The TRUTH About Motherhood

Search results for: “eating disorders”

Adam Richman Calls Woman C U Next Thursday & tells her to Kill Herself over #Thinspiration
Adam Richman best known for hosting the gluttonous show Man vs. Food on the Travel Channel, in which he traveled the country overeating as a hobby recently, used the hashtag #thinspiration to accompany an Instagram photo of himself showing the 60 pounds that he has lost. As someone who knows exactly what that hashtag means, it’s obvious to me that he made a mistake in his choice of hashtags, probably out of sheer ignorance but what followed was certainly intentional.
In case you are wondering, the hashtag #thinspiration is used in pro-ana and pro bulimic sites and groups to cheer one another along on their quest for thinness, essentially their journey to self destruction. So, using the hashtag #thinspiration as a non ED sufferer, you are essentially like a bystander watching someone about to jump off the roof and instead of calling the fire department, chanting, “JUMP!JUMP!JUMP!” The hashtag is offensive and when used callously, I can see where some people might get offended, especially those who suffer from eating disorders. I am 17 years in recovery, I can see both sides.
Critics of his use of the hashtag started immediately informing him of his mistake but I’m assuming he felt like it was a personal attack. I get it, he’s worked to lose all the weight he gained from binging on his show. Some people would consider that an eating disorder. But instead of apologizing for the faux pas, Adam Richman retaliated by calling several of the commenters “c*nts” and suggesting that they grab a razor and draw a bath adding that he doubted anyone would miss them and that is where a simple mistake became a deliberate act of assholery. That wouldn’t have been my first choice as a public figure to respond with but hey, what do I know?

He later apologized, I am sure at the urging of his publicist. It was really more of a “sorry, not sorry” apology and by that point, Adam Richman had already done the damage. Quite frankly, his comments after the fact have ruined him for me.

As someone with food issues, him misusing the hashtag #thinspiration would not have offended me to the point of nastily calling him out. I would have kindly educated him as to what it means and represents so that he would not accidentally use it again. But once he started throwing around slurs and telling people to kill themselves, I have to agree with the general consensus that he is, in fact, a little too obnoxious for my taste.
Maybe he and Paula Dean can start your own network for television celebrities who have verbal diarrhea and a knack for offending the public. They could even call it CUNTV. Look, I’ve always been a fan of Adam Richman and his witty banter on his shows but his reaction to this situation went too far.Some times you just have to accept that you stepped in it and apologize.He took a mistake and made it shit storm. They say there is no bad publicity but I think after this, Adam Richman would agree, there is.
What do you think of Adam Richman and his behavior?

2014/07/03
Mom Claims that she is TOO POOR to Be HEALTHY and I Call Bullshit
Yesterday, I stumbled across the above photo with the caption
“ I’m too poor to be healthy! “
“If I was well off, I’d be able to buy fresh food and afford a gym membership!”

It was something I saw and immediately found hard to digest. Don’t get me wrong, I KNOW that fresh food is expensive; obscenely so. We do live in a world where it is hard and expensive to be healthy because we live in a world where everything is supersized and instant gratification is expected at all times. People are busy and there is no time. No money. See, how I did that? There ARE a million excuses as to why our lives are not as we would like them to be. This caused quite a stir on my Facebook timeline.

As someone who had active eating disorders for 8 years and who is now overweight I can tell you a few things

1) Even if you have all the money in the world and all the fresh food and gym memberships, if you don’t use them they don’t work. Believe me, middle class suburbanites all over the world can attest to this. Am I right?

2) Even if you are the “ideal” weight that does not secure that your life will be “ideal”. That’s a myth. I know. I had the ideal weight and body size and I still “needed” to lose “just 5 more pounds”. If you don’t fix your perception of yourself, you can’t be happy because no matter what you look like, you will still be unhappy on the inside. Being skinny is not a magic happy solution.

3) You have to be accountable for and to yourself in order to change yourself. Blaming others for your situation is giving up. I firmly believe that where there is a will, there is always a way. You only have to be willing to look for it and work at it.

4) The real reason most people are overweight, myself included, is simple; lack of movement, an abundance of unhealthy choices and not knowing correct portion sizes (who could blame them. We live in a world of indulgence and excess.)

** Also, I am completely aware that there are people with health and medical issues that make losing weight even harder than normal or even impossible but most of us are fat, if we are honest with ourselves, because of life choices we make. I made the choice to starve myself for 8 years. My metabolism is shot dead but it’s not impossible. I just need to work harder at it than most but most days, I still choose to eat the pizza or drink the Latte because I want it. I sit on my ass all day at a desk working. This is why I am overweight. I can’t blame anyone or anything. No one shoved the food in my mouth. No one forced me to not prioritize working out. Only I can do that and it doesn’t cost anything to walk.

So, I did my research and I found the real story behind the salacious title ( we all know how online publications like to do that) unfortunately, she really is full of shit, as I originally thought. Here is the story from the Daily Mail UK..

An obese mother-of-two who lives on benefits says she needs more of taxpayers’ money to overhaul her unhealthy lifestyle.

Christina Briggs, 26, from Wigan, says she hates being 25 stone (350 pounds for you Americans) but she can’t do anything about it because she can only afford junk food. Meanwhile, exercise is out of the question because she doesn’t have the funds to join a gym.

The single mother told Closer Magazine: ‘It’s not easy being overweight and on benefits. If I was well off, I’d be able to buy fresh food and afford a gym membership.

‘I tried swimming but it cost £22 a month and it meant I had to cut back on my favourite pizza and Chinese takeaways.’
Unemployed Christina gets £20,000 in benefits a year and lives in a council house with her two children by different fathers, Helena, 10, and Robert, two.
She left school as a teenager after falling pregnant with her daughter following a one night stand.

The family feast everyday on takeaways, chocolate and crisps as Christina says they can’t afford low fat foods. As a result, the mother is currently a dress size 26.
She has been warned by her GP that her health is in danger because of her size – medical complications relating to obesity include heart disease and diabetes. Christina is desperate not to leave her two children without a mother and doesn’t want her size to take her to an early grave.
But she insists ‘it’s not my fault – healthy food is too expensive’.
She feels her only hope is for the government to give her more money so she can afford to buy fruit and vegetables and join a gym.
She also believes she should be paid to lose weight as that would give her the motivation to fight the flab.
She told the magazine:
‘I need more benefits to eat healthily and exercise. It would be good if the government offered a cash incentive for me to lose weight. I’d like to get £1 for every pound I lose, or healthy food vouchers.

‘If the price of healthy food was lowered that would help, too. I need help, but I need it from the government.’

She added that she can’t get a job to gain more money because she’s needed at home to care for her children, especially as her daughter has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and issues with her kidneys.

She explained:
‘There’s no way I could get a job. I don’t feel bad about the taxpayer funding my life and my child’s medical problems, because I don’t treat myself or buy anything excessive. I just get enough money to live on – the taxpayers should help fund my diet.’
There you have it, all in her own words. It’s Thursday and this entire situation needs a throat punch. She KNOWS that she needs to exercise and eat more healthy. She knows that much. BUT she is making excuses and blaming others. Does she need more nutrition education? Yes! Does the cost of healthy food need to be more affordable? Hell yes to all of that! But are all of her life problems because the government is not funding her weight loss program? HELL NO!
You can’t tell me with cabinets filled with junk and refusing to give up on her favorite Chinese take-out that her current weight situation is not entirely of her own doing. Choices my friends. Buy in season veggies and fruits. Shop sales. Walk. Move. Buy frozen or canned fruits and veggies, they beat a bag of chips any day.
Here are some links to help you eat healthy on a budget:
Real Food on a Food Stamp Budget
Eating Healthy on a Budget
Good and Cheap Eat well on $4 a day
Get Healthy on A budget
Ways to Stay Healthy on a Budget
Free Online Workouts
What do you think?
Is she too poor to be healthy?

2014/10/09
Food’s an Addiction, Sugar is a Drug and I was an Addict
I’ve never had a healthy relationship with food. It’s always been the one thing I’ve loved and I’ve hated. I love the taste of food. It comforted me when things were tough. It would console me. Then I would use it to punish myself; to find myself unworthy. I would withhold it from myself, like love from a misogynist. Yet, I never thought sugar is a drug and I never considered myself an addict. This is how I lived in this vicious cycle pursuing perfection that doesn’t exist. It was a controlling relationship wherein I was the victim and the abuser.
But then I had a revelation, food’s an addiction. Sugar is a drug and I was an addict.
Yes, food is a drug and I am an addict and it’s almost killed me twice. Anorexia in the ’90s and diabetes in 2019. I used to proudly proclaim, “I’d rather work out for 3 hours straight than give up my French fries!” I was also the same person who secretly high-fived myself when people started to tell me that I was getting “too skinny” and looked sickly. In my mind, I was winning. I was cheating the system and beating food. Really, I was killing myself.
READ ALSO: Bulimarexia the Consequence of Impossible Standards
Here we are, 20 years in recovery from starvation and purging. Nasty little fact, being an anorexic is like being an alcoholic, every day is choosing to not indulge in the bad behavior no matter how much you want to. I won’t lie, there have been slip-ups. I’ve had a big meal and thrown it up. I’ve skipped meals. I’ve worked out excessively. I’ve tried to cheat the system and lied to myself that it was, “Ok, just this once” knowing how slippery the road really was. But for the most part, for the past 20 years, I had to let go of the control.
The problem with me is that there is no in between. There is micromanage everything that goes in my mouth and purge, there is restrict and starve and there is eat all the things with wild abandoned and no worry of consequences.
READ ALSO: How a Simple Doctors Visit Might Save My Life
Let me create a picture, so you all don’t think I was shoving whole sleeves of cookies down my throat. When I say wild abandon, I mean I ate food in moderate amounts but without worrying, caring or writing down anything. I had to do this because the alternative behaviors sent me right back into obsessive, controlling behavior that caused my anorexia in the first place. Basically, I was out of control for two decades to avoid being dead. Or at least, that is what I made myself believe.
Now, here I am. Last month, I told you all about my come to Jesus meeting with my doctor. It was eye-opening, if not traumatic. She told me some hard facts. I feel like, for years, my doctors have been coddling me. I went from 103 pounds and inched up over the years and through the pregnancies to a whopping ( gulp..I’m about to say it out loud) 259.9 pounds at my heaviest. On the day my doctor gave me the bad news, I was 249.9 pounds. I’m 5’7”. I am morbidly obese. You know morbid means deadly, right?
I went home that day, cried my eyes out, stayed in bed for a couple of days, quite frankly, terrified of food. After all, it was literally killing me. But really, it wasn’t the food at all. It was me. I needed to take ownership of that. It was always me from anorexia through to diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
READ ALSO: A Day in the Life of a Girl with Eating Disorders
I took my 3 days to cry it out and feel sorry for myself and then I did what I always do, I put on my big girl panties and I figured it out. Not as easy as it sounds. I am still figuring it out.
Here’s where I began to break my food addiction.
I changed my thinking. I stopped thinking of it as a death sentence and began to think of it as a blessing. I was still alive. All I needed to do was change my behavior and learn how to eat.
I began to measure my food. You cannot imagine how off my portions were. Try it, you will be floored.
I began to count carbs. My doctor gave me grams per day; 45 per meal 3x a day, and 15 per snack 3x per day. The thing about counting carbs is first, carbs were not taken away. There is nothing that makes me want something more than making it forbidden.
I eliminated all pop and juice because they are nothing but sugar. Instead, I opted for fresh fruit and if I need a drink other than water or milk, I drink Bubly. Actually, I am obsessed with the cherry flavor.
I am learning to say no to things. I am learning that sometimes it is ok to say yes to a bite or a ½ of something you really want but always in moderation and always aware of the portion size and carb count. Through this process of cutting my carbs and portion control, I’m learning that I really don’t love some of the food that I thought I loved as much as I do.
Case in point, pizza. I can have one piece with a salad if I feel the need. However, wasting 27 carbs on one slice feels ridiculous and it just doesn’t taste the same to me anymore. Pizza, the food that I thought I couldn’t live without. I don’t even really like anymore. It tastes weird to me.
I’m eating real food. I’ve been focusing on lean meats, fresh vegetables, fruits and logging every single thing I put into my mouth. I’m not living on chicken broth or cabbage. This isn’t a diet. I also weigh myself every morning and check my blood pressure and my blood glucose every day. It feels a little bit like restricting and that terrifies me because I can’t slip back into those old behaviors but I can’t eat with wild abandon either because my life is at stake. For now, this is what is working for me.
So far, I’ve lost 20.5 pounds in 6 weeks. I’ve lost 17.5 inches since May 29^th ( that was the first time I measured but by then I had already lost about 10 lbs. so I’m sure I’ve lost more than that). My blood pressure is completely normal. No more headaches. My blood glucose is completely in the normal range. No more insomnia. I’ve had insomnia my entire life. Now, I shut my eyes and go to bed on most nights by 10 p.m. I feel better than I’ve felt in years.
Maybe food’s an addiction. Maybe sugar is a drug and I was an addict but I’m changing all that and you can too. Do you think you’re a carb or sugar addict? Does your health say otherwise?

2019/06/17
Maya Angelou Phenomenal Woman
I am having a hard time gathering my thoughts about the news that Maya Angelou has died. She was a great poet, writer and woman. My heart is completely broken at hearing she has died. She was a writer who inspired many of us with her words and what they meant. But she was one of my heroes of a handful of great women. I don’t have many heroes in this world but she was it. Through her words, she made me believe that I could do and be anything. She made the world a better place.
She was a renowned poet, historian and civil rights advocate. She changed the world and the ripples of her life well spent will be felt for ages. She wouldn’t allow herself any limitations because she knew possibilities are endless if we got out of our own way. So many of us stop ourselves from doing, being, getting what we want out of life out of fear of failure. Not her, she stood there and held her ground.
When I read, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, it spoke to me. I felt her pain. Our situations were different but I could relate to the shame, worthlessness and insecurity that she felt as a young girl. She became my hero when I read that book because I knew she was brave and strong and amazing.
Life is hard and not kind to all of us. Some children need someone to make them believe in themselves either by words of encouragement or words of inspiration, she inspired me to go after my dreams. Her words were soft and hard and truthful and honest and she could see right through life’s bullshit.
I read Phenomenal Woman when I was battling eating disorders and she made me feel beautiful at a moment in my life when I felt so ugly and undeserving.
She wasn’t afraid to face the impossible to become who she wanted to be. She shattered all the limits. She reached millions with her words. She touched hearts and broadened minds and now she is gone and all of her words that I have read since childhood are flooding my mind all at once.
I want to sob because it feels like I lost a wise grandmother who had all the answers to the secrets of the universe. It’s an unexpected and overwhelming sense of loss. She may no longer be with us on this earth but the world was a better place for having her in it for 86 years and I , for one, will keep her spirit alive by sharing her words with my daughters.
Some of my favorite Maya quotes

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”

“We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”

“You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.”

“One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”

“Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.”

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”

“Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.”

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”

“The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.”
“I want to thank you, Lord, for the life and all that’s in it,
Thank you for the day and for the hour, and the minute. “

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.
“If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.”
~Maya Angelou
You will be missed in this world but your words will live on in our hearts forever. There will never be another Maya Angelou. They broke the mold with her. Rest in eternal peace, my hero.
Maya Angelou April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014

2014/05/28
Coming Out of the Closet & Having a Hard Conversation
I watched this TedX video of Ash Beckham and she reminded me that hard is hard and we truly all do have our closets that we live in. Me, I’ve had a few. Unfortunately, they shroud you in shame but better the devil you know, right? Rejection is the worst and no one wants rejection. Most of us would prefer to not try at all than to try and fail and that is why we live in closets. Closets are not just about being gay; closets are about being afraid to tell your truth. It doesn’t matter how big or small or what color you paint it, a closet is a closet is a closet. No one should be afraid to tell his or her truth because your truth is what makes you who you are.
In my lifetime, I have had many closets. Thankfully, with the birth of my blog, I started busting out of all of my closets. It was one of the scariest things I ever have done; telling the whole world all of my faults. Most of the time when I hit publish, I feel sick to my stomach and I think that is a good thing. How can I be honest with you, if I can’t even be honest with myself? Now, I wish everyone had a blog to help them bust out of their closets. Hard conversations: mental illness, child abuse, obesity, eating disorders, alcoholism, miscarriage and not being the kind of mom I want to be to my children. I used to hide them deep inside me, because who wants everyone to look at them like they’re a freak? It’s one thing to be crazy, it’s quite another to announce it to the world.
When you spend your whole life pretending to fit in but feeling like you are an imposter in the house of life, you might be living in a closet. Have the conversation and like we’ve all heard, those who matter won’t care. Well, that’s a lie, they might, but they will get over it because they love you. Those who have a problem with you being your authentic self? Well, who the fuck wants them in your life anyways? Not me.
You know. I spent all of my life, up until I met my husband, pretending to be what everyone wanted of me. Good girl, good grades, friendly, attractive, fun-loving and life of the party but inside, inside my closet, I was a hot mess and it was like juggling jello trying to keep myself in the closet while the version I thought everyone wanted to know came out every day all day. I cried a lot. My poor husband, he had no idea what he got himself into.
When you hide in that closet for so long, you become a master of convincing, even yourself, that the performance you give every day is the real you but at night, when you are all alone with nothing but your thoughts, you feel like a fraud and that is one of the worst feelings you can have. You feel like a liar. Turns out, once I came out of my closets and had those hard conversations, I was free to be me and guess what? Anyone who has read this blog and then met me will tell you, I am the same online as I am in person only slightly less in your face. Turns out with the freedom of being out of my closet and living out loud and proud, I am the person that I pretended to be only I don’t need to cry at night because I’m not living in that damn cramped, dark closet hiding like a scared child anymore and it is liberating.
So, watch Ash Beckman’s video and come out of your closet. I promise you’ll be so much happier out in the open. Sure, you might feel nauseous right before you have the hard conversation but that’s because it’s important. Do it anyways. Teach your children to be honest with themselves and the people who love them. A closet is no place for a human to live.
What’s your closet?
2013/11/12
#BlogHer13 Bound or Bust!
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]
This is what I look like now.
I am FINALLY going to make it to a BLOGHER! I am pretty excited. This is my third try but every stinking year, something has come up. A move, job transfer, one of a million things always seems to be cock blocking my plans to get to BlogHer. I’ve been blogging for 4 years and it’s just time. I’ve earned the privilege of meeting my friends, leaving my girls to have some Daddy/daughter time together, spending some time to grow my career and learning how to take this whole thing to the next level. Seriously, the blog and I are about to go straight up steady. We’ve been shacking up for 4 years so it’s time to make an honest blog of it. (more…)
2013/07/22
Tips,Tricks & People that Every Blogger Should Know
It’s Friday and I have been meeting a lot of new up and coming bloggers and it got me to thinking, I really wish someone would have written me a how to guide when I first started. Not on just the mechanics of how to blog but who to know and who to follow and who’s fun and what not; where to find good paid opportunities and places to write for and how to pitch. I had NO idea how to pitch a piece. (more…)
2013/04/12
Throat Punch Thursday ~ The Answer to Obesity is Fat Shaming Edition
Well, if you think the world is going to hell in a hand basket because of the obesity epidemic, you don’t know about fat shaming. There is a new method to the madness, scientifically backed, fat shaming! WooHoo because what more does a fat girl need than a little fire set under her big arse to motivate her to lose the weight.
What a crock of bullshit. I have been a skinny girl and I have been a fat girl and fat shaming does not help. The only purpose it serves is to shame the overweight person and make them feel bad about themselves.
Is Fat Shaming the Answer to Obesity?
A prominent bioethicist, Daniel Callahan, is proposing a new push for what he says is an “edgier strategy” to promote weight loss: ginning up social stigma. Edgier? Is that bioethicist code for douchier? Because that is what I am hearing.
Daniel Callahan, a senior research scholar and president emeritus of The Hastings Center, put out a new paper this week calling for a renewed emphasis on social pressure against heavy people — what some may call fat-shaming — including public posters that would pose questions like this:
“If you are overweight or obese, are you pleased with the way that you look?”
Sure because I’ve never met anyone who was overweight and who was happy about it. There are people who learn to be comfortable in their own skin, which is awesome, but I don’t know too many people who set out to be obese, well, with the exception of that crazy woman who wanted to be the fattest lady in the world and end up dying of heart attack.
Callahan outlined a strategy that applauds efforts to boost education, promote public health awareness of obesity and curb marketing of unhealthy foods to children. This I can get behind.
But, he added, those plans could do with a dose of shame if there’s any hope of repairing a nation where more than a third of adults and 17 percent of kids are obese.
This is where I think he loses his mind. Does he expect us to shame kids? Because there is no way anybody in their right mind could believe that shaming a child can cure obesity. It can cause body issues, it can cause eating disorders, it can even cause suicide but it will not make a kid want to lose weight and it will probably cause a mama to want to beat the asshole who makes her baby cry. I know if anyone ever made my kid feel bad about themselves, they would have me to deal with and it wouldn’t be pleasant.
This guy may be smart when it comes to bioethics but he doesn’t know squat about helping obese people and children losing weight. Ever heard of a bed side manner? He gets a throat punch with a side of roundhouse kick to the head for being an incredibly insensitive douche canoe.
Forget Fat Shaming, Let’s Practice Moron Shaming
2013/01/24
What to Do When Your Tween Gets Bullied
Now that my daughter is getting older, I have found myself faced with the question of what to do when my tween gets bullied. It’s not like when they were toddlers. My daughters seem to be magnets for bullies. Despite being nice kids who are friendly with almost everyone (according to their teachers), they always seem to be the target of bullies. Now, I know we live in a world where parents like to overuse the term “bullying.” I don’t think I do but when you go single white female on my child and then harass her relentlessly when she just isn’t that into you, I think that constitutes being a bully, bordering on harassment and just a scoatch out of the stalker realm. Any way you slice it, you’re not being nice and I just don’t trust the situation.
My girls have had a bully almost every other year since preschool. I’ve taught my girls not to take it personally and to ignore these people. This is for my kid than the bully. I don’t want my daughters obsessing over what someone else thinks of them. Honestly, it’s irrelevant. I also don’t want my kid being teased, hurt and harassed because another kid doesn’t like something about them. Can’t we all just get along and move along.
I live in a reality based world. I don’t expect everyone to like everyone else. Sometimes it’s nothing more than non-compatible personalities. Hey, we’ve all known someone who we just don’t like based on fundamental personality differences and that’s okay. I don’t even want my girls to want or try to be liked by everyone because that just sets them up for a life of people pleasing and, pardon my French but, f*ck that.
This is how bullying usually goes. My kid starts acting weird. I ask them what’s going on. They don’t want to tell because they don’t want to tattle and they feel embarrassed that someone is picking on them, making fun of them or harassing them. I ask a few more times and finally, they end up breaking down and telling me.
I tell them to rise above it, ignore it and it’s not about them, it’s the fault of the bully. Bullies have low self-esteem and it manifests by them being mean to others to make themselves feel better. It’s a weak person’s way of leveling the playing field. Instead of rising to the occasion, bullies prefer to pull you down to their level. I also tell my children to tell me and they’ve done nothing wrong. Then, I handle it with the powers that be.
You see, in a world where kids plant bombs and go on shooting sprees, in a post-Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan world, I don’t believe in a “kids will be kids” do nothing parenting. I in no way fight my children’s battles but I also do not stand by and let my child feel like they are alone in the situation. I have no problem contact the school or wherever and keeping them abreast of the situation. Which brings us to this past weekend.
For a couple months, my daughter has been telling me that a girl at ballet doesn’t like her. Up until now, it’s been what I’ve perceived as a non-compatible personality situation. Petty things like bringing all the girls in class a piece of candy and purposely excluding just my daughter. Granted, it’s a shitty thing to do but it’s not “bullying” it’s just being a punk kid. I told my kid to ignore it and I bought her a bag of suckers and on the day she took them into ballet, I made sure she had enough for everyone. I thought let’s kill it with kindness. I’ve always taught my girls that you can’t control others reactions but you can control your own actions so put good into the world and if someone doesn’t return it then that is on them, not you. You do good, that’s all that you can do. Well, that didn’t help the situation at all.
Then, this particular little girl decided to try to befriend my daughter’s core group of friends. One-by-one she starting talking to them and trying to ingratiate herself into their lives by plying them with sweets and trinkets but her fatal flaw, as soon as they would talk to her, she would say something mean about my daughter and reveal herself to be the mean-spirited person she really was. Two of the girls were friendly to her in the way you are friendly to colleagues, which is essentially what they all are but she wanted more.
Still, she was calling my daughter prissy, annoying and saying that she talks too much. I mean, she is my daughter so she probably does talk a lot and prissy and annoying, well, that’s just that damn personality thing I was referring to. However, then it began to get weirder. Her tactic of befriending was more of collecting friends to exclude my daughter. It was more about alienating my daughter than having friends.
These girls are all tweens ages 11 and 12-years-old. My daughter has a group of four “best friends” who talk every day and have sleepovers and genuinely care about one another, more than just like a colleague more like sisters. They are protective of one another but they are a good group of girls. They are not mean. They actually try to be very diplomatic, as much as you can be at that age.
So, a couple weeks ago, the bully decided that if I can’t steal the friends and exclude Bella (my daughter) they will all suffer my wrath. First, she started calling one of the little girls “fat” to the three other girls. I told my daughter that they should shut it down and tell the bully it wasn’t okay but not tell the girl who she was calling fat because it would only hurt her feeling and make her feel embarrassed. Let’s be honest, as a tween girl, being called fat can have some serious ramifications, especially if you’re a ballerina. 12-years-old is when my eating disorders were first triggered. Then, she told another one of the girls that my daughter was fat, which by the way she is not even close to being. This girl just knows that calling any girl fat, no matter her size especially in their industry, is a trigger.
She is not saying any of this to the actual girls she is talking about but rather telling one of the other girls in the group. It’s like she enjoys not only talking shit about one girl but torturing the other girls by putting them in this awkward position. All the while, she is trying to befriend each of the other girls, except for my friend. She eventually goes through the entire group calling them all names like fat, can’t dance, blackhearts, prissy, annoying, clumsy, untalented and talks too much. It’s all very superficial but it really hurts these girls’ feelings and in the end, it’s not about whether I think it is serious or not, it’s about how it’s making the girls feel and they feel terrible. It’s about the effect it has on the bullied child. Then the notes began.
Apparently, the girls sticking together only angered the bully and she decided to attack them in letters. It started two weeks ago. She stuck a note in my daughter’s ballet bag that read, “I don’t like talking to annoying, prissy people. Sorry, not my type.” And she signed her name. My daughter didn’t even tell me. She crumpled it up and threw it into her bag. I guess my rise above it mantra is sticking.
Not getting the reaction she wanted from my daughter, she went on to one of her friends and wrote her a creepy single white female letter. Basically saying, your other three friends are shit and they called you shit when you weren’t here. Then she went on to say, let’s have a sleepover and exclude those girls. You need to become best friends with me, etcetera, etcetera. It was a very weird note but that’s the gist of it. Instead of taking the bait, the girl who was given the note shared the note with the other girls at a sleepover they had on Friday.
Instead of being mean back to her, the girls googled how to write a form letter and then must have ended up on some manager training site because they wrote a letter with the formula “for every bad thing you tell her to say something nice and always use empathy.” They brought me a copy of both letters because, as my husband says, the kids all know that you’re the mom who gets shit taken care of.
Super long story slightly shorter, I spoke with the principal and the director at the ballet on Saturday morning. They took it very seriously because the 4 girls also brought the original f the note the bully write and their reply for proof. You’d think they were going to court. I was assured by the ballet that it would be handled.
The girls as a whole at ballet were given a warning about behavior and etiquette and how this sort of petty behavior and bullying would not be tolerated. They were reminded that they are a company and are supposed to be tolerant and supportive of one another. However, the bully has an older sister who is friends with my daughter and her group of friends. She told her mom what her little sister had been up to and the mom handled her daughter, the bully. Did I mention this all happened on a performance day?
We all went home and thought it was handled. Until Sunday when one of the little girls was cleaning out her ballet bag and found a second note basically threatening my daughter and her group for getting her into trouble. She called them idiots and jerks and said she would get revenge at ballet and to have great lives in hell. Concluding with, I hate you. She wrote this note after she had been reprimanded by the ballet and her mother. So basically in the face of punishment she was angry enough to say to hell with the consequences.
I am dumbfounded. This has been going on, on and off, since last spring but has been slowly escalating. It’s to the point now, especially after the last note, that I don’t feel terribly comfortable with my child being around this child. I feel it’s getting to Tonya Harding levels of desperation.
What would you do if your tween gets bullied?

2016/10/17
How Ordering Lilly Pulitzer Changed my Life
I scored some Lilly Pulitzer yesterday. You know how they say happiness comes from within? Well, I never really understood that statement until this weekend. For the first time, in a long time, I felt confident. I love the bold and beautiful Lilly Pulitzer prints and I went for it. How could that happiness not belong in my wardrobe?
Don’t worry; I didn’t come to fisticuffs with any other moms at my local Target because there is nothing worth fighting that hard over except for my dreams and my children’s lives. I got mine online by stalking my prey and waiting patiently. I simply decided that if it were meant to be, I’d get it. If not, I wouldn’t. It’s that simple. I’ve been embracing this more relaxed attitude lately. If you know me, you know I’m usually the much more uptight type. I’m a known helicopter mom and control freak; a heart attack waiting to happen, if you will.
I woke up last Friday morning and went to my Weight Watchers meeting, because you all know how much I love to get weighed by a stranger. Not my favorite thing to do but a necessary evil if I want to change my fat girl walking status.. It’s been a month since I started attending meetings again. I have lost a grand total (drumroll, please) of 9 pounds and 18.5 inches. I don’t really see a difference but I certainly feel a difference. Clothes are starting to get a little loose and mentally, I am feeling a lot better about me.
After my meeting, I decided to bite the bullet and go get measured for my bridesmaid dress for my sister’s wedding. If you have ever been over weight, you know that I had been dreading this for months (the fitting not the dress). I put it off for as long as I could but I just couldn’t keep stressing my sister out. It’s one thing when my weight keeps me from doing stuff that I want to do but I refuse to let it impede in anyone I love’s life. This is why I still put on my bathing suit to hit the pool even though wearing bathing suits in public is the worst.
I went by myself to the bridal shop so that I didn’t take out my frustrations on my husband or the girls. To my surprise, for the first time in probably 20 years, I realized that I felt sexy in something and not fat. I had forgotten what feeling “sexy” even felt like. But I can tell you today that nothing sets your soul on fire like feeling better than good in your own skin.
The thing is usually getting weighed, getting fitted for a bridesmaid dress and ordering clothes are all things that stress me out because they all make me painfully aware of how heavy I am but something switched in me that morning and I’ve been in this intoxicatingly high mood since. I’m happy.
I spent the entire weekend waiting for the feeling to dissipate but I just kept feeling better and better in my own skin. What I’m sure is my standard resting bitch face has been replaced with resting big dumb grin and I can’t do a thing about it. This is weird for me.
See the last time I felt “sexy” in my own skin was when I was smack dab in the middle of eating disorders. Back then, my sexy meter was skewed and it was more of a control high. I felt sexy because I was satisfying some weird need to punish myself and when I stayed within the parameters of what I’d set for myself, I rewarded myself by giving myself permission to feel attractive but it was nothing compared to this natural state of happiness that I am experiencing right now. I do realize that this all sounds weird.
Anyways, as I was sitting at my laptop, checking the size chart for the Lilly Pulitzer and realizing that I did not need plus size anything, it hit me that I could not feel my stomach on my lap. God, I’m embarrassed to even type those words but it’s a big deal. The whole stomach thing, and believe me if you have this situation going on you totally understand, has been making me feel so depressed. It was the physical representation of the beginning of the end for me. Every time I sat down, I was reminded of just how fat and out of shape I was.
After I cleared the tears from my eyes because my “FUPA” is slowly vanishing, I ordered myself the regular sized XL jumpsuit from Lilly Pulitzer and I can’t wait to wear it. I’m sick of letting my weight dictate what I can and can’t do. I want to hold on to this strange and unfamiliar feeling of being comfortable in my own skin. I don’t want it to end.
I know 9 pounds is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, ordering an XL rather than 1X is not a big deal and not feeling my stomach in my lap are all very subtle changes but they add up. They add up to changing my life in a very positive way and that is huge.
What little changes do you want to make to your life to make you happier?
Show of hands, who else will be rocking the Lilly Pulitzer this season?

P.S. My first byline at LatinaMom.me is live and I would love if you would check out my article Why I Shaved my 7-Year-Old’s Arms.
2015/04/20