Heart t' Heart

[Wendy J]

My sister has been struggling with depression lately, and it seems to be centered on the fact that she cannot lose weight. She even questions her membership in the church because despite all her prayer and fasting and priesthood blessings, she feels that this prayer has not been answered for her.

I was speaking to my mom about this today, about how I wanted to help my sister understand that it wasn't about the weight, and that I wanted to help her find happiness despite her weight. I told my mom how important a relationship with our Savior is and how I know that if God isn't giving my sister the answer she wants that there is a good loving reason behind it. I expressed that I didn't know what to say or do to help her, and that she (my mom) would probably have a lot to share with her after all her experiences with struggling with weight.

My mom said, "Yes, but she doesn't want to hear what I have to say." My first thought was, how sad, that she isn't willing to listen to my mom who has a lifetime of experiences with troubles with her weight.

But then she launched into a tirade about my sister's eating habits and all the reasons why she believes my sister hasn't been able to lose weight. She feels my sister never had a weight problem until she became vegetarian and that is the root of her problems and she needs to eat lean meat and although nuts and beans and grains may be healthy, they are not low-calorie foods and she needs to go to a nutritionist and get a meal plan. Then she started reading an article to me that she found recently about women who have an allergy to gluten and how they lost so much weight (12 lbs in one week!) by avoiding wheat and maybe my sister should try that.

This was SO not what I had expected to hear that my jaw dropped. Tears came to my eyes. I didn't know what to say. I was just so profoundly SAD. (And no WONDER my sister doesn't want to hear what she has to say!)

I reaffirmed what I had said earlier, that I didn't want to give my sister more advice on how to lose weight, but to help her find happiness at her current weight. About how a relationship with her Savior was the most important thing.

My mom said, yes, but she CAN lose weight. She just isn't doing it right. Followed by more advice on what she thought my sister should be doing with her diet. Followed up by a lament on how my sister didn't want to hear it.

(A little background here I guess - my mom has ALWAYS struggled with her weight. And several times in my lifetime she has lost LARGE amounts of weight by going on a VERY strict diet (usually 500 calories a day) and she feels that this is okay. In fact, I get the distinct feeling that she feels this is what my sister and I should be doing. She went to her doctor once after losing a lot of weight and when the doc praised her weight loss my mom said, "You probably don't want to know how I lost it because it wasn't very healthy." The doc told her, "I don't care how you did it - the unhealthiness of a crash diet is far outweighed by how unhealthy you would be if you had stayed at that weight." She now quotes this to me... often. Followed up my a lecture on how yes, it will be hard, but I just need to DO it.)

I told my mom that I believed that the Lord wanted my sister to be healthy but that her spiritual health was even more important than physical health. I asked my mom about the times when she had lost weight - about how even though it was exciting to be thin, didn't she find it didn't really make her any HAPPIER, since she was still the same person in the same life?

She said, well, yeah I guess you're right that I wasn't any different SPIRITUALLY. But physically it is just so wonderful to be thin! She said how my sister was just expecting a miracle from God to sweep in and make it quick and easy and she just needed to stop expecting that and do what needed to be done to lose the weight.

I was getting sadder and more frustrated by the moment. I felt like we were speaking in two different languages and whoever was acting as translator was not passing my message on but saying something TOTALLY different. How was it that she wasn't hearing ANYTHING I was saying?

I told my mom about how strongly I believe in miracles - about how much of a miracle it has been that I had been able to avoid sugar the past month. I told her no, it wasn't a quick and easy fix to my weight problem (because I still haven't lost a pound) but I told her I believed all things could happen on the Lord's timetable if we were willing to do things His way.

She then started lecturing me about MY weight, about how yes, spiritual health is important but physical health is important too, and how I am on a timetable if I want to have kids (I am 33 and no kids yet) and I have to hurry and lose weight so I can have a healthy pregnancy. (And HONEY, I just want you to have a strong and healthy pregnancy. Just be strong and healthy!)

Well, the conversation ended there because I was just crushed. I couldn't even respond to that. I don't know which I felt more - sadness or foolishness. Part of me was thinking "Why isn't she hearing me?" and the rest of me was thinking, "Oh my gosh she's right and I have been wasting time when I should have been losing weight."

It makes me think a little bit of the people in the great and spacious building, pointing and jeering at those who were trying to cling to the iron rod and how those people fell away. I always wondered why someone who was clinging to something so precious would fall away just because of what someone SAID, but in just a 10 minute conversation with my mom I found myself doubting everything I thought I knew. (And I didn't think that the people in the great and spacious building were supposed to include the mother who raised you in the church?!?)

I am just so so so sad. I don't know how to describe what I'm feeling. I can't seem to stop crying. I want to shake her. I want to go hide in a hole someplace. I can't seem to to make myself believe that my mother is wrong. But I can't turn my back on everything I've been learning. Oh my gosh, I am too old to be unable to deal with this. I am not a child who is blindly believing everything my parents say anymore. But I am still so programmed to accept what they say as truth, even if it means questioning everything I think I know. (Is this co-dependence?)

After this conversation, there was a little part of myself that wanted to give myself a hug. This part said, "Just look at how far you must have come if that THAT is where you started! No wonder you struggle so much with letting go of the idea of needing to hurry up and lose the weight. You have a very powerful influence in your life brainwashing you with this info - and she has been feeding you this info your WHOLE life."

And she has - ever since the time she took me to the pediatrician and he said that I needed to lose five pounds. (This is one of my very first memories. I don't think I was even in kindergarten yet.)

And harder yet, this harmful information comes packaged in a beautiful gift box with a big bow and a tag that says "Love, Mom". It comes in the guise of loving concern. And it is wrapped in a thick layer of guilt if I should refuse to take the gift to heart.

My whole life, it was a horrible cycle of being criticized for my weight, followed up with lots of cookies and ice cream and brownies to make me feel loved.

And when I did try to lose weight, small accomplishments were not enough. I remember being in grade school and her telling me that I needed exercise and I should go ride my bike. I remember finishing a lap around the block and running inside, proud of my accomplishment and excited to share it with her. She said, "Honey, that is not enough. When you do 10 laps then come tell me, because that will be a mile." I remember being put on a diet where breakfast was a bowl of plain puffed rice and skim milk and that was "healthy". I remember being in junior high and feeling proud of myself and like maybe I had FINALLY done well enough because I had gone a whole day on a single peach.

The stupid thing is that my mom laments the fact that my sister and I have weight issues and how it is ALL HER FAULT because she had weight issues and she is so sorry that she messed us up so badly. I actually hear this pretty often.

Look, I don't want you to feel guilty about the past. You were doing the best you could.

But why are you STILL doing it???

It reminds me to be gentle with myself. It lets me see that there's a reason I struggle the way I do. That I shouldn't beat myself up over it. That I can't help the way I was "programmed" as a child. And it lets me see that the Lord really is all-powerful, if He has been able to "reprogram" me as much as He already has. Because even though I still feel so broken, it is clear that I have come so far.

And that leaves me wondering... Why ME? Why is it that *I* am the one in my family who is finding and learning these truths and having them work within her? Why isn't my sister getting it? Why isn't my mom getting it? What makes us different? And how do I help them get it, when they seem so deaf to everything I try to share?

I guess I need to just keep going - keep trusting the Lord. Keep trying to accept His blessings and do things His way. Keep testifying of the miracles He works in my life.

Wendy