Trust and control

For me, I lost my say in my own life as a youngster and I was never taught to be independent.  I was taught and encouraged to remain dependent solely on my parents.  I was never schooled in the art of self-love or self-respect but first and foremost, I was never told I could trust myself.  I wasn’t encouraged to count on myself or trust myself to make sound and intuitive decisions regarding my own life.

Contol of my life was never handed over to me and by the time I was old enough that I should’ve taken over, I didn’t know I could or didn’t know how.  I wasn’t ever taught the basic skills of living my own life.  My entire life (pre-pursuit of recovery) was lived for other people.  I answered to my father all of my life  until the day he died.  Having no opinion and having no self-love was what my parents wanted of me.  They wanted total control and they controlled me for so long that I lost my sense of self.

My father had control over me (feeling) and he controlled me (fact).  My mother’s control of me was much more subtle but there nonetheless.  Both of my parents controlled me through guilt and shame.  (No wonder I dieted so long…the guilt I felt whenever I ate the “wrong” thing or “wrong” amount was actually a very familiar and comfortable feeling for me).

Sixteen years ago, I married my husband.  He’s turned out to be a great guy!  I won’t go into all the details at this time but he and I have both changed a lot over the last eight years.  When we first married he was a very controlling person.  I’ve been told over and over that you marry a person who reminds you of one of your parents.  I married a man who was very much like my father.  It was so familiar to marry a man like my father.  It’s like I didn’t think I had a choice at the time.  Control was what I knew.

Consequently, I was 28 years old and didn’t know how to do anything on my own.  I could not make any real decisions on my own.  I had to have someone backing my every decision…I couldn’t claim any decision as my own.  If someone suggested I do something contrary to how I felt, I would do what they suggested because I didn’t trust myself.

So I’ve learned since I’ve started my recovery from an eating disorder that my ability to make decisions about my eating was also taken away from me.  My mother took me to my first Weight Watchers meeting when I was 7 years old.  She drove 45 minutes one way to take me to a WW meeting once a week.  (That was back in the day where WW believed you HAD to eat calves liver once a week.  bleh!)  Ok, think about this…at the age of seven I was pretty much told I didn’t know how to eat and that I needed to depend on outside influences to make me acceptable, desireable and “enough”.  I learned early to count calories, to count servings, to measure serving sizes, to live by numbers and to determine if my day was bad or good based on what I did or didn’t eat.  By the way, I lost the weight my parents wanted me to and we got to go on the Florida vacation.  Whether you go on a vacation or not because of your weight is a lot of pressure for a young child.

From the age of 7 I dieted over and over.  I tried pills, starvation, the grapefruit and egg diet, Diet Center, restriction, Nutri-System and mostly WW over and over again, feeling like a failure everytime because I would lose weight, only to gain it all back and add more to it.  I dieted myself to insanity!  I never felt acceptable to anyone, least of all me.  Diets controlled me….it was so familiar, damn it, it was so familiar.

I’m still learning how to live my own life and make my own decisions.  This is a matter of self-preservation.  I must learn to trust myself in every aspect of my life..and that includes telling myself I’m acceptable, I’m beautiful and I’m smart.  I can trust myself on this one!

~sas