How I lost 100 pounds by disobeying narcissist parents and taking care of myself.

Hi folks. I'm getting this blog back to it's original intent of sharing how I lost 100 pounds without diet drugs or weight loss surgery.  I took a few years to process my childhood trauma from abuse by four narcissist parents. And I'm finding the two subjects are not mutually exclusive. Today, I'm exploring how I lost 100 pounds and kept it off by disobeying my narcissist parents and taking care of myself instead of them. The photo is me in 1975 after a particularly nasty experience being sexually assaulted and receiving no help nor support from my mother with it. My dad was never much interested in me apart from how useful I was. 

I was as near as I'd ever come (and I was close many times), to ending it. I was clinically depressed before I knew there was a word for it. I wouldn't wash and wore the least attractive clothes I could. I wanted to make myself ugly so I'd never have to experience that again. Sadly it happened just about the time I started my first period. I got little help with that either. That I was smiling a little was only because my friend's sister took the picture. But you can see  how awkward I felt. And not just your average adolescent awkward. Shame. Disgust. Loneliness. So much self-loathing for one person. Why did no one see and try to help me? Well, that's life with a narcissist parents. They don't care about your pain unless they can weaponize it to shame you or exploit it for their purposes. It made me not just unable but unwilling to care for myself. Which led to weight problems veering from anorexic, self-harm and trauma weight gain. If I could expand this photo, you could see scars from the bite marks I'd self-inflicted then covered up. 

We know that narcissist parents are dichotomy of opposites: oversensitive and insensitive, entitled while depriving their kids, selfish while shaming others for prioritizing themselves over the narcissist, exploitative and punitive towards others. Endless excuse making for their behavior and vindictive towards innocent children. Demanding special exception while merciless to their child. Whining to and dumping their self-created problems on the child (who is already suffering the consequences of parents' poor choices then coldly turning a deaf ear to the child's struggles or stabbing her in the back taking everyone else's part over their child. 

Narcissist parents love to tell their kids off, in smug, shaming humiliating ways but do not like anything questioning them. And they are endlessly, exhaustingly demanding of care while being unsupportive, uncaring and neglectful of those they're supposed to care for. It's all about them and shame on you if you don't uphold that narc fantasy. Everyone owes them everything, especially their children while they owe no one anything. They DARVO (deny reality, attack, reverse victim offender) and then flip back to offender when the coast is clear.  

Growing up with these malignant double standards, debilitated me. It thwarted my healthy development of self-care skills. As I've said before, I learned that letting everyone walk all over me was what was expected of me. (An insanely dangerous thing to teach a vulnerable child and which makes her a walking sitting target for abuse). Standing up for myself was arrogant. Speaking up for myself was "disobedience." Defending myself was called cowardly and irresponsible. 

If they attacked and they did all the time, I was supposed to know that I caused it. That I "had it coming." That I "brought it on myself. Without being told how or what I did. I was never told why I was being punished. There never was any lesson to be learned expect to just keep jumping through moving  hoops, humoring them and hoping to get it right. So now, I always believe and trauma dream, that someone is angry with me but won't say why and that I've always done something wrong. But I never find out what it is. And I always believe that I've failed if someone says so, no matter how wrong or agenda-based it is. Interesting but not ironically, Youtube psychologist Patrick Teahan just discussed that very experience on his channel. Not ironic because these are universal experiences for traumatized kids. It's just that now, we're beginning to talk about it. 

So back to how I lost 100 pounds. But first how I gained so much weight. Self-care is something I know nothing about. I know people pleasing and that's it. And this has led me to some very unhealthy habits that oddly have nothing much to do with food or body weight and everything to do with deadly low self esteem and concomitant self-destructive behavior. I cut  myself short on everything. Austerity was my middle name. And that is because I thought because I was told that I didn't deserve what other kiddies got (the OG Secondhand Rose). Love, nurturing, support, encouragement, wants and needs met, was for others but not for me. 

Well, now I'm taking back what was taken. Heaven help me, I've not a clue how to do that or where to start. I don't even feel convinced that I'm right to do it. Old gaslighting casts long memory shadows. I'm constantly having to talk back to memories of my mom, dad and their spouses' dripped poison in my head. It will probably never feel comfortable but I think if I fake it till I make it, I just might. 

I have to disobey my narcissist parents' voices shaming me self-care is selfish. I have to unlearn the toxic lessons they taught me. I have to listen to that still, small voice of wisdom inside me instead of their hateful harmful words. So part of how I lost 100 pounds was to lose the burdens they wrongly put on me. To go my own way and try to find some light.