I just returned from a one-week stay with my Dad (I was caring for him while his wife was in the hospital after colon cancer surgery). My dad has been through four months of chemo and radiation himself for lung cancer, but he's supposed to make it.

Anyway....my dad has a history of making particularly nasty remarks to me about my weight -- even though I've always worked out and jogged regularly. After Tapping for a year, losing 25 pounds and going down two sizes, I had hoped he would notice that I looked the way I did in my thirties (I'm 45 now). Well, I shouldn't have held my breath! I hadn't been in his home for more than two hours when he started discussing his opinion about what things can make a woman unattractive to men (not my favorite subject). He talked about how hairy forearms turned him off big time, and then he turned to me and said, "Of course, there are OTHER things that make women even more unattractive," and he squeezed my upper arm (which was hidden by a long-sleeved shirt).

Obviously, he was alluding to my being too fat. So I flexed my arm muscles, which have become quite cut because I've been concentrating on arms in my Tapping routine, and said, "Oh, they don't like muscular women?" You'd have thought my arm had burned him! His hand flew off as soon as I flexed, and he immediately changed the subject.

I'm back home now, but I'm still seething from that comment. And, no, I didn't poison him or kill him in his sleep (just tempted to! LOL!).

The only nice thing he said to me besides thanking me for coming up to take care of him was that he said that he'd noticed I'd slimmed down quite a bit...."BUT (and this is the clincher) you're still pretty large on top." (He was referring to my bust!) I could have screamed! Not only am I fat, in his opinion, but something that is totally genetic and can't be changed apparently annoys him -- and the big boobs are from HIS side! Scream, scream, scream!!!

Sorry to vent like this, but I am TIRED of trying to please my father no matter what I do. For my entire life, he criticized my "skinny bird legs" and other body parts he found undesirable. Now that I'm grown, I no longer dissolve into tears -- but I'm angry that he doesn't see that I look fine now and congratulate me on my success. Tapping has finally made me proud of my body, and it just sickens me to know that all it takes is for me to visit him and hear more of the same old remarks to make me feel bad about myself.

Don't worry -- I'm not really letting him get to me. I Tapped today for an hour and brushed all over, and I think I look pretty darned good. I wish I could stop seething, though. Felt good to vent -- thanks, guys!

Laura H.

Edited by - Stephanie_T-Tapper on 09/04/2002 8:52:44 PM