Not quite the phrase, but thank you, Ehell!

[Mel the Redcap]

I love my mother. I really do. But today the only thing that saved me from sitting there like a lump getting lectured was thinking "What would the Ehellions advise?!"

I am slightly overweight - I have a bit of a belly and a bum. The Good Ethnic Boy likes my rear the way it is , my doctor isn't concerned about my weight at all, my dietician says that the diet I'm going to have to go on to control my IBS isn't conducive to losing weight anyway, and although I wouldn't mind losing a few inches off my waist I have better things to worry about. I used to be dangerously thin due to a different health issue and quite frankly would rather be this size. I eat healthily for the most part, I don't have any weight-related medical problems, I'm FINE. However, everyone else in my family is skinny... and Mum wants me to lose weight. Has for years.

Normally, if Mum decides that I need the benefit of her wisdom , I end up saying "Mmm." and "Yeah." and being told off because I'm just saying that and have no intention of doing what she says and she's only saying it for my own good and it's because she loves me and if she didn't love me she wouldn't bother and and and ARGH. There is practically nothing more annoying than being lectured "for your own good"! It's always something where I think my "own good" is best served by doing something other than what she demands recommends, but nothing short of total capitulation will satisfy Mum! Bean dipping doesn't work, silence just starts the lecture early, flat refusal makes the lecture worse.

Today - Mother's Day - I drove down to have lunch with Mum and Stepdad. There was a lot of good chat, interesting topics, blah blah, and it got onto how I'm very happy with my new job, Mum's happy that both her daughters are doing well, she talked to Older Sister, oh and Older Sister has lost weight.

Me:  *thinking* Last time I saw her I thought she was a bit too thin...
Mum: "She's [weight considerably lower than Mel] now."
Mel: *boggled into speaking without thinking* "What? I'm [weight]!"
Mum: "Yes, and that's too much. You really need to... blah blah blah health blah blah self-restraint blah-blah we eat healthily blah blah Stepdad didn't want to but I kept at him and look at him now blah blah health blah blah YOUR OWN GOOD."
Mel: Oh god. Here we go. Why didn't I just say 'yay' and change the subject? "I'm happy with my weight. And anyway, my dietician--"
Mum: "But it's not healthy! All you need to do... blah blah cut out sugar blah blah cook from scratch blah blah I worry."
Mel: "I'm concentrating on getting my IBS under control first, the diet for that is going to be tricky enough. Once that's sorted I might--"
Mum: "Well what can you eat with that diet?"
Mel: *brief explanation*
Mum: "Well that's not hard, you can have [thing I can't eat]--"
Mel: "Nope. Can't eat that. Or [other things]."
Mum: "Okay, chicken and fish and rice and [things I can't eat]--"
Mel: "Nope. Can't eat [thing] or [thing] because [explanation]."
Mum: "Oh. Well, you can get recipes off the internet."
Mel: "Yes, and I am doing that, but I'm not trying to lose weight. I'm fine with it."
Mum: "But it's not healthy!"
Mel: MUST DERAIL TRAIN BEFORE IT STARTS AGAIN! Must be polite! Think of Ehell! Polite but blunt and with no wiggle room! "Mum, my doctor's happy with my weight. My dietician is happy with my weight. I'm happy with my weight. I'm not going to diet."
Mum: 
Mel: "Sorry if I'm a bit grouchy on the subject, but I'm tired of people trying to make me unhappy with myself."
Mum: "But I'm not trying to make you unhappy!"
Mel: "But you are trying to make me change when I don't want to."
Mum: "...Oh. Okay. All right, we won't talk about it."
Mel: "Thank you. So, how about that bean dip?"

It might have been a bit late but I remembered the lessons learned here and we had a lovely visit after all. Thank you, Ehell!


(slight edit to fix grammar!)

[rain]

good for you


I like your line "I'm tired of people trying to make me unhappy with myself"


gotta remember that one

[VorFemme]

"Mum, the doctor and dietitian WANT me to get the IBS* under control for SIX months (or some other reasonable number, depending on the condition) before I try to do anything about loosing weight.  Getting (medical condition) under control and stable is the most important thing that I can do right now.  So, talk to me in six months to see if the doctor has told me that I can make changes to the strict diet or not."

Then, if she talks to you in three months, it hasn't been SIX months yet.  If she talks to you in six months, the doctor has made some minor changes, or your condition hasn't stabilized enough to satisfy the doctor so they are looking at making some changes to diet or medication - and it will be another six months or so before the results can be judged.  Then let her know that you'll talk to her about loosing weight once the doctor has cleared your condition as stable.....which will come about the Twelfth of Never.......or sometime about then.

* This can work for pregnancy, diabetes, PCOS, food allergies, nursing a baby, or whatever medical condition is the one in question for whoever is having the same issue with a family member.  Just adjust the timeline.

[perpetua]

"Mum, the doctor and dietitian WANT me to get the IBS* under control for SIX months (or some other reasonable number, depending on the condition) before I try to do anything about loosing weight.  Getting (medical condition) under control and stable is the most important thing that I can do right now.  So, talk to me in six months to see if the doctor has told me that I can make changes to the strict diet or not."

Then, if she talks to you in three months, it hasn't been SIX months yet.  If she talks to you in six months, the doctor has made some minor changes, or your condition hasn't stabilized enough to satisfy the doctor so they are looking at making some changes to diet or medication - and it will be another six months or so before the results can be judged.  Then let her know that you'll talk to her about loosing weight once the doctor has cleared your condition as stable.....which will come about the Twelfth of Never.......or sometime about then.

* This can work for pregnancy, diabetes, PCOS, food allergies, nursing a baby, or whatever medical condition is the one in question for whoever is having the same issue with a family member.  Just adjust the timeline.

All I see that achieving is giving the mother carte blanche to badger the OP again in six months' time or however long.

The OP doesn't want or need to lose weight. She's already done the right thing by cutting her off on the subject, and did a brilliant job of it too.

[Mel the Redcap]

Thanks all! 

rain, that line was a lucky improvisation that I'm going to have to remember for possible future use too! There are so many people it can be aimed at...

VorFemme, unfortunately perpetua is right - my mother is the type to latch onto any wiggle room given, and she won't just come back to the subject in six months - she'll demand updates and progress reports at random moments leading up to the deadline, and the first attempted extension of that deadline would get the uncomfortably perceptive "You're Just Using This To Avoid The Subject" lecture. 

I love my mum. I really do. She's a wonderful woman. It's just that sometimes she reminds me of why I'm very happy living over an hour's drive away. 

[VorFemme]

VorFemme, unfortunately perpetua is right - my mother is the type to latch onto any wiggle room given, and she won't just come back to the subject in six months - she'll demand updates and progress reports at random moments leading up to the deadline, and the first attempted extension of that deadline would get the uncomfortably perceptive "You're Just Using This To Avoid The Subject" lecture. 

Sadly, you know your mother best - if she's going to beat that dead horse into glue, then there is going to have to be another way to avoid that topic.

Would turning around and leaving every time she picked up that club and driving an hour to get home work?

I've grew up in Texas - most family members lived far enough away that it took a FOUR hour drive to get there - but nobody hounded anyone else about things to that degree.   Partly because there were so few times a year that Mom & Dad could take off work long enough to make it worthwhile driving four hours there and four hours back - partly because that wasn't the family dynamic (boy, do I feel lucky now).

[Mel the Redcap]

Would turning around and leaving every time she picked up that club and driving an hour to get home work?

It doesn't need quite THAT big an etiquette hammer, thank goodness. She has very few subjects on which she'll lecture like that now, and I've been gradually paring them down - she stopped the "You Know I Have Pain Every Day And I Just Work Through It (Therefore So Should You)" one last year, and recently even admitted that she realises I have worse arthritis than she does - and the frequency with which she brings up the remaining ones has gone down a lot. Which is why I wasn't prepared for the weight lecture on Sunday. I'm fairly sure it's not going to come back, too, and if it does I should be able to shut it down pretty fast now. "Mum, we agreed not to discuss this" ought to do the trick.

She was much worse ten years ago. Practically any phone call could head into lecture land all of a sudden, on topics ranging from financial responsibility to personal cleanliness - the one about how SHE never got tummy bugs or colds and it was undoubtedly because she washed her hands a lot was rather insulting, given that at the time I caught any respiratory or gastro thing going and I DID wash my hands thankyouverymuch! - and if she visited me rather than the other way around I could expect her to start cleaning, lecture me about "the mess" even if I'd tidied right before she arrived, and then it would go right to pot with impassioned declarations that "I Expected Better Of You" and "I'm So Disappointed, I Work Full Time And Still Manage, Surely You Could Make More Of An Effort, Don't You Have Any Pride". (At the time, she paid a cleaning lady to do her house once a week. Pointing that out would not have improved matters.) As a result, I avoided having her visit me for a long, long time, without actually telling her what I was doing, and I'm pretty sure she realised; she's visited a couple of times recently without saying a single negative word.

I think me getting married three years ago knocked her a bit out of Mum Lecturing Daughter mode and more into Talking To Another Grown Woman mode. I just have to get a few remaining subjects switched over. Verbal percussive maintenance ought to do it. 

[VorFemme]

I have an aunt five years my senior that I still have problems with (some of the time) because SHE remembers when SHE was the elder who knew everything because she was MUCH older than I was.

Say when I was eleven and she was 16 and could DRIVE!  Or I was in high school and she was in college! 

The five year difference isn't so noticeable at 55 and 60.....although she does have a LOT more gray hair than I do (Mom's side of the family grays earlier than Dad's side of the family - guess I got the paternal gray hair genes!).

Verbal percussive maintenance it is!

[ladyknight1]

More power to you, Mel!

[Cherry91]

I've had a couple of similar instances (where something is compared to another family member, they did something and therefore so should I!) and I eventually stumbled on the perfect response:

"My situation is different to *X*."

No further discussion, and just rinsed and repeated until they realised I wasn't going to be giving them any further information.

[Piratelvr1121]

good for you


I like your line "I'm tired of people trying to make me unhappy with myself"


gotta remember that one

I liked that line as well.   Thankfully I don't have much reason to use it, but there was a time where it would have come in handy.   

[Mel the Redcap]

NNNNGGGGGGAAAAAAGH. The moratorium on lecturing me about my weight lasted a whooooooole year... and I was a lot less EHell-Approved about shutting it down this time, thanks to being completely blindsided.

Woot.

[chibichan]

You did it once - you can do it again !

Frankly , nothing I've ever said to my " Let me tell you how to live " sibling has ever lasted for more than a week , so you are all kinds of Awesome in my book .

Maybe you can remind her about how happy you were for the year she left you alone - how it was a pleasure to see her and spend time with her without going home stressed out and feeling bad .

A whole year....sigh , I am so jealous .

[Mel the Redcap]

Thanks, chibichan - that makes me feel a lot better. And that sounds like a good thing to try!

[chibichan]

I have really had to thicken my skin with my sibling .

I have come to realize that she just.can't.stop .

Keep talking about it . It may eventually sink in . I still get occasional "advice" but it ceases shortly after I say " Look , I'm happy with the way I am.

 If she ignores that - I tell her firmly " I'm not going to change . If you keep trying , you will just make me want to leave ." That usually does the trick .

BTW - I love your screen name ...are you a Merry Gentry fan ?