Do I even want to fix this?
"I think if you figure out a place for your mother in your life then you'll be able to lose the weight you want and get over your issues."
My grandmother, Mems, imparted that wisdom to me the other night after we'd had a few beers.
We'd been talking about how much trouble I have losing weight. I lose the same 20 pounds over and over again. I've posted here before about how I think it's a self defense thing.
The fat protects me from rejection. People are rejecting me because I'm fat, not because of me.
Mems did a deep dive on my psychoanalysis and thinks that fear of rejection is residual from my mother.
You see, she didn't raise me. In fact, she dropped me off at Mems' house when I was 2 and didn't come back for 2 weeks. When she did Mems wouldn't let her have me.
I was raised by Mems and my Pops and over the years developed a pretty toxic and angry relationship with my mother. I couldn't stand to be around her.
I went from thinking she was fun and cool when I'd see her on weekends as a child to hating to be around her as a teen and I really understood she'd just kind of walked off and left me.
Watching her raise my siblings in her dysfunctional way led to guilt, which I've talked about here as well, but I was also jealous. She must have loved them better or differently. She kept them.
This didn't mean I'd have been happier or healthier with her than I was with Mems and Pops, I wasn't. I had a pretty idyllic childhood as it was. It was just different.
After my Pops died when I was 17 I had a different kind of guilt and grief and issues. So I started therapy around the same time I started college.
It helped. It really did.
After the 5 years of therapy I had I got to a point where I could be around mother. I stopped hating her for not being a mother to me and instead re-shuffled how I thought about her in my life.
Instead of a horrible mother she's more of a cousin or sister. A friendly acquaintance I happen to look like.
I thought it had been pretty successful. I still get the occasional pangs of guilt and hurt when I see her doing family things with my siblings and not me or going above and beyond to help them with something and not me.
But I don't need her, I have a Mems. I had a Pops. I'm 32 years old.
Is there anything left to fix in my head? Will my relationship with her go through another incantation?
Is my layer of fat to keep me away from her? Will my subconscious ever stop wondering why she didn't want me?
Do I even want to go through this?