I watched.
My mother was the woman who taught me how to deny myself and my feelings.
My father was the man who taught me how to binge.
Anorexia is a problem of not eating. Primarily, denying oneself of food. I have been denying myself my food and my feelings for so long, I do not even notice it. A lot of times, when I am sad or angry, I try to block my feelings.
They don’t exist, they don’t exist, they don’t exist.
For me:
Feelings = Hunger
And Feelings = Body
So when I am upset, I pretend I do not have a body, I do not have feelings, I am not hungry.
They are all bunched up. Feelings, hunger, body.
I have this built-in belief that if I am way above my feelings, I am superb. I am fine. My mother will approve of me. It is the right thing to do.
When I am not conscious, that is my autopilot.
But nobody can deny her feelings for so long. So I observed how my other parent dealt with is feelings.
I watched.
My father taught me how to do things in an all-or-nothing fashion. Otherwise called as “Binge”. Unlike my mother, he never denied his feelings. He rushed into them, indulged them, full-on. My father would unleash his anger and his unhappiness with wild abandon. Who cares if someone’s feeling get hurt? My father would also eat and eat even if he is so very full.
In fact, there is a family joke that goes my father killed himself with liempo, rice and coke. That was his last meal before going into diabetic shock. When he died, Father had diabetes (he self-medicated) and hypertension (he self-medicated this too). Less than twenty-four hours after being admitted to Intensive Care Unit for a stroke and he was dead. At least he had a great meal before he died.
As a young child, I watched these two folks, the two people I loved above all other people in my life. Binge daddy, cold mommy. Mother instructed me to keep my voice down, keep my feelings down, give my father space. Do not stoke his anger. We all are afraid of my father’s draconic anger.
But there was a flip side to my father’s rage, and that flip side was manic happiness. My father binged not only with negative emotions but with positive ones. He would be all quiet and sad for days, then he would explode because of something trivial. He would shout with the slightest provocation, insult all of us, and then the next moment, he would be all right. More than alright, actually. In a happy mood, I would run to him to get hugs. He would squeeze me tight, and I would feel so much loved. He would indulge my little desires, we’d go on a shopping spree, then he would buy a truckload of food and expect me to finish. This see-sawing of moods drove me nuts. Especially when I was young.
Let me put it this way. My father’s instability made me crave for a safe, quiet, stable place. Where I know the parameters, the rules. Where I can predict what would happen next and when. I found that space inside my brain. If I cannot control my dad, at least I can control what I eat. He can push me around, but he can never make me eat. I will not be manipulated.
My mother’s insistence on discipline ─ pushing things inside and denying they exist ─ encouraged me to get a grip. Young children, such as I at that time, cannot differentiate between body needs and emotional needs. So I decided to shelve my hunger and my emotions inside me. I got confused. Was I hungry? Or upset? No matter, I had to get a grip.
So I did.
Many people describe my father as charismatic. (This is his public self, his image in the outside world.) He was also seen as a moody, tempestuous man.
My mother, she was always away. At work. Not available. “Talk to your dad, grandma, yaya.” “I’m busy I have no time for you, you can manage by yourself. Find a friend. Make more friends, stop being a loner.” End of interaction.
When I was young, people say I was imaginative. Aloof, socially off. But I had intense feelings I did not dare express. Because I loved my mother and I did not want to displease her.
I remember how my father would keep on working without taking take a break. He would point out that he has been hungry but he wouldn’t eat. “Poor me, I am so hungry, but I do not have time to eat.” “Poor me, nobody loves me enough to feed me.” “See what hardship I have to go through just to make ends meet!” “I always sacrifice for you.” These are things my father keep on saying, he recited them until the last day of his life.
He would picture himself as a martyr, and it was because of me, my siblings and my mother that he was suffering. He glorified his sacrifices, called them “duty” and invoked us to follow suit.
I guess I was not that strong, or noble. Neither were any of my siblings. Every single one of us rebelled against our father. My mother distanced herself from him by working outside the home. Nobody could stand being berated by him for so long.
When my father died, what went on my head was “Hahaha! At last. I win! I am still alive and you are wormfood.”
How can I hate my own father? How can I admit he failed me?
He was supposed to be my hero, my ally. He was supposed to be the good guy.
And worse. Now that he is dead, deep inside I am happy that I am free.
At last. I can live my life now. The life I really wanted. Without fear that he will criticize or reject me.
But I can’t really say this, it is censored. Forbidden.
My drama with my mother is not yet over because she is still alive.
(NO I AM NOT WISHING HER DEAD.)
When my father died, it was not only me who felt the relief. My whole family did. We do not admit it in the open, but we all felt set free. With my father gone, my mother does not need me to get a grip anymore, of her feelings, mine, or anybody else’s. She can just be herself and let it all hang. No one’s going to go ballistic, no one’s going to throw a tantrum, the world will not end at the drop of (my father’s) hat.
My mother is still distant with me. Well, some things do not change. My mother is not the affectionate type. But I have outgrown my need for her being the Adult in my life. I am the Adult now. And I have two very young children. Watching me.
Am I a good model to my kids? Is my husband a good model too? Do we have healthy family dynamics?
Point a gun in my head and I’ll say, yes. Ask people around us, to be more objective, and the answer will still be, “yes”.
When I think about it this way, I look at the world in my son and daughter’s perspective.
I am a recovering Anorexic. I am still weird about food. But I am WORKING ON IT, dammit. I am not denying my feelings anymore.
So at this point in my life:
I am not denying my body.
I am not denying myself food.
I express my feelings with moderation; I exercise restraint.
I get a grip of my feelings, but it is not a vise grip.
And most importantly:
I do not deny my kids their feelings (I never say, “Shut up don’t cry stop crying,” I say, “What is the matter honey bunny, let’s talk about it, where does it hurt, mommy is here, come, let me hug you.”)
I am also working on not being explosive:
When I catch myself screaming bloody murder because my son lost his ID in school I go, “Cut his some slack, he’s seven! He forgets things, stop screaming! Stop being a bad role model. He needs discipline, yes, but he needs understanding too. Patience! It is better to be kind than rude. Unless you want him to be rude…Do not be like Father.”)
And I am getting better at it.
I swear I am getting better it.
My parents taught me things, things I will be forever grateful for.
They taught by example.
They were not exactly the best examples, because they were human and humans are flawed. Inconsistent. Quirky. But they loved me and they were perfect for the job.
Before I became a parent, I judged parents harshly. Not just my parents, but parents in general. I was the type of person who rolls her eyes when a toddler throws a tantrum at a supermarket. I was the type of person who banned children from my wedding. I was a good mom before I became a parent.
But now I see it:
My parents did their best, the best way they knew how at the time they were doing it. They learned their parenting skills maybe from their parents too. And my challenge now is to own their lessons-by-example. To learn from their experiences is to enrich my life.
In my work as psychologist, I study a client’s pathology by tracing back at least three generations in his or her family history. There I see family patterns and dynamics, healthy or unhealthy. Looking at my own case, I can say, it is oh so true. Children learn by watching.
I watched my parents and now my kids are watching me.
I was a child when I learned to maladapt. I am a child no more. I kind of stuck to these wrong constructs, these rituals. I am still working on shaking them off now. Infantile and pathetic as they are, they are still very, very powerful.
I can describe it as a core program, a behavioral glitch, wrong conditioning. It will take a lot of work to rewire myself.
As so, my job is not to f**ck my children’s main program.
My children are watching.
Terrifying as it is.
The featured image on this blog was AI-generated by me using free tools, namely ChatGPT, Canva, and Leonardo AI. I use these images to support my written content creatively and cost-effectively.
