TW I am angry at my parents for letting me get into so many bad habits 😭

[ThisPearlOP]

title, I have no clue if this is an ok thought to have but I need to write this down also SRY because maybe vent ahead because I cannot stop thinking about it I am literally getting flash backs as me sitting on my carpet in my room eating one bowl after the other or something like what felt like a mountain of food or watching TV for what must have been 15 hours straight on the weekends oh my god...I know this is where it happened and that I ruined my life!!! I wish someone would have told my younger self that you cannot just eat according to appetite and that you cannot act like this all day!!!

I would eat entire packets of oats or a loaf of bread THE WHOLE THING like really the entire sleeve of toast and 2-3 packs of cheese and sausage and so on and then take another 2-4 sandwiches wich me for lunch and start eating them on the way to school etc so I would prob eat twice my TDEE in 1 hour after waking up...!!!

I remember out-eating several adults AS A KID. Multiple grown people. I would eat my meal, another serving or two, everyone's leftovers, and be like meh. what are we having next? That is completely ridiculous and insane and everyone cutesy ignored it or was laughing about how I have a big appetite and whatnot!!!!

I also watched TV non stop I was either at school or watching TV or playing nintendo DS and that WAS unhealthy i am sure because I would rage when I lost at games and stuff I remember having to fix it with tape because I smashed it up so bad when I got so aggressive during games I also had a ps2 that was already kinda old back then and I would throw the controllers I would yell and scream at everyone and I cannot believe I was like this I remember ripping my bed sheets and everything to shreds in a rage and that was 100% over some game no idea what!!!!

Also one time there was some event similar to halloween and I was gifted a whole bag worth of candy plus my shirt as bag so it was A LOT and I carried all of it towards my room and my mom yelled after me watch out you will get sick because she KNEW I was running off to go sit and EAT all of that at once!!!!

WHY WHY did she not stop me of course I would have cried and whatever if she took my sweets away but now as adult I very seriously wish she would have been like no way you cannot eat 2 kilo of candy and I swear it was that much I remember just one part of the little mountain of sweets that I had on my carpet was a whole a 500g bag of schoko bons (a popular candy in Germany) and that is absurd I must have eaten 10k calories as a kid on a random evening I could CRY just thinking about it!!!!

HOW HOW HOW did no one notice that this is so far away from what anyone would consider normal and that I would mess up my LIFE!!!

THE THING is though that my parents were both nice I had the freedom in the world I never got punished they were never mean they bought me everything I wanted so how can I be angry at the it makes no sense I am such a terrible kid when I you think about it!!! But then again I WISH I would have grown up in a way that might have been more restrictive but maybe I would be healthier now!!! 😭 How can I just forget that and move on or can anyone relate why I think this way now??? Believe me I am so ashamed of this already!!!!

I agree, parents should take responsibility for their children and do their best to ensure they have a healthy start in life and learn self control.

Who knows what was going on in your mum’s mind at the time? It sounds like you have some kind of neurodiversity to me, and can’t put all blame on your mum. Looking back isn’t really going to help you to take responsibility now. How old are you? You sound quite young still.

Hit the nail on the head OP. Society has a real issue these days with parenting. Sometimes its hard and sometimes you dont get to be popular friendly parent. You get to be grumpy, unpopular parent because you are making decisions that effect your childs future. Not enough parents are willing to start when they are young, put in the leg work and encourage a lifetime of healthy exercise and eating habits. It applies to all those parents who take the easy, soft option throughout the younger years and then wonder why the grown up, 16 year old 6ft son doesnt listen to a word they say.

My dog recently got a warning at the vets as he has steadily put on weight over the last couple of years. Its taken a couple of months but he has dropped a serious amount of weight quickly. He goes for a run every other day with my DD and i banned any treats and extras in the house for him. I am not popular with the dog or my children because its no fun. Tough shit, i want him to live longer.

There can be a lot of emotion tied up in food that isn't obvious at first glance.
My older brother had quite a restricted diet as a child. I would eat everything which delighted my mum, and it was the only thing i regularly received praise for. Oh and sleeping!

Fast forward to having 4 autistic DC of my own, I can understand her relief, but I've tried to keep my emotions out of my DCs eating. It is hard, though. The Halloween sweets, maybe not ideal that you weren't stopped but maybe your parents were hoping it would have a natural consequences effect on you? I'm not saying that's right and I wouldn't allow my DC to have unfettered access because 2 of them really struggle with regulation. But it is a hard thing to try and tackle

The gameplaying and rage quitting etc isn't that unusual in teens I feel tbh. Do you feel you had difficulty regulating in general?

I know people who have restricted their kids, water only for example, no sugary squash or pop, and their kids are overweight as adults, I think subconcious rebellion maybe.
My parents were strict on sports and activties, no free time, just structured activities.. i was in all sorts of squads and comps and trained at a high level. I do no sports as an adult, gave them all up, peaked too young and rebelled and partied my late teens and early 20s.
I think you have to take responsibility for yourself come a certain age. At some point, you have to decide yourself what you want to do. Blaming it on your childhood is an excuse really, because you are your own persin and need to do the work to change. Noone else can do it.

Sorry OP, I was parented like that too and it's a constant struggle to eat well and limit screen time but I know I was just prone to that behaviour and another child parented that way (like my siblings) struggle in other ways. I am much stricter with my kids but do wonder if it's the right thing to do still!

Self-regulating is exactly what I’ve done with my DC.

I’ve never restricted access to crisps/sweets/chocolate (when they were very young I did but not since).

Both of mine eat two healthy meals a day. They will both leave part of their meal if they’re not as hungry as usual - no pressure to have a “clean plate”.

They might have a dessert/pudding occasionally. They still have Easter eggs they haven’t eaten yet! They don’t snack frequently. DS (15) might occasionally want a snack at around 5pm if he had a lighter lunch and/or dinner is going to be later. DD never snacks.

They have a brilliantly balanced attitude to food and are a very healthy weight (DS slightly skinny but that’s just his body type).

I completely get that this approach wouldn’t work for everyone but it’s been really effective for my two DC.

Op, the amount of TV watching (to the detriment of socialising?) and eating (sensory seeking?) make me think you might want to read up a bit on autism in girls/women and see if it's relevant to you.

They should have addressed it. But what you described sounds much more than a 'habit'. Eating an entire packet of oats?! That sounds more like a medical disorder. Just telling you to stop or educating you about healthy habits may not have been enough.

Acknowledge they should have done something about it, and it's OK to be upset that you're in this position. But also recognise that you can't change the past, and you're the one who needs to change the future. You don't have to do it alone - see your doctor, think about counselling or support groups, and make a plan to look after yourself.

Are your parents still alive? Can you ask them?

@ThisPearlOP pretty sure you would have gone off the deep end at your parents if they had said something to you about the amount of food you were putting away. your age would most likely have made you volatile and there is nothing worse than an angry aggressive teenager in the house!

When you speak of your rages, @ThisPearlOP , it makes me wonder how you reacted when your parents did try and say no to you?

I don't ask this in order to excuse them. It is part of a parent's job to find ways of saying no even in the face of raging persistent frustration. But if you did ever react in this way, it might be part of the explanation of why they didn't succeed in helping you to break bad habits. And perhaps you might in a way feel better if you could come to see that they were just doing their inadequate best in a difficualt situation?

I speak as the parent of a child who often became so frustrated that it was hard-to-impossible to set limits in some respects. The meltdowns would go on so long that I sometimes had to lock myself in the bathroom to escape.

I remember one time in particular when he was frustrated by parental controls I had put on his internet access. It just felt like his demand for them to be reversed was so intransigent that he simply could not let go and leave me alone. He would physically block me from leaving his presence and just go on and on and on. In the end I gave him what he wanted and I KNOW that was bad for him, perhaps even catastrophically bad. I KNOW i should have been a better parent. But it felt like I was trapped in a situation resembling domestic abuse.

EDITED TO ADD: The fact that you now, still, as an adult, experience your difficulties through the lens of anger at your parents for not making you different from how you are (rather than thinking of strategies to help you manage yourself in the present) , does suggest that you may have had an angry oppositional relationship with them as a child, and that this may have made it hard for them.

It's sometimes a difficult one, if as an adult you still don't feel full easily, are driven to eat a whole pack of biscuits not just two etc, and you still do that while understanding the idea of TDEE, nutients etc, then it must be so much harder for parents to restrict food from a child who has no concept of calories and is crying that they're hungry. We've also been in an era for quite a long time of body positivity, where we're taught we must not shame people for what they eat, for hunger, for body size and shape etc, which does sadly run contrary to keeping people at their healthiest physically in many cases.

I'm sorry if this isn't the response you expected. While reading your post, I was hoping to understand the impact it has on you now, rather than just how difficult your experience was. You focused only on the past, and I know it's painful and you wish you could change it. However, no one can change the past. You can, however, take control of your life through your own will. That's beauty of being an adult. Let go of the past, become the master of your own destiny, and pave the way for the life you want moving forward. Good luck.

They didn't parent you well. However the description of the rages over the games makes me wonder how you would have acted if they'd put boundaries in place.

Our niece has ADHD and I really don't know how her parents cope. She will have explosive tantrums over being told no to anything. They have a very set routine, explain boundaries and reasons calmly, our nephew behaves well, but our niece will have daily explosive rages over something as minor as being told "you've already had an ice cream today so you can't have another, but here are the snacks you can have"

It may be that they were just drained and trying to keep peace in the household, especially if you had siblings.

I was brought up very strictly and went absolutely wild later in life (saner now!). Start choosing the life you want, and everything will fall into place. You might try reading Atomic Habits, it's very good for changing patterns of behaviour.

Halloween is not a good example. Ours had very healthy diets and only ‘junk’ food at birthday parties or other celebrations. We taught them to go easy on it, but have whatever they wanted there, nothing was forbidden. Food was never a reward in a general sense. But we let them do Halloween and were fine for them to dig into their buckets as much as they liked when they got back. It was once a year, and it taught them a good lesson on cause and effect, that eating too much crap caused them to feel ill, without us micro managing that lesson for them. They don’t gorge on sweets as adults because of unrestricted Halloween as kids.

It’s entirely possible, having had teenagers myself, that they told you over and over again, you even said yourself you went in to rages about stuff, and then had absokutely had enough.

you’re an adult now. Make your own choices.

I will have to add, in response to some of these responses that I am NT and although not as extreme as the OP, I would regularly eat loaves of bread, entire cakes to myself, huge packets of cereal etc as a child.
I was bored, lonely and had an ED. I was on my own a lot. Food seemed to be the only thing I had due to bullying from my Father and other kids-which obviously got worse as I got older and fatter!

I am very fit and strong now however, if that helps OP-you CAN turn this around.

Some anger is healthy, which is why I do not like some of these responses. It's better than blaming oneself IMO at times and having a rant to strangers on here is better than internalsing it and/or causing issues in RL.

And as we develop our fat cells in childhood, it is terribly irresponsible as a parent to not instill healthy habits. I do accept that not all parents have the time, knowledge and capabilities however.

Exactly. Damned if you do, damned if you don't as a parent.

Restrict and control - will lead to eating disorders. Let your child eat intuitively.

Let your child eat what they want - neglectful.

I feel for you OP but it is fucking hard as a parent to get this right in a world where cheap, shit food is plentiful, extremely appealing, and largely normalised.

We did our very, very best to model good, healthy, moderate eating habits. Cooking from scratch, eating to appetite, no "bad" foods but a recognition that some foods should be enjoyed in smaller quantities than others.

We have two skinny DC and one who is obese and has been since early teens. God knows we have tried to address it in many different (all supportive) ways but it is unbelievably hard when allowing unlimited access to food, restricting access to food, and every permutation in between ALL make things worse.

From what you have written it does sound like your parents were too blase about your eating, but it is easy to say that as an adult. It may be that your parents were worried (with justification) that trying to intervene could have made things worse.

Trust me there is very, VERY little support available to parents in this situation and it is very, very hard to address.

I hear you OP, I experienced some of the same, though it was from my grandparents. I spent a lot of time there as a child. My parents were not very good at putting their foot down about it. It's taken me a long time to find my "off" switch and not to use food for comfort or reward.

Although we do indeed have the power to make different choices as adults, it's hard when you haven't been taught to self-regulate from an early age, and under stress old habits tend to return.

This Be The Verse
BY PHILIP LARKIN
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

I notice a significant number of posts talking about food being restricted as a child leading to over-eating in later life (happened to me) or few restrictions being in place and people still growing up slim - although I tried that one on my kids and it didn't work. That's because if you've met one fat person and heard about their reasons for being overweight then you've met one fat person. The reasons for obesity and/or eating disorders are complex and its not some sort of moral failure but any thread that buys into the MN factory setting of people just needing to exercise will power is always going to be popular.

OP have you ever sought out counselling for this because it sounds like it would be helpful to examine the whole thing?

Hi OP

Agree it isn't ideal and not good oarentinf that they didnt try and address it. However as PP have said it's really tricky to deal with, and I think there is more advice and guidance now. It's difficult to restrict foods or say no without being controlling around food which has its own issues. Also sitting eating that much food is not that normal, most kids do stop eating things like bread and cheese when they are full so it sounds like there were maybe other things going on witb you.