Moment it went wrong

[Ann5324]

I can’t sleep as been doing a lot of soul searching lately and trying to figure out where part of my life went wrong!

Got no one in RL to talk to so please be kind.

Went through hell over last 8 years in terms of fertility treatments and I know I’m lucky that I am blessed with 2 kids whilst others I bet were not so lucky. I got really depressed after 2nd one and then felt immense guilt why I felt this way. I got help and things were looking up. I lost loads of weight. Over IVF treatments and pregnancy itself I put on a lot of weight.

Then I remember clearly going to local boutique/tailoring shop as I was getting fitted for a dress for my baby’s first birthday and sales assistant said “your tummy is huge”. That one comment caused me so much upset as I thought I looked good and considering how much weight I had lost I felt amazing but that one thoughtless comment to an already fragile person just broke me. My eldest was in nursery then and her friends mum was also working in the shop and heard everything. I didn’t want to cause a scene so just left and comfort eated all day. Plucked up the courage next day and rang up the shop and complained and the sales assistant was defensive and said it’s the truth. I know I should have let it go but I wrote a review on their website and got a horrible comment back from management. There was a lot of back and forth on the website and I felt embarrassed knowing that one of the workers goes to my child’s nursery so I must have looked like a pathetic loser.

2 months later lockdown happened and that caused more over eating. I’m sat here now and I am 2.3 stones heavier than I was on that day.

I feel lost and ashamed, I keep thinking what if I hadn’t gone into that particular store that day. What if I had just let the comment slide a d not get into an online war where I looked deranged and management looked like the sane put together ones from their replies to my review. I was already fragile and insensitive comment like that was awful.

Thank you @inininsomnia. That is what I meant.

Apologies, I meant PP, not OP... it's early :)

OP, I'm so sorry this happened to you. For your own sake, I hope you can move on from this. Don't let the person who made this remark keep taking up space in your head. If you want to lose weight, you've done this before and can again .

What a horrible comment for her to have made, no wonder it affected you. Having binge eating disorder and eating that used to be intrinsically tied up with emotional eating though, I will say that until the underlying reasons are resolved, there will sadly always likely be triggers here and there, whether it's the woman in the shop, or your jeans not fitting or a stranger in the street.

It sounds like you have had a challenging few years, don't underestimate the mental impact of going through what you have. For me I found therapy to untangle my past and self esteem issues (cheesy but it's hard to treat yourself well when you don't love yourself, and I hasn't for a long time), and confront the trauma that likely played a big part. Medication for my anxiety also helps.

Just saying don't struggle in silence, don't be hard on yourself, and do reach out for support

It was one person's opinion. Which may or may not be right. What matters is you and your wonderful children. Whether you're far or thin or somewhere in the middle matters to no one. What sort of person you are, what sort of a mummy you are does.

I've put weight on and still get a bit of a shock when I see myself in the mirror of a shop. But I don't dwell on it because that doesn't define me.

It's happened, forget about it and start thinking about other way more important things.

Oh I really feel for you. It was a crappy, careless comment that hit you at a time when you were vulnerable and just coming out from the dark days of PND, which is why you reacted the way you did.

And for the shop to publicly double down on the comment, rather than offer a sincere apology, just means it cemented those careless words in your head and left you feeling even worse.

It sounds like you went through many years of stress and difficulties to achieve your goal of having children, and that inevitably takes a toll.

Pregnancy and childbirth and the early years of having babies can impact us in so many different ways. Most of us put on weight, some of us end up with caesarean scars, some of us have ongoing bladder problems, some of us get post natal depression. It’s a lottery! And none of it is our fault! It’s just the gamble we take and the price we pay when we embark on the journey of having children. And it’s hard, it can be so hard. But it’s worth it. (Most of the time!)

You’ve gone through all those years of IVF and you’ve made it out the other side. You did it! So, you put on some weight?- that’s fine, that’s what your body needed to do to get you through those years. Cut yourself some slack! Be kind to yourself and allow yourself to be proud of how far you’ve come.

And don’t let that silly careless comment define how you feel about yourself. You’re strong! Be a warrior, not a worrier.

You were right to complain. Is it possible she was thinking you had some sort of medical issue though? A friend of mine got her stomach checked as the rest of her was small and she did have fibroids and something else I've forgotten.x

That was an awful comment and they deserved a bad review.

You're clearly suffering OP, I'm sorry you feel so down.

Sales staff can be absolute arseholes and seek to hone in when you feel absolutely shite. But I don’t think it’s helpful, or helpful to you, to ruminate on that incident. It’s happened.

The staff were shit. You told them so. They twisted those words and they have of course lost your custom.

But, having lost weight (an trying to get the next block of weight loss down) get those big girl pants and get back on track, I know I need to. It’ll be a fuck you to them but that’s not a reason to do it.

You can lose weight, you’ve done it. You did your practice run at it and were pretty good at it Clearly your food/emotional coping strategy isn’t quite where it should be so alongside getting your diet in check - for now I mean eating lots of good veggies and fruits and cut down on the highly processed with added sugars and salts stuff as research shows gut biome, weight and mental health are linked - start some therapy, counselling, write a journal, daily walk, making sure to take daily vit D and sit outside in the sun even in winter etc whatever works to for you help your brain untangle itself, it might be A couple of things or all of them.

There’s a lot of good resources out there and lots of good free advice from personal trainers. Jordan syatt on Instagram I’ve found super helpfu especially around daily weight fluctuations, binge eating and how one bad day doesn’t ruin all your progress and no your regain hasn’t ruined your progress because you Haven't magically lost all the skills you learned the first time around to lose weight. You still have them!!!

A bad day is just that a bad day. You can pick up again after and keep going.

I think you had every right to complain. The reaction of the shop was pathetic. That comment would have upset me too. People need to think before they say such things to others. If I found out that a shop thinks it’s acceptable to speak to a customer like that then I wouldn’t go in. And the shop assistant would do well to consider that she won’t necessarily have the same figure she has now in 10 years time. I was a size 6-8 for years but after 2 children and once into my forties I have started to see a change in my body shape. Hopefully this woman will look back in years to come and realise how unkind her comments to you were. And please don’t delete the online review. Why should you back down? The shop was in the wrong not you so don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed.

Something or other l watched yesterday- there was a line in it that said something along the lines of 'if you don't put this behind you, you will be in prison for ever'.

You don't want go down that road. She was a horrible bitch and the other mum should have sodding well intervened. How many customers do they think they will retain speaking to them like that?

They didn't acknowledge your complaint but it doesn't make it not valid. Fuck them. They don't have the right to make you feel like shit.

Make a healthy eating plan for one day. Stick to it. You will feel amazing at the end of that day. Then see if you want to have that feeling the next day, too. And l mean healthy eating, not dieting.

There's nothing wrong with you at all
What a stupid, unnecessary thing to say to someone .. honestly... Please please try to put it in its box and tape the lid shut once you've done a healthy amount of getting mad about it! Worthless, stupid comment.
What's more awful is how horrible that sort of thing makes us feel, because of the fear and hatred of being in a larger body that is rife in society.
Your body will only ever be a meat-suit for your beautiful soul and personality. It adds nothing, and takes away nothing. It just is.
Do lots and lots of self care and may you feel better soon xx

I'm actually very proud that you stood up for yourself op, even if their reply was shit.
I have been on the receiving end of a snarky comment ( buying a dress over the age of 40 was " brave" according to the snotty sales assistant). I just tried to ignore it but I never actually wore the dress, the comment bothered me that much. I wish I had complained like you did.

And please don’t delete the online review. Why should you back down? The shop was in the wrong not you so don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed.

I agree that OP shouldn’t need to back down but deleting the review might be better for her mental health, especially if she is worried about someone she knows being aware of what happened. OP might also re-read the thread of arguments and feel bad or just feel bad knowing it exists. Deleting it can help put it behind her.

However, as I said, OP shouldn’t apologise if she has to request it be taken down. Make it clear you want it removed for your own sake, not for them.

Women have to deal with so much judgement about weight, food and clothes. I was 13 stone and 5 ft 4 after my 2 kids were born. I'm now 10 stone 4. Skinny. Everyone's now saying a variety of new things to me. Like

"Its alright for you, you are skinny now"

"Are you eating"

"You've lost alot of weight"

"You do eat don't you?"

"What did you do to loose weight"

"What diet did you do?"

"There would be no point cooking you"

"They'll be nothing left of you soon"

"You don't need to loose anymore"

Yes I've had a few compliments too. But do you know what? I am skinny now because I suffer from horrible heavy periods that last 6 days every 24 days. I got so anemic last year I couldn't move. So I was put on strong iron tablets which made me feel sick and I lost my appetite. I suffered from anxiety from feeling weak and worrying about the school runs and being a reliable mother. I was so stressed about my heavy periods and if I'd ever be able to get a job and manage. Or would my life be ruled by it. The result? I lost the best part of 2.5 stone.

People and their mouths are always the same. Men get mocked for their beer bellies. Their muscles. Their dad bods. Their bald heads etc. Nobody is free from judgement unfortunately. Its so hard to learn to love yourself. I don't believe I'll ever love me. But I like me now as I can wear clothes now and look OK. But naked I'm not happy. I'm slim. But my belly is not toned. I have deep stretch marks all around my bikini line and wrinkled skin there too. My boobs also have gone loose skin wise and when I lie down the handful seems to dissolve into my ribs and they are not perky and lifted anymore.

The truth is nobody is perfect. Only you can find yourself and reach those goals. That's why her comment was extra painful. Because you are already self conscious. Her comment was rude don't get me wrong but she will have many flaws herself. Maybe she has hairy toes or a hairy back. Or stretch marks like me. There's soooo many body hangups out there. You just have to remember children change our bodies. Nobody is perfect. We all struggle. I don't care what people's size is as long as they don't smell and have fairly respectable hair and clothes. I look at larger women and think she's stunning just as I do slimmer women. Its about style and confidence. I relt hope you feel happier soon x

You could think of this this way.

Where it went wrong was you had the unfortunate chance meeting with a nasty woman. A woman who clearly has her own issues to make such an unwarranted and insensitive comment.

But you need to change from that mindset. Make "where it went wrong" into "where it's going to go right"

Make that nasty comment the thing that changes your future. Whether that's choosing to loose weight - or whether that's knowing you are far better than that woman and her team will ever be and taking a new found confidence from that.

Write yourself a list of 1 thing you will change from today.
Do that for a week. Then add another thing.

I also put on weight during lockdown and I started with changing to homemade soup every lunchtime with fruit (my 5 a day).

Then added walking a brisk walk for 10 minutes everyday (min). Then increased it.

I found by not setting myself unrealistic goals it was much easier to feel they were achievable and therefore were achievable.

Years ago, similar thing happened to me regarding an online review I gave for the shop that sold my wedding dress. Management got really nasty, called me a liar (standard defence it seems).For years it really upset me whenever I thought about how something that was meant to be so wonderful turned out to be awful.

Now I look back and feel like it’s just part of life experience. An eyebrow raising story to tell in full, but crucially one that in no way allows what others did to inform my opinion about myself. You have described yourself as “pathetic” and a “loser” for writing that review. Why? For standing up for yourself?? Why are their awful actions affecting your view about yourself?

I’d focus on getting healthy and maybe look to joining a club to lose weight (it struck me you said you had no one else to talk to in real life).

Good luck.

Nothing has gone wrong. You just need to heal the relationship with your body. Many of us who go through big life changing health problems, start seeing our body as “broken” for the first time. We give ourselves a hard time and just don’t love our body in the same way. This causes stress and depression and overeating. This isn’t about that dress appointment, it’s about finding ways to see your body as valuable and healthy like before you had fertility issues. Yes they shouldn’t have said your tummy was huge, but if you felt positive about your body, you wouldn’t have felt so kicked while you were down. I don’t know what the magic answer is to feeling healthy and happy again, but wish you the best of luck on your journey to healing.

OP, it was grossly unprofessional to make such comment to a customer and you were absolutely right to complain. It was a shame their management are not better however rest assured people who read reviews will take your feedback I to account. I am skinny, but wouldn't go to a shop where a sales assistant would dare to make such comments. Well done for sticking up for yourself.
If you lost weight once you definitely posses all the willpower needed to do it again if you want to. Honestly, I am fairly certain people who overheard what happened in the shop are most likely take your side. However anyone else's opinion is irrelevant. Take care of yourself

From the POV of someone who has always been slim all over (less emphatically so these days, alas, but still falling into that category) and always with a (sometimes more, sometimes less) 'huge' tummy to go along with it - to the extent that I know some people who aren't sure how old I am assume I'm in the second trimester - I would urge you, gently, not to fall for that false and pernicious narrative of the shape and size of a woman's body defining her worth.

The shop were wrong, and screamingly unprofessional. The assistant was either deliberately being a bitch or had never been taught what most of us learn around the age of 6 - that we don't make personal comments on other people's appearances. She's absolutely in the wrong job. But she didn't irrevocably take all power over your self-image when she made that comment. I would of course quite like a flat tummy, but I detest the societal revulsion at part of a woman's body showing the signs of having lived - borne children, had various experiences, whatever. So I'm not going to tie myself in knots trying to achieve one - health notwithstanding, obv.

Something that has 'gone wrong' (and I thought from your title that you were going to write about a terrible moral mistake you had made or something - I promise that a couple of extra stone really, really does not fall into that category, whatever bilge society and the media force down our throats) can also 'go right'. Be careful, though, about throwing yourself into any diet/exercise regimes, because it does sound as if the whole thing still has quite a hold on you and I think you need to be focusing just as strongly, if not more so, on changing your thought patterns - on standing on emotional ground firm enough not to be washed away by a person lacking in social graces and professional skills.

(You can bet, btw, that a lot of people reading your online interaction will have felt very sorry for you - they will have perceived your distress and found the shop's response distinctly lacking in appropriate customer service)

Obviously she shouldn't have said that. But if your tummy is huge, then your tummy is huge. If you're fat, then you're fat. People pretending not to notice those things won't make them stop being true. If you aren't able or willing to change your weight, then at least try to accept the reality of it. Pointing it out unnecessarily will still be rude, of course, but if you've already made your peace with the facts that 1) you're fat, and 2) anyone with eyes already knows that you're fat, it won't bother you so much when someone says it out loud.

Just wanted to say that was an awful thing to happen to you and I'm sorry you experienced that.

With the pandemic particularly and various lockdowns, I feel those who emerged from it unscathed with their mental health, weight gain, other indulgences are in the minoriity.

It is hard to make changes, that's true. One thing a day as a previous poster said.

That and (I know it is a cliche) but trying to be kind to yourself and start to love your body again, whatever shape it is. Also trying t focus on a healthy body and to nurture it in whatever way you can.

I've also tried buddhist chanting. Sparked by Tina Turner's book 'Happiness Becomes You'.

Perhaps you might get to the point where you can see that the person who made the hurtful remark, in fact had issues of their own (no excuse but we've all done it at some point).

Thinking of you today, I was up at four in the morning too with anxiety

and worries about the future. As the day dawns I feel better.

Hope you can move forward today.

Was this in the UK?! Unbelievable!

You poor thing! Have you sought treatment for depression? Xx

I get why you feel bad Op. Being a keyboard warrior after the event is no good.
It’s hurtful when we hear the truth as people ( especially in their work) are usually careful with words.I guess she thought you knew your tummy was huge and it was a comment regarding clothes rather than sneering at you. She shouldn’t have said it but sometimes things come out wrong,
I went to the minor injuries unit after I was worried about my foot surgery. The doctor and nurse both remarked on my completely flat feet in sort of astonishment. It hurt because that was an aesthetics comment and nothing to do with the pin in my big toe that was agony.

It’s just fat. It can come off. I’m an apple shape like you and it’s really unhealthy to have a big tummy. I’ve gone up 8 inches round the waist since lock down. It’s carbs and sugar that do it. Not eating carbs was the only time I ever got a flat stomach. I wish more people would actually tell me they’ve noticed I’ve put on weight as a motivation. It’s also hurtful to hear after you lose weight everyone secretly thought you had piled it on.

@Ann5324 the shop assistant was a bitch and the management response was disgusting. You were absolutely right to call them out on it. I am sorry they sent you spiralling.

However, in the kindest way, nearly 2 years on you need to let it go for your own sake. From your post it sounds like you were already suffering from pnd so please speak to your health care provider and get some help and counselling to adjust your thinking about situations.

Your babies need a happy and healthy mum!