I haven't looked at the naturally slim thread, I also thought it wouldn't be relevant. I might have a look, but that kind of mindset is really alien to me.
My mother, Littlefish? This could be a long, indulgent and not very happy post!
I'm still trying to please my mother now, because nothing I did pleased her when I was a child. Or if it did, she didn't tell me. She didn't celebrate my achievements; as far as I could tell she barely even noticed them. She expected perfection, and no matter how academic I was and how hard I tried, I couldn't be perfect.
So yes, I think I also over-compensate - I crave the approval that I have never, ever had from her. I can't argue or discuss things rationally with people face to face because I was never allowed to, so never learned to - and also because I'm frightened of saying something that will upset them like I used to be able to upset my mother with just a word - and never a bad word either because I would have been too scared.
I was an extraordinarily well behaved child, because she was very volatile and I was too terrified of her to be anything else - but still she made her dislike of me quite clear. I was painfully shy (still am) and she didn't understand that, so she mocked it. The shyness wasn't helped by my mother, who didn't do anything to help me believe in myself - quite the opposite. She told me I was a nasty girl, she treated me as if I was a nasty girl, and although I knew I wasn't I could never make her see that I wasn't. I tried so hard to make her see, and I'm still trying.
I'm also still frightened of her and of what her reaction will be if I ever disagree or go against her, although I find it easier to handle her now than I did. I ought to; I'm 43 years old, for heaven's sake!
I was in my 30s before my mother told me she loved me. It was my wedding day, the day before my 33rd birthday, and she told me she was proud of me too. 32 years it took - and it stuck in my craw to accept the words from her, even though I'd waited so long for them.
My self-esteem is on the floor, and that's the legacy of my mother. And it's partly the reason why I overeat. I find comfort in food because that was the only thing I could find in my mother that gave comfort - she fed us. She was always negative about me and it's taken/is taking a long while to correct that image that I have of myself.
She was physically abusive, and as I've said before there was abuse of another kind from my grandfather, but the words were the worse, and it's the words (and partly the physical abuse, but that's not as important) that have left their mark on my self-esteem.
I can't blame my mother for everything; some of it is a flaw in my own personality that let me soak up what she said and take the abuse without ever retaliating. It's me who controls what I put in my mouth, not her ... but all too often the "me" that does the controlling is the 6 year old girl who is desperate for love and comfort from the mother I am still desperate to please.
Told you it would be long and not very happy ...