Never Good Enough
I came to the realization some time ago that I will never be good enough for my mother. I will never be educated enough, I will never be successful enough, I will never be thin enough, I will never ever make the right choices.
My mom wants her daughter to be perfect to a fault. At times, it gets to the point where she's downright degrading. When neither of us backs down on a subject, she blames me for making our family unsuccessful. Then she always claims that she has failed in life. Oh please.
Don't get me wrong, my mother is a wonderful person and I love her a whole lot. She always wants the best for her children, it's just that her methods of getting the best aren't always the best (that was a funny sentence).
My issue with all of this is that because my mom is always trying to get me to perfection, she's missing out on all the good things. She always says "You're 99% good and I don't need to talk about that, I need to talk about that 1% so that it can be fixed." Then she talks about that supposed 1% anytime she gets a chance. I have yet to hear what that 99% actually consists of.
Our most recent clashes have been with my weight. I know that I need to tone up a little bit, but I certainly do not need to lose much weight. I'm happy to stay the size and weight that I am. I exercise so that I can be healthier, not so I can be thinner. My mom thinks my weight is out of control. We have had many heated discussions about my weight. My mom says that I am wrong when I say I don't need to lose weight. Honestly, if I did not have a strong self-esteem I would've fallen into some ugly eating disorder by now because of this. My brother, who's 15, started to diet and control what he ate because of the way my mom talked to me about MY weight. He decided that he better start limiting his food intake before he was a target of my mom's weight fixation. He has lost so much weight as a result of this, and my mom cannot connect this to the way she has been treating me.
Recenly, my mom wanted me to start taking these herbal weight loss supplements. OMG! What a load of bull. This herbal weight loss thing puts you on their pills, and also puts you on a very very limited diet. Yes, you lose weight...but it's not because of the pills, it's because of the limited amount of food you can eat. Basically, you starve your body to get some quick results, and the herbal weight loss people say it's because of their (very expensive) pills. The most astonishing part of all this is that I told my mom I don't want to take pills because there could be side effects -- she told me that because it was all natural products there were no side effects. She argued this point! My mother is a health care professional! She has a bloody science background, but she's convinced that these pills have no side effects because they are "all natural".
Many people have told me to just talk to her, just tell her how I feel. It doesn't work. The more I tell my mom, the more she uses against me...it's gotten to the point where I've just stopped telling. I feel such a sense of loss with this because I can't have an open relationship with my mom. So much has happened in my life, and my mom has absolutely no idea of any of it. All the big life altering moments that have happened to me, I have never told my mother. I don't think I ever will. To be honest, she couldn't handle them.
My mom loves me in her own convoluted way, and that's the same way she shows me her love. I have accepted that, and I must live with it but it doesn't mean I have to respect her execution. Even though I've come to the conclusion that I will never be good enough, it still hurts everytime I come face to face with it...and that happens every time I have a conversation with my mother, or every time my mom looks at me and has the disgusted look in her eyes. God I hate that look.
My mom wants her daughter to be perfect to a fault. At times, it gets to the point where she's downright degrading. When neither of us backs down on a subject, she blames me for making our family unsuccessful. Then she always claims that she has failed in life. Oh please.
Don't get me wrong, my mother is a wonderful person and I love her a whole lot. She always wants the best for her children, it's just that her methods of getting the best aren't always the best (that was a funny sentence).
My issue with all of this is that because my mom is always trying to get me to perfection, she's missing out on all the good things. She always says "You're 99% good and I don't need to talk about that, I need to talk about that 1% so that it can be fixed." Then she talks about that supposed 1% anytime she gets a chance. I have yet to hear what that 99% actually consists of.
Our most recent clashes have been with my weight. I know that I need to tone up a little bit, but I certainly do not need to lose much weight. I'm happy to stay the size and weight that I am. I exercise so that I can be healthier, not so I can be thinner. My mom thinks my weight is out of control. We have had many heated discussions about my weight. My mom says that I am wrong when I say I don't need to lose weight. Honestly, if I did not have a strong self-esteem I would've fallen into some ugly eating disorder by now because of this. My brother, who's 15, started to diet and control what he ate because of the way my mom talked to me about MY weight. He decided that he better start limiting his food intake before he was a target of my mom's weight fixation. He has lost so much weight as a result of this, and my mom cannot connect this to the way she has been treating me.
Recenly, my mom wanted me to start taking these herbal weight loss supplements. OMG! What a load of bull. This herbal weight loss thing puts you on their pills, and also puts you on a very very limited diet. Yes, you lose weight...but it's not because of the pills, it's because of the limited amount of food you can eat. Basically, you starve your body to get some quick results, and the herbal weight loss people say it's because of their (very expensive) pills. The most astonishing part of all this is that I told my mom I don't want to take pills because there could be side effects -- she told me that because it was all natural products there were no side effects. She argued this point! My mother is a health care professional! She has a bloody science background, but she's convinced that these pills have no side effects because they are "all natural".
Many people have told me to just talk to her, just tell her how I feel. It doesn't work. The more I tell my mom, the more she uses against me...it's gotten to the point where I've just stopped telling. I feel such a sense of loss with this because I can't have an open relationship with my mom. So much has happened in my life, and my mom has absolutely no idea of any of it. All the big life altering moments that have happened to me, I have never told my mother. I don't think I ever will. To be honest, she couldn't handle them.
My mom loves me in her own convoluted way, and that's the same way she shows me her love. I have accepted that, and I must live with it but it doesn't mean I have to respect her execution. Even though I've come to the conclusion that I will never be good enough, it still hurts everytime I come face to face with it...and that happens every time I have a conversation with my mother, or every time my mom looks at me and has the disgusted look in her eyes. God I hate that look.
posted by Elle at 11:01 p.m.
1 Comments:
don't take the pills.
just because it says 'herbal' doesn't mean they're not dangerous.
we love you.
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