Paula

I watched this episode tonight, and I'm sorry, but I really wanted to beat the $#it out of Paula's sister in-law. People like that think they're being helpful, but they're not. All they do is hurt the person they're trying to help. By saying the things they say, they run the risk of causing the person in question to have a setback and get discouraged and wonder why they're even bothering to lose the weight in the first place.

My mother is like that. I managed quite a few years ago to lose 60 pounds but hit a plateau. Instead of being supportive and telling me how proud she was I'd lost the weight I had, and that I was looking good, she focused on the negative as she always has where I'm concerned and said, "Well, you're just going to have to work harder to get past this plateau. Obviously you're not working hard enough." It hurt me when she said that. It was as though the hard work I'd already put in didn't matter, and meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. Within a few months I wound up putting thirty pounds back on. Within a year, I put the remaining thirty pounds back on, plus additional weight. I had no support system, so I stopped seeing the point of losing weight at all since my mother wasn't supporting me, and I had no one else, and if my own mother couldn't be helpful/supportive/positive, why should I believe in myself? She's always been good at destroying my self-esteem, and I've never understood why she did it.

So when I saw Paula's sister in-law behaving the same way, I got so angry and wanted to just reach through the T.V. screen and punch the witch. I could see on Paula's face how she was trying really hard not to start yelling at her and getting defensive. I was really proud of her, and when she ultimately "rebelled" and decided to sit down and not help anymore with cleaning up, I wasn't disappointed in her for her behavior; I understood exactly how she felt, and I just nodded my head in agreement with her.


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