Our Bodies/Our Mothers
<p>I can barely remember a time my mother wasn’t commenting on her body so it shouldn’t have been a surprise when the dialog about mine began. Still, it was.</p>
<p>I remember the sting like it was yesterday. I was thirteen, we were walking somewhere. She informed me now was a good time to start worrying about weight gain. I recoiled, she pressed on.</p>
<p>The warning didn’t come with any useful advice about how I might fend it off. In retrospect, I think she was just telling me to eat less–a diet-culture idea of moderation that never worked out for me.</p>
<p>I’ve come to think of that moment as the end of my girlhood. That glorious time when you get to exist in your body without having to think about it <em>all the time</em>.</p>
<p>My reaction to this and subsequent conversations was to seek out sugar and generally eat more. I scrounged up change for candy, raided the kitchen, and began eating past fullness. I suddenly worried about not having enough.</p>
<p>The sugar I was eating became its own self-perpetuating cycle. I had no idea what to do with my overwhelming cravings and didn’t dare ask. To admit them was inviting judgment, something I desperately avoided. So, I tried to cope privately, mostly seeking it out and eating in private. It never once occurred to me this was anything other than a personal failing.</p>
<p>To avoid my mother’s immediate scrutiny, I became a hider of food and then a hider in general. That coping mechanism would color my entire adult life. I hid who I was, what I ate, and then from myself.</p>
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