking negativity worked, I needed to observe and accept them and carry on regardless.
We are women- hear us roar. Or as my hubby says, I am Deb- hear me snore!

Yes, absolutely agree with you re therapy, @debs. My particular brand is called process-oriented psychology, and goes really to the essence of things, but it's not backwards looking & deterministic like Freudian forms, instead it's future-oriented (teleological) and is concerned with meaning. I think it's a case of whatever floats your boat.

But I think finding a good therapist is a real gift, otherwise if you're trying to do it just by yourself there are many pitfalls, including accidentally allowing your inner critical figures to do the work on you - that never has a happy outcome!

Good luck, fellow mountaineers, here's to self love!

"taking responsibility for change in the present rather than feeling victimized by the pain of the past" Thank you for that insight.

Yes, I'm no longer carrying around all those extra stones of weight (4 stone more at my heaviest, not just the 2 stone shifted by 5:2). It's time to start shedding the other baggage. I can and I will.

Wow, awesome, @kentishlasd, you go girl! Inspiring! Good luck with your mountain-climbing! Let us know how you go!!

Really need to take time and read everything here...
In the meantime,just saw something interesting about emotional eating ( eating when you're feeling happy/ when you're feeling sad/ when you're feeling stressed!)
It’s not the feeling itself that triggers the urge to eat; it’s the inability to let the feeling be present without stimulating it or numbing it with food.
Sooo true in my case!
Will be back to catch up on the previous pages x

so true, @candicemarie - fasting is amazing for me because I CAN'T stuff feelings down with food, I have to deal with them on some level instead - the first few fasts felt to me like menopause-on-steroids as far as mood swings are concerned! Before fasting I wouldn't have allowed myself to feel all that stuff, now I find the approach I used much further back in the tent, for bingeing, is really useful - just acknowledging, holding, and asking myself to go deeper with the feelings - less scary than it sounds, because there's someone "at home" inside me to hold myself through it all, instead of just being the victim of my moods - a bit like mindfulness, I guess.

Happy (or sad or angry etc etc) mountaineering, everyone!

As a child of very dysfunctional parents who seemed to intensify each other's failings. I know from experience how parents pass on their problems to their children. I have also learnt from my therapeutic clients how most parents do the best that they can, with largely inadequate resources, and play out their own pain in their relationships with their children (and everyone else). This has been a rude awakening for me, as I know that I, in trying to avoid passing on familial pain, did exactly that to my children. I was too wounded to do otherwise. Fortunately there has now been a great deal of healing, so there is the possibility of healthier relationships with my children now that they are adults. I am happy that I have been able to forgive my parents and myself. I no longer have to carry around the burden of blame towards my parents or myself.Things are lighter, in so many ways.

[Debs]

Bracken, do you still talk to your parents? I just wonder if they have seen their problems or maybe they aren't around anymore? Sorry, if that is the case.

@Bracken thats wonderful that youve learnt so much and done so much healing
By becoming so self aware and improving the r/ship with your own children,you've broken the cycle of repeated pattern of behaviour down thru the generations x

Both my parents are dead. My father took his own life many years ago. It took me about twenty years to work through that one! My mother died about five years ago. I had cut off totally for some time, but realised that I would be devastated if there had been no resolution at all when she died, so I had some limited contact in the couple of years before her death. I knew that she was incapaple of honest self-reflection and that any movement would have to come from me. I did the little bit which I was willing and able to do and accepted that I would never have the mother which every child deserves. She couldn't be that, both because of her own upbringing and experiences, and her reluctance to face up to, and heal the hurt which she had experienced.

As a result of the therapeutic work which I had undertaken I didn't need to rail against that and I didn't need to carry the guilt of not having tried to resolve things before she died, because I had tried, as well as I was able. I felt sad for her, and for myself and protective towards the little girl I once was, but I was, and remain, basically ok ( after lots and lots of therapy, navel gazing, unhealthy acting out etc etc over the years).

I have come to know the power of forgiveness. Being able to forgive my parents was a tremendous gift to myself. I don't mean to sound sanctimonious, but it has had such healing power for me. My parents were unable to be anything other than what they were. It wasn't good enough, by a long chalk, but they did what they could. I am now honoured to contribute to people's attempts to heal their own pain and hope that I can help them in avoiding passing it on.