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Dear Amy: I recently decided to return to live with my mother and little sister for the remainder of the pandemic.
The problem is, I catch myself thinking some extremely mean things about them, since they’re both overweight.
I find myself thinking almost obsessively about how disgusting I find their bodies and feeling angry with the way they eat and their unhealthy lifestyle.
Maybe part of this is because I was nervous about my own weight – more so during the pandemic.
Do you have any tips on how to be kinder and less critical?
How to get space from wicked thought patterns and prejudices? I don’t want to be like that.
I have a therapist, but I actually think I was too embarrassed to be honest about the ugliness of my internal monologue, because it turns me off.
– Secret Mean Girl
Dear Bad Girl: Thank you for admitting how your harsh judgment of others affects your own self-esteem.
If you’re from a family where people compulsively eat their feelings (been there, ate this), being home triggers your own fears of eating disorders.
Sometimes our harshest judgments about others reveal our own vulnerabilities.
It might sound a little different, but I believe you and your family members are all grappling with a broadly defined concept of “self-love”. They both calm down and punish each other by overeating. You punish yourself by hating your own attitude.
Examine the concept of “radical acceptance”. Learning to truly accept a situation or a person while being exposed to its flaws and weaknesses will set you free.
I think it’s learning to love people “… anyway”.
Tell your therapist! Exposing what you hate about yourself is how you will begin to heal.
Amy Dickinson, author of the “Ask Amy” column.TNS
Dear Amy: About five years ago, my mother gave each of her four daughters something from her house, in preparation for a move.
I received the family money because my last name matches the engraving. My two young sisters received small trinkets and family heirlooms.
The problem is with our older sister, who received all the photo albums.
There are about eight, one dedicated to each of the daughters, extended family members, our parents and ancestors.
Amy, this is my past!
Our sister will not share these photos. She won’t take them to family functions. She will not scan them and make copies for us.
She doesn’t even want to acknowledge the fact that they exist.
The rest of us have asked him time and time again. We offered to buy new photo albums to replace them when the pictures fall off the original albums. She says they were given to her and there is nothing we can do about it.
My mom tried to reason with her, but she won’t budge.
My father tried to reason with her before he died. Well, now my kids don’t know any of their grandparents, great-grandparents, or great-great-grandparents because of my older sister.
How can I make her see what she’s done to my family?
– Injured in Ohio
Dear Hurt: Your question is quite common: when distributing heirlooms, a sibling ends up with the entire collection of family photos; if they don’t share them, it can create a generation – or more – of hard feelings.
This could be avoided if the elders did not treat family photos as a single item, like a transmitted chifforobe – to be left with a child. The photos should be distributed to the descendants, who can then share – or exchange – them with each other. That way, even if a sibling refused to show or share their stash of photos, other photos would still be in the family.
I think it’s possible – or likely – that your sister wants to deliberately hurt you and your other sisters. Could it be that you have all the money?
You and your sisters might suggest “swapping” various items given to you to access the photos.
Otherwise, these photos were given to her, and I don’t think you have much recourse to force her to share them.
Dear Amy: Wow, you really woke up on the wrong side of the bong with your silly response to “Smoked Out”, the housewife who didn’t like her husband’s daily pot smoking habit.
You described this guy as “always more or less done”. It’s wrong!
– You are wrong
Dear False: If someone smokes intermittently, all day long (like this man did), it stands to reason that the effects would remain in their system. Otherwise, why smoke at all?
(You can email Amy Dickinson at [email protected] or send a letter to Ask Amy, PO Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or Facebook.)
© 2020 Amy Dickinson. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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