The Blame Game...

It turns out I'm a blamer.

It's a bit of a shock really, as I thought that I pretty much had my baggage handled.  Apart from the whole emotional eating thing...





Michelle said that blamers and victims often go hand in hand.  But you know what?  I don't think they do.  I think they are one and the same.

Victims say things like, and I've covered this in a previous post  'Why does this stuff always happen to me? or Ohhh my childhood was so bad... or we were so poor I never had the opportunity to go to Uni...'

Blamers say things like 'it's not my fault I'm so fat/ I had a terrible childhood/ I was picked on at school/ my parents didn't buy me a car so how am I supposed to get around?'

Neither of them want to take the responsibility for their own lives, their own mistakes. or their own choices - or lack thereof.  It's easy just to sit back and apportion fault elsewhere.

How many times have we seen a news report about a grown man or woman, who having committed a crime, says something like "It's not my fault, I was abused as a child."  "It's not my fault, I was stoned at the time."  "It's not my fault, I was drunk." "It's not my fault..."

How many times have we rolled our eyes and said FFS, you're an adult now, it's time to take responsibility for yourself!  I know I do.  Every.  Single.  Time.

It's something I have a very low tolerance for.  It's terrible when bad things happen to people, especially kids, but at some point you have to grow up and say I'm not going to let that define me, I'm going to be better than that.

The thing is, I don't think I ever thought of myself as a victim or a blamer.  I thought of myself as one who had survived my crappy life events, and got on with my life.  Because what was the point of wallowing in self pity?  I grieved, and still do for some of it, but life goes on, and nothing that I can say or do can change what has happened.  I can only learn from it, grow from it, and move forward.

Or so I thought.

When I began to really think about why I'm so fat, I came to the conclusion that I became this way for a couple of reasons.

This I have known for a long time.  It's for protection, the fat is a kind of barrier - at the same time, emotional & physical, between me and the world that I can retreat behind.  It's also a way for me to be the type of person that I want to be - which is completely different from how I was when I was slim.  I know that's cryptic, but my head has been equating the slim me of the past with undesirable behaviour, therefore fat must equal good... right?

The second is even stranger, and only newly discovered.  In my first ever post I told of my Mum's penchant for putting me on diets, and telling me that I was fat etc and how she didn't give me any support or encouragement to lose weight, in fact it was the opposite!  I became a self fulfilling prophecy.  She called me fat - so I became fat.

When I achieved the status of Grossly Overweight or Morbidly Obese, I also developed a thin skin toward criticism from my nearest and dearest.  Meaning Mum.  Just about anyone could say anything to me about my size and I could shrug it off, but if I even thought that Mum had said something, or even implied something, then I'd do my block!  Because from where I sat, she was always on my back about it, always nasty about it, never supportive, never just ignored it.  To me it meant that I never measured up, that I wasn't good enough, that I embarrassed her.

That upset me.

When I'm upset, I eat.  When I'm upset, angry, sad, happy, bored, content, worried, hungry, not hungry... breathing...

I eat, I get fat.

 **insert Shane Warne 'my mum gave me the pill' moment here**


It's her fault.  I blame her.

Oh My God!  I'm fat because Mum upset me!!  It's all her fault!!

I'm 48 years old and blaming my mother for making me fat.  How bloody pathetic is that.

The only that she had really done 'wrong', is to not react to me in the manner that I  think she should.  And that is my  problem, not  hers.

I shouldn't be blaming her for my perception of her intention.

I realise now that what I wanted  was a 'storybook' mum, a 'movie' mum, but what I have,  is a real life flesh and blood model.  One that worries about her remaining child, that feels pain and frustration, one that is perhaps, more than a little bewildered at what she's supposed to have done wrong... this time!

I have a Mum that can see with utter clarity  the path that child has chosen for herself, and who is afraid for her.

I have a Mum who happens to be a little short in the tact department  - she very graciously held the door for everyone else the day the tact was being handed out, which is what accounts for me thinking she isn't being supportive or helpful.  I suppose she is, in her way.  It just seems to come out wrong.  Or am I just taking it wrong?  Or is it a little bit of both perhaps...

I have  a Mum.

It's time I stop blaming her for things she hasn't done,

and remember to cherish her while I am lucky enough to still have her.