I used to say this when I was talking about my daughter being in middle school.

When my daughter entered 6th grade, I found myself dealing with changes that I wasn’t sure how to handle.

My daughter had always been spirited, yet in middle school, her spirit went off the charts.  

I wanted her to be a certain way, and she wanted nothing to do with my way.

 I desired to re-live my childhood through her. After all, she had everything that I ever wanted at her age.

I wanted to be thin, pretty, and stable home life.  

Instead, I was overweight from a summer of snacking.

I had pimples.

My hair was unruly and frizzy.

My home life was full of anger, poverty, fighting, and dysfunction.

My daughter had my dream childhood, and she refused to respond as I would have

And that pissed me off.

And the more I pushed, the more she pushed back

And the more she pushed back, the more I ate.

Then I jokingly blamed my weight gain on her. Even though the adult within knew better, I held anger that she did not do as I would have done.

I turned that anger inward by stuffing it down with food because if I were a good mother, then my daughter would be grateful for all that I have given her.

The older she got, the more I attempted to control her

In turn, the more she pushed back

In turn, the more weight I gained until the scale said 200 pounds.

Twenty pounds more than I weighed nine months pregnant.

Thank God she was stronger than me and fought my push to fit her beautiful square peg into a round hole.

Many years, later, when I was in recovery for my food addiction, I wrote a binder of apology notes.  

She was never responsible for my eating, weight gain. She had every right to exercise her right to be her.  

The only one responsible for my binging is me.  

The moment when I took responsibility for my food addiction, everything changed.

I spent months writing these apology notes.  

On her Twentieth birthday, I presented the binder, detached to her response.

She read the binder, placed it on her bookshelf, and hugged me.

And just like that; our relationship went from tumultuous to tame.

This taking responsibility practice can suck.

I face dark parts of myself that I would rather blame on my upbringing or lack of intelligence. I face them every darn day recovery is an invaluable commodity.

Facing your dark side is HARD, and shame unleashes into your consciousness.

I can help you. If you are ready to rise above your attachment to food, then schedule a snack chat by going here.

If you can relate to:

• Swearing off a particular food to find yourself headfirst with that said food.
• Jumping on and off diet bandwagons only to find your psyche bruised, wondering what is wrong with you?
• Trying to will willpower to work: waking up with hope and going to sleep in despair?

My friend, I have been where you may be and each day. Food and I had a torrid, dysfunctional affair for over 40 years, and today, I renew my vow to stay away from her seductions.

I can promise you will feel a change in 20 minutes.  

Go here now.