The Enduring Weight of My Mother

Pun intended, but it's not funny. I wanted to start with a pun, because I think it's ironic that a person such as myself, who champions fat positivity and destigmatizing mental illness and general pro-women-taking-up-space is haunted by the suffocating bigness that was my mother. I own that irony and how it implicates me in internalized prejudices. But also, I want to talk about it, because it's real and I think talking about it is how we connect and grow. 

Because I mean that title figuratively and literally. 

Literally, my mother was a big women. Not tall. No, she was super short actually, but her weight. I don't know what she weighed exactly, but I know she talked a lot about her body and her fat and of course I remember what she looked like. To start, I don't want to put any connotation on that. Her size was a fact, not intrinsically good or bad...but it had its impact on her (and my) life.  She was fat. So am I now. Facts. But she used her literal weight to abuse me. Her bigness was part of my fear of her.

Figuratively? Where do I even begin? What I mean about the enduring weight of my mother is the indelible weight of her on my life. Being raised by a narcissist means that my whole childhood was about HER! The bigness of her. The loudness of her. The FEAR of her. All roads led to her. She made sure she was the center of everything and, even years later, after over a decade of estrangement and years of therapy, she kind of still is. She was a steamroller and I still feel flattened. 

Even to someone outside of my family, my mother was a massive personality. She talked a lot. Like more than a lot. Like, if you call her, be prepared to lose hours of your life. When I was in my 20s, she'd call me ALL THE TIME and I could honestly put the phone down and let her just talk and she'd never notice...for hours. I am not exaggerating. People would often tell me, "I saw your mom today...and she wouldn't stop talking! I couldn't get away!" As if I could do anything about that. As if they weren't preaching to the motherfucking choir. As if I didn't live that every damn day and they had noooo idea what it was like living with her. As if her constant fucking talking wasn't the tip of the iceberg.

There are women who are vilified for being TOO MUCH, for taking up space and being loud and daring to exist hugely and I'm not here to participate in that. I just want to show you who my mom was and how huge she looms in my memory. She made sure she was EVERYTHING.

Her bigness overshadowed me, while shoving me into the spotlight I never wanted nor asked for. When she marched me into church 20  minutes late and right into the front row every week, I wanted to disappear completely (and it's why I'm early everywhere), but she felt no shame. In fact, she always found a way to blame it on me (because a narcissist is never wrong), shoving the embarrassment on me and making that spotlight even more painful. 

She shoved me onto a literal stage and told me to smile and that she'd kill me if I didn't perform just perfectly and I hated that stage and I hated that smile, but the applause was never for ME; it was for her, her supposed sacrifice, everything she'd done for me to give me everything she never had but that I never ever wanted. 

So much of my memory is of her voice, her shouting, her many many many many words, words to manipulate, to guilt, to shame, to goad, yelling at me to hide so she wouldn't kill me. So much of my memory is fear of her, of her nails digging into the underside of my arm, a promise of more pain later, of the sudden backhand, of a shoe against my back, of her whole body on top of me, showing me who's boss. 

She often lamented her weight, talking about how she used to be thin and trying all sorts of diet drinks to lose weight.  But then she also used her size as a weapon against me and, lest you think it was the only way to restrain me, I didn't reach 40lbs until I was 8 years old. I was small and she knew how to make me feel smaller. When I started puberty and got even a little bit of fat on my body, she pinched my waist and teased me for it. I internalized all of that. I wanted to be bigger to stand up for myself, because big was powerful, but I also got the lesson that big was shameful. And, let's remember, I WAS HER CHILD. The power balance meant that I was always at a disadvantage to Queen Narcissist who saw her child only as an extension of herself. 

So much of my adulthood has been just avoiding being her and my greatest fear is being like her. But then what does it mean when I find similarities? How do I separate the facts of physicality from the abusive narcissist? I am so afraid that despite all that, I am becoming her, because she's been impossible to escape. 

I avoid the doctor because she was a hypochondriac. I downplay any need for medication because she was an addict. I have had to learn to take care of myself, because I don't want to be narcissistic. 

But mostly? I am a fat, loud woman with back problems and who struggles with mental health (CPTSD and depression she created with her abuse, but still). That sentence could apply to her perfectly. Logically, I have no issues with any one of those things. I am all about living unapologetic about being big and loud and open about my mental health (otherwise what would the point of this blog even be?). But that's logic. My trauma brain is another story. 

In my trauma brain, that caricature looms over me, just like my mother still does. It's not nuanced. It's not reality, because I KNOW I'm not her and I know that I'm doing the one thing she never would have done: I'm working on myself. But I just can't let that image go and it just makes me feel terrible.

And even when I'm not being like her, I am the person she raised me to be. When I'm miserable at work, I don't want anyone to know. I slap on a smile and I do my dance and I hope they think I've put on a good show. Even if I WANT them to know I'm miserable, I can't do it. I can't show any cracks in my smile. I can't not do my performance full out. It's who I am.

And her constant criticism of me created a lifelong need to people please and perfectionism. If I make the tiniest of mistakes, I spiral out, so imagine making a big one. I'm always trying to manage the moods of people around me, as if I just talk to them in the right way then they'll like me/ be nice to me/ treat me like a fucking human. 

My nightmares are of her. My memories are of her. My triggers are of her. My toxic patterns come from her. People talk about the impact of motherhood and I think YES! Yes it's the biggest impact on my life over everything else. It's just that that impact isn't positive for me. It isn't positive for a lot of people. 

And that impact is enduring. 

Even my good memories of her have impacted my adult life negatively. Like when I hear a word that makes me think of a showtune and I burst into song, it reminds me of her and then I'm reminded of all the bad and then I go through all the emotions again. And again. And again. Or I just feel sad that there was potential for good, but it's overshadowed by so much trauma and pain.

Not to mention the experience of just being allowed to HAVE emotions. The last ten years have been just letting myself FEEL things other than pretend happiness. And I've felt them so deeply and erratically that I'm now, at almost 40, learning to regulate them in a healthy way, how to have a healthy relationship with my goddamn feelings. She stunted me and I'll never forgive her for it.

I didn't invite my mother to my wedding. I didn't want her there, taking over everything, making it about her, and making me feel terrible. I wanted to enjoy my day and feel good about myself and have the first significant moment in my life not be about my mother for fucking once. I invited my dad and told them that I wanted him there, but understood if he couldn't come. He did come but he brought a small present for me. I opened it after the wedding and it was obviously from my mom. It was a small notebook with a illustration of a mother and daughter and it said, "No matter what, you'll always be my little girl." 

It felt like a threat. 

Because what my mom has always meant by that is that I'm HERS. I'll never be free of her, no matter how much I distance myself or how much time has passed or how much I grow. It's the kind of threat a stalker sends, only my stalker is my mother and she owned me for almost 30 years. 

I don't ever want her to know what power she still holds over me, but that power is something I fight every single day. Some days I barely feel it. Some days I'm crushed under its pressure. Lately, it's been crushing, suffocating, nearly debilitating.

Luckily, I changed insurances and I'm back in therapy. Just knowing my therapist is there, there for ME believing me is HUGE. 

I know I have lots of people in my corner. But also, trauma  makes one feel very small and alone. Therapy, while not for everyone, or accessible to everyone, is uniquely designed to make a victim feel seen. But, blogging also makes me feel seen. When I am open about my experiences and my feelings, I always get notes and comments from others who also felt alone and now feel seen. Those connections are empowering as fuck. 

I hope you all keep reaching out. I hope that through this place,  you find validation and know that none of us are alone; we've just been forced to feel that way.