(quick note: i don't use social media or forums so i hope i'm in the right place and doing the right thing. i just need to share my feels. i'm very stressed.)
hi - my mom has terrible body dysmorphia. she has since childhood because her parents were abusive assholes.
she's extremely petite (short and thin) but she's constantly talking about how disgusting her body is. she has since i was a kid and that impacted me deeply over the years. she asked if she could wear pants to my wedding because she "looks so ugly in dresses." (idc. whatever. you're an adult, dress yourself.)
i am not petite like her. i am tall and slightly overweight despite my best efforts to be healthy. i have body dysmorphia too because she's been such a psycho about weight my whole life. when i was a little kid she encouraged overeating and constantly fed me sugar (ice cream for breakfast was not unusual) but then when i became a teenager (read: got an adult body) the rules changed. she started shaming me if i went to take seconds and said i ate too much fruit. it was always something. i exercised like crazy and hardly ate.
i put on weight (freshman 15) in college and then a couple of years later got into obsessive exercising again, getting down to my leanest physique in my early 20s. i worked out 6 or more hours per day and hardly ate. when i was stressing to her about having to cut down the time i spent at the gym to balance the demands of work and school, she started pouring it on in a panic - "oh, no no! you can still keep going to the gym! you just have to work hard and want it bad enough!" she wasn't concerned with my work or school performance, just me keeping my model-esque form, no matter the cost.
over time it got harder and harder to keep training because i have a chronic health condition (which wasn't diagnosed until my earlier 30s) and i put on weight. i tried to keep exercising and eating right - because i love to workout and try to nourish myself, not just for aesthetic purposes - but the medicines and other interventions i need to manage my condition made it impossible to stay scary thin like i used to be. whenever my mom sees me now, she makes indirect but loaded comments about how i look. she tries to pass it off as a compliment ("oh, you... look good, honey") but it sounds like she's trying to convince herself of this, not me.
it took me a long time to figure out just how bad it's gotten and that the "compliments" weren't what they seemed - i figured it out recently actually, when i was looking for a dress. she was with me and warned me she would cry seeing her little girl in a wedding dress. i burst out of the changing room in the first wedding dress i'd ever tried on... and her face dropped. "oh... that's... nice." i thought maybe she didn't like the dress.
i tried on several more over the next few trips and saw that face and heard similar words over and over. i wasn't crazy about the dresses either so i didn't think much of it. until i found the one - i felt so beautiful in it! it was flattering. the girl who was fitting me gasped because it looked like it was made for me. i felt gorgeous (as i rarely do because of how much body shame i carry) and i pulled the curtain back to show it off, smile beaming... to see my mother, face set in a frown... "mhmm." again, i didn't think much of it, although i had the same strange, nagging feeling i had the last few times. something wasn't right, but i couldn't place what it was. i was too distracted by my love for the dress.
later i thought about it and realized that her expression and words were because the first time she saw me in a dress, she'd been expecting someone else to be standing behind the curtain - she expected sickly thin, obsessively over-exercised me in my early 20s to be standing there. but that girl isn't around anymore. just me doing my best and falling short in my 30s me.
i must've been subconsciously mentally protecting myself because i should've caught on sooner. after one of our dress outings, she was sitting in the passenger seat and quietly murmured, "wow, i can't believe how undevastated i am. i thought for sure i'd be devastated seeing you in a wedding dress, but i wasn't." she had to say it twice, not just once. i screwed up my face and didn't reply. all i could think was, "my mother just told me i'm not devastatingly beautiful in my wedding dress." then i felt a flood of shame for being so proud of the dress and fear of what the rest of the guests - not to mention my fiance - would think when they saw me walking down the aisle in it.
my friend assured me it's beautiful and perfect for me and that everyone will love it. but the damage has largely been done.
now part of my - already unnecessarily unpleasant and overly stressful (for other reasons) - wedding planning experience includes how to keep my mother away from me before the ceremony. i was planning to have her in the room with me and my bridesmaids while i was getting ready, but now i'm so scared that that look of disappointment will cross her face and i'll end up sobbing and full of fear before the ceremony, crying before i go down the aisle, not for joy at marrying my sweetheart... or relief that the horrible planning is finally over... but because i'm ashamed of my body.
this is so complicated because she loves me so, so, so much. she really does. but she's sick in the head. she has refused psychological help (like therapy) related to this or any of her other childhood issues and doesn't even know she's doing it. she's so sensitive that if i bring it up she'll get defensive and deny it and will breakdown. when she gets emotional, she starts fights. i don't need that right now.
my fiance is incredibly loving and adores me and thinks i'm beautiful. he also knows and respects how hard i try to take care of myself despite all the medical obstacles. i know he will love the dress and seeing me in it. but there's still a nagging voice in my head that sounds like my mother's and i'm afraid i won't be able to shut it up before the big day.
i'm seeking additional therapy leading up to the wedding and doing some self-work to try to improve my feelings about this, but i'm running out of time. if you're another bride who's undergone/is undergoing something like this and have encouragement and/or advice for me, it will be appreciated. i don't have a ton of support and am so embarrassed about it that it's hard to talk to anyone about it.