I’ve always been a bit overweight throughout my life. Growing up, my parents and family members constantly called me fat and told me to lose weight. They told me to exercise more and to stop eating fatty foods. I would rebel by always ordering pasta, my favorite dish, at restaurants. Whenever I ordered a high-fat dish, Mother would ask, “Are you sure you want to eat that? That’s really fatty.” She always spoke in Vietnamese to us, but would intentionally speak in English so that our waiter could hear, publically shaming me for choosing to order a pasta dish. Of course, these constant attacks on my weight affected me, leaving lasting damage on my self-esteem even to this day. Sometimes at restaurants, she would ask for hot water at restaurants so that she could steep fat-burning tea for herself and for me to drink after our meal.

While at home on Christmas break during my first year of undergraduate studies, I wrote in the journal that I kept at that time:

“Hey! I am on Christmas break and it is really bittersweet. I hate how my mother would always bitch to me about my weight! Like, are you serious? I know that I am fat and I HATE myself for that. I already feel like shit and I do not need any of your demeaning remarks. It makes me want to commit suicide to be honest. My self-esteem and self-worth is already non-existent.”

When Despicable Me 2 came out in theatres in 2013, Mother was able to get a new insult for me. She would constantly say that if I continued to gain weight, that I would look like Silas Ramsbottom from the movie. Silas was the guy who has an extremely prominent double-chin and whose name the minions laughed at. Mother would sometimes alternate her insult and say that I was starting to look like the “guy from Despicable Me.”

As a result of all this fat-shaming, I would take measures to prevent myself from looking fat. Whenever I posed for photos at family dinners or on vacation, I would always jut out my head to prevent a double-chin look and suck in my stomach to not look bloated. I would always wear black as it was a slimming color. I would wear loose clothing so that I could hide my body in them. I would smile and nod politely whenever a family member criticized me about my weight because I couldn’t talk back to them for fear of embarrassing my parents and being called ‘disrespectful.’

Recently, in the summer of 2018, Mother would constantly yell my name from the kitchen, telling me to come down and drink grapefruit juice 30 minutes after I eat dinner, because it “helps with digestion and helps lose weight.” Sometimes, she would alternate the drink by yelling for me to come down to drink freshly-squeezed lemon juice with hot water and honey or fat-burning tea. It was so annoying and irritating. Whenever she yelled and I didn’t answer, which is often, she would yell to Father and try to get him to tell me to come down. It is completely disgusting and degrading. No wonder my self esteem is shit. I literally felt like I was going to snap whenever Mother shrieked my name, feeling compelled to come downstairs and throw that cup of grapefruit juice on the ground. Of course, I never did though. I kept my frustrations to myself and drank those drinks to get Mother to stop pestering me.

Mother would buy a ton of herbs and supplements for me to take to make me lose weight. She recently bought green tea extract pills and told me to drink 4 pills before bed so that I would poo a lot in the morning, making my tummy become slim over time. Before, she would make me take a 2-weeks detox system twice a year to get rid of the bad toxins in my body. I was the only child to get this special fat treatment from Mother. My older brother didn’t as he has a fast metabolism and was naturally slim. My younger brother wasn’t naturally thin, but he was never as big as I was. For him, she would just try to shame him whenever he ordered pasta, telling him that he would gain back all the weight that he lost. ​It was absolutely exhausting to be constantly told that you are fat and that you had to lose weight because if not, you would look “ugly and no girls will want you.” Always being told that I should exercise and lose weight made me rebel and not want to exercise at all.

I know that she learned this parenting technique from her own mother who would often criticize her daughter’s weight whenever we saw her. When on vacation one day, Grandmother criticized Mother for getting so much from the breakfast buffet. Mother got upset and decided to not eat any of the food that she got. One time when we visited Grandmother in Montréal, she criticized Mother about her weight, saying that she has gained weight since the last time they saw each other. Mother then tried to direct her mother’s attention to my brothers and I by asking her what she thought about our weights. By trying to redirect her mother’s attention to someone else, Mother would not have to hear her mother continue to criticize her weight, rather wanting her mother to criticize her sons instead. A clear display of the cyclical nature of parenting. We teach how we have been taught.

I know Mother loves me and that she believes that what she is doing is what’s best for me. She thinks that because her insults will make me feel bad, that I would be willing to change, to lose weight and exercise. However, people don’t like being told what to do and naturally would rebel in retaliation. Motivation has to come from within. If I want to lose weight, the best way is to find the motivation within myself to lose weight. It has to come from the individual. Having insults be thrown my way will only make me feel bad about myself and make me not want to lose weight to teach Mother a lesson. I understand that she has this fear, brought about by society’s beauty standards, that if I gained weight, I would look unattractive. And if I looked unattractive, I would not be able to find a girl and start a family. I know that she is also terrified that if I gained weight that I may die early from a heart attack. Of course, I won’t be able to find a girl anyways because I’m gay and don’t want to find a girl in the first place. But what if I don’t want a family? What if I don’t want to marry? And in terms of dying, a lot of things can make you die. You could die from a freak accident, from a car crash, from an airplane malfunction, etc. Life isn’t guaranteed for any of us. It would be nice to not have to spend the little time that I have on this earth listening to Mother constantly tell me that I am fat.