Body-Shame & The Fight For Radical Self-Love

Death: A Surreal and Healing Experience

In March of this year my mother passed away. Death of a parent is a surreal experience, unlike any other. I had experienced childhood friends and close relatives pass away, but none of those could have possibly prepared me for the death of my own parent. Yet, it was not just any parent, the parent I've spent all of my life trying to keep a distance from. The parent I spent years in therapy trying to forgive and heal from. The pain AND relief of her death kick started so much healing and grieving in my life. So many patterns in my current life, which have been based in my original wounding with her, slowly started to disintegrate and fall apart like a house of cards. This is amazing, considering I've spend the last 18 years of my life actively seeking healing from the pains of our relationship with slow and moderate changes.

An Adult Child Of A Psychopath

It took me almost two decades of work to understand what the consistent chaos in my life had truly been about. It became clearer and clearer, in therapy & healing sessions, that I was born to a woman with some form of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and most likely a Psychopath. The problem with diagnosis, is not only did my mother come from a generation of people who generally think very little of the science of Psychology, but Middle Eastern people especially have an strong aversion to it. This made a diagnosis of the constant madness experienced in our household completely impossible.

So, what exactly is a psychopath? Many people throw this word around, not knowing or understanding what it means. So for clarification The Society for the Study of Psychopathy, lists psychopathic traits to include:

• Lack of guilt/remorse

• Lack of empathy

• Narcissism

• Superficial Charm

• Dishonesty

• Manipulativeness

• Reckless risk-taking

Perhaps the most well-known interpersonal trait of a psychopath is their pathological lying. Psychopaths lie constantly to cover up their psychopathic traits and antisocial (often illegal) behaviors. Other interpersonal characteristics of a psychopath include:

• Glibness

• Superficial charm

• Grandiose sense of self-worth

• Being conning and manipulative

According to Kelly McAleer, Psy.D,

"The psychopath is callous, yet very charming. He or she will con and manipulate others with charisma and intimidation. They can effectively mimic feelings to present as "normal" to society. The psychopath is organized in their criminal thinking and behavior...[]...The psychopath is keenly aware that what he or she is doing is wrong, but does not care.

I didn't know it at the time, but she fit these traits all too well. She was very charming and had glibness for days. Skillful in the art of gifting, she was consistently in massive credit card debt, as she was a shopaholic. She purchased gifts for herself and everyone around her. This seems quite generous, yet she would use material objects to win the affection and friendship of others. She later on cashed in on these gifts in the form of favors.

She was so smooth and enchanting, people did anything she would ask, even if it seemed questionable. She was a skillful liar and could talk her way out of any situation while talking others into doing anything she wanted. These were superior manipulation skills that were unrivaled, and despite the immorality, it was something to be marveled at. I constantly would joke that she could easily win 6 Oscars daily.

There Must Be Something Wrong With Me

I grew up wondering why I had no love for my mother and why I felt no love from her. Something had to be wrong with me, right? It seemed to be the norm for children around me to love their mothers and feel loved by them. I didn't fully comprehend why I constantly felt distant from her and why my feelings towards her were so inaccessible. I remember as far as my memories go her constant body-shaming, humiliation and emotional manipulation towards me. Frequent insults, bullying , teasing and painful words such as "I hate you" and "you should just go die."

She had a different and special relationship with me than everyone else, I was her dirty little mirror. The space between us is where she compartmentalized, projected and directed all her pain, self-loathing and darkness. She would also use me as an accomplice to her cons, schemes and tricks. She would threaten me to lie and corroborate her fraudulent stories and sometimes to perform them for her.

As I got a little older and started developing my own awareness of morality, I started catching on to how awful the lies, immoral and outrageous behaviors actually were. I would start questioning her or calling her behaviors out or reporting her shenanigans to my father. Unfortunately, in the fashion of a true psychopath, instead of noticing how her immorality and ways were affecting her child, her way of handling this was to villainize me. There was suddenly a constant campaign against me, portraying me as a bad, dramatic and evil child.

Many people saw her as this shining amazing woman, generous, helpful, loving and well put together. Therefore, her stories about me must have been true. My father would sometimes believe me, yet be spun by her lies and talk and just submit to her reality, that it's really just me being evil and trying to break up their marriage.

This furthered my early childhood feelings that maybe there really was something wrong with me, maybe I was bad and I was evil. Cognitively, that story never sat right with me I could rationalize to myself that she was a liar or immoral. Yet, deep down inside I completely internalized these events and stories and started to operate my life from that deep subconscious place. I constantly doubted myself, I questioned authority and trust was almost impossible for me.

You'd Be So Pretty If Only You....

My mother was a women obsessed with external beauty, constantly feeling insecure and inadequate about her appearance. She hid behind mountains of makeup, hair die and fancy clothing. She spent hours of her day styling her hair and figuring out which clothes made her look the least fat and the most attractive. Heaps of clothing, shoes, jewelry, concealer, creams, pills, lotions and any beauty gimmick you can imagine exploded out of her drawers and closets all over her bedroom and bathroom counter.

My appearance was almost always the focus of the majority of my mother's conversations with me. It affected my self esteem so deeply. Even well after I had left and had become an adult, if we met for dinner, she would corner me in the public bathroom and try to force makeup on my face. She was so offended that I went out in public without straightening my "nigger" hair. She questioned why I neglected myself when I had the potential to be so much more beautiful and attractive. She constantly taunted me to get my front chipped tooth fixed, as it was so repulsive to her.

There were many periods as an adult where I had to cut her out of my life to focus on boundaries and establish a sense of autonomy and self, it did me wonders. I'd sometimes feel guilty and let her back in and be quickly reminded why. I literally moved across the country to try and get away from the toxicity. Yet, I was not free of the spell which that pain had on me. It lead me to chose many destructive relationships with men who physically shame me, lie to me, deny me love and treat me with disrespect. Men who were porn or sex addicts, who would justify cheating, neglect and abandonment because of their perception of my body.

It's All About That Weight

Conversations with my mother would almost always start with her commenting on my weight. "you've gained weight" was almost a substitute for "Hi, how are you ?" in our relationship. When I lost weight, she asked me if I'd had surgery or lipo, I was so excited to share with her that I had lost the weight naturally, by following a healthy lifestyle, exercising and healing my emotional trauma. I was especially happy to share that dealing with my emotional pain was the key, as it was causing me to self sabotage and use weight as a protection from the world around me. Her response to that was: "then why are your inner thighs and belly so saggy? Must be lipo!" I confronted her that her remarks were painful and hurtful, she dismissed it with: "don't worry, you can fix all those problems with surgery nowadays, its easy!" Zero acknowledgment, apology or remorse, just deflection.

On that particular visit, where I hadn't seen her in about 5 years, her body shaming comments had me in tears. I was so proud of myself for using healthy eating, exercise and emotional healing to drop a total of 140 lbs in those five years. Those comments she made about my body that trip were so emotionally activating, that for the next 2 years I obsessed over plastic surgery and how to get it. I was literally trying to sell my eggs at a fertility clinic or see who will lend me $40,000. It had gotten out of control.

That year, where I allowed her visit stir me up, also happened to be the year I entered into a relationship with a man who consistently body-shamed me and whose sex, porn and strip-club addiction hyper-exasperated the delusions that my body was repulsive and that I needed plastic surgery to be acceptable.

When Seeking Healing, Leave No Rock Unturned

Although I spent almost 2 decades seeking healing from my relationship with my mother and all the subsequent relationships that replicated it, the shame was still with me, deep in the layers of my psyche, my body and my soul. I was turning every rock I came across, trying to find relief and freedom.

Years of immersion in western psychotherapy models, prayer, forgiveness practices, energy healings, karmic healings, chord-cutting practices, Neurolinguistic Programming training, Non-Violent Communication training, "Freedom From Narcissists" courses, Landmark Forum, Reiki, Craniosacral Therapy, attending the Spiritual Healing School, becoming a Sufi, going to chant circles and healing clinics... ANYTHING I saw that promised relief, I was there! So much of my time and energy was spent seeking healing, even in the pages of the endless amounts of self help, spiritual and psychological books.

I learned that these kind of wounds heal slowly, and the layers of pain and wounding keep cycling, peeling back, unfolding, bringing up new pieces with them each time, which resemble the old pieces, yet different.

The Light Within The Darkness

Even though my childhood experience was painful and traumatic, even though it felt as though the damage it wrought on my life was irreversible... I am surprisingly grateful for this woman. The pain and suffering her actions caused me are a gift. I now have an understanding that of all her self-hate, her insecurities, her own body-shame and projections on to me were necessary. It was a divine pain that she had gifted me, so that I can transform and heal the linage of my whole family. When I forget this I just ask: "Without that pain who would I be today?"

The pain had driven me to a path of deep self-discovery. A path where I was confronted over and over again, with a part of me that I had rejected years ago. To survive I had to reject the parts of me that were sensitive, open hearted and empathic, I had to forget that healing myself others was my path. A path which revealed to me later, that I am here to inspire others.

I had to work through intense feelings of invisibility, shame and unworthiness to finally see that I was a force of change and collective healing in this world. It was a painful path to come to realize this after almost 30 years of feeling and playing small. Wounded healers are the collective's biggest force of transformation on the planet right now. I was sent to be part of this collective change for myself and others. Other empath will tell you that this training program is brutal.

My gratitude is immense, thanks to this journey I have accidentally acquired many skills. These skills would become the foundational toolbox which I share with my clients and loved ones. In seeking my own heeling I had become a Neurolinguistic Programming Practitioner & a Non-Violent Communication Practitioner, a Yoga Teacher, a Nutritionist and an Ayurvedic wisdom keeper. All of of that darkness and enormous pain, lead me to search for healing anywhere I could find it and allowed me to learn so much from my attempts to rid myself of that which I had thought my mother had given me.

Body Positive: A Movement Of Self Acceptance & Self Love

From this pain I am a new creation, completely transformed and changed. I would have never thought that the scared confused little girl would one day grow up to crusade against body-shame and make it her life goal to advocate for body positivity. I am obsessed with helping people find joy and positivity in the bodies they inhabit. I had suffered from body dysmorphia, eating disorders and self harm for so long, this was the furthest reality I could have imagined for myself.

I jumped on the body positive movement when it was still in it's grassroots phase back in late 2011. I became a body-positive mentor when no one knew what that even meant. Now, thankfully, it's a buzzword! Self-love, self-acceptance and self-care have finally entered the mainstream consciousness, thanks to our collective efforts and believing that everyone has the right to experience joy and love in their body as they are now.

It is my passion to deeply witness and understand other people's body-shame. I strive to help them release unworthiness and find self-acceptance and self-love. I am committed to be real and authentic no matter what. Reminding others that they are not alone, that regardless of years of healing, I still have bad days, bad weeks and even bad months. That healing is not linear, that it's a mess and that it's nothing like what we expect it to be.Body positive means unwavering self love in the face of all the messages, images and voices we have been programmed to believe as our dogma about what bodies should or shouldn't look like.

Body positive means showing up and confronting the social "norms" that cause pain and suffering and choosing to say "no" to it all. Choosing everyday to overwrite the negativity that has been wired into your body, mind and spirit. To completely allow people to think what they will of you, while only valuing what you think of yourself. What a radical and empowering thing self love can be.

Someone Once Gave Me A Box Full Of Darkness...

I have now come to realize that it wasn't my mother who gave me this pain. It was through her, that the universe gave me the gift of true unwavering self-love, self-acceptance, self-care. It was through her that I have come to a deeper spiritual self-knowledge and magic beyond my wildest dreams. I have been gifted a profound understanding of the relationships between empaths and narcissists because of this experience. I have come to learn how to trust my intuition and trust the universe. I have learned so much about energetic and physical boundaries, about emotional manipulation & gas-lighting.

I would have never sought all this knowledge and magic that is now my rockstar tool box that I share with people in my, if she had not gifted me that immense pain. Sometimes our biggest teachers don't come in the form of sages and mentors, they come in the form of our abusers and our antagonists. Thank you mother for pushing me into the darkness so that all I cared to seek was light, over and over and over again.

"Someone I love once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift"

- Mary Oliver