u/Lilit-h

TL;DR:
My emotionally immature parents constantly mocked fat people, gay people, Black people, disabled people. I KNOW they’re awful people, and I hate that I grew up around that kind of intolerance. I’m ashamed of them.
But now I’m an adult, and in their eyes I’m “obese” (UK size 16 in reality), and I can’t love myself because of the comments and mockery I grew up with. But today, I need all the confidence I can get.
How did you get past it?

TW : dysmorphia, depression, golden child, self hatred, fat-shaming

Hey, I need to talk.
Partly to myself, and partly in the hope of reaching people like me, to hear where they are now, whether they managed to finally love themselves.

I’m F36, turning 37 soon. After a second burnout, I decided to become an entrepreneur and launch my own business (design consulting and audit services for companies).
I’m currently following a program to structure everything, and honestly, it’s going really well.

For context: I’ve been in therapy for almost 10 years now (time flies), mainly because I grew up with the classic boomer parent combo: narcissistic mother, absent working father, both emotionally immature. I also have a younger brother: textbook golden child (and of course he’s a boy, so he’s automatically amazing, that's the rule), also narcissistic and manipulative toward my parents.

I’ve distanced myself from them (low contact). I’m trying, more or less, to maintain a superficial relationship, but the grieving process is ongoing.

I hate myself. I always have. I genuinely despise myself. And I grew up in an environment where my father (my absent, hardworking hero) constantly mocked fat people, Black people, Muslims, loud confident women who dared to exist, disabled people, gay people. Fun fact, I'm bi. Of course I didn't came out.

Honestly, if he had been force to work with a strong fat Black lesbian, I think he would’ve imploded on the spot (and she would have been my hero instead :D).

As a teenager, I started gaining weight. Looking back at pictures now, I was completely within normal beauty standards, but in France in the 2000s/2010s, that was already considered “chubby.”
I was a shy child, and I kept shrinking myself more and more. “Not taking up space” was considered a quality by my mother, especially since my brother already occupied so much of her time and mental space.

I sank into an overwhelming depression. I felt like I couldn’t breathe at home. I had no safe space. I finally got my own bedroom at 14, but I wasn’t allowed to close my bedroom door, or even the bathroom door (“in case someone else needed it”, for context, we had two bathrooms). I started showering at odd hours just so I could lock the door and not be a nuisance to others. Of course, even then, I still somehow was (“the sound of the water bothers us while we’re reading before sleep”).

At the same time, I watched helplessly as my brother rose to power in the family dynamic: manipulating my parents constantly, talking to them like dogs (and they hate dogs, so imagine), making my mother cry from exhaustion, playing with her nerves.
The few times I intervened when he crossed already ridiculous boundaries, my mother turned around and screamed at me to “mind my own business.”

And I kept getting worse.

Twice, I tried talking to my mother. I told her, “I don’t think I’m doing very well… I kind of want to die.” She ignored me. Twice. I even repeated and rephrased it because I thought she hadn’t heard me. She had.
Today, when I bring it up, she “doesn’t remember.” She remembers nothing, actually, and besides, “that probably never happened anyway.” Cool.

I finished high school and looked for universities in another city. I knew I needed distance from them in order to exist for myself.

Every educational choice I made was unacceptable to them. My father didn’t speak to me for 6 months when I told him I didn’t want to study science, and later gave me another 4 months of silence when I told him I wanted to study design (which is actually what I do today: a mix of design and brand consulting for companies).

Eventually, they “let me leave.” I met my first real boyfriend, stayed with him for 5 years, and he seemed to love me. I needed that love so desperately.
Long story short: he was an absolute asshole, a narcissistic abuser, and he finished destroying what little self-esteem I had left.

I had already started developing eating disorders before that, but things got much worse afterward. I ate my emotions because I needed comfort so badly. I gained 20 kg in one year.
You can imagine my parents’ reaction when they saw me again — for them, appearance is EVERYTHING.

I developed body dysmorphia at an Olympic level. I completely dissociated from my body. In my head, I’m either “a little chubby” or “completely obese.” Reality is somewhere in between: technically overweight according to BMI, UK size 16.
Every time I see a photo of myself, it’s torture. It feels like discovering myself all over again. Family gatherings are torture too (my aunts and uncles are basically like my parents when it comes to fat people).

Since then, I met a wonderful man — empathetic, kind, someone who went through similar things himself. We’ve been together for 10 years.

And even with him, this body dysmorphia is still ruining my life.

Back to my introduction: I’m currently building my own business. I hired a professional photographer because I need photos to market my services (if you don’t show yourself online, people think it’s suspicious). Today I received the pictures.

I HATE MYSELF.

Not only do I apparently weigh 25 kg more than I do “in my head,” but I also somehow aged 12 years.

Because apparently my denial had decided I wasn’t aging either.
Spoiler alert: I am.

It was already incredibly hard for me to take the leap into self-employment. It was such a huge step outside my comfort zone. I was proud of myself. The child version of me would honestly have been impressed.
But how am I supposed to confidently sell expertise when I still have my father’s voice screaming in my head that fat people are lazy, incompetent, pathetic, ridiculous?

How do you detach yourself from that voice?

Please, how do you silence your parents’ voices once you’re an adult?