Comments on: Fortresses to Build and to Destroy: How I Recovered from Fatness and Rebuilt my Life http://mydiettips.info/2010/03/fortresses-to-build-and-to-destroy-how-i-recovered-from-fatness-and-rebuilt-my-life/ Diet products tips Mon, 21 May 2012 18:25:14 +0200 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Arkansas Reader http://mydiettips.info/2010/03/fortresses-to-build-and-to-destroy-how-i-recovered-from-fatness-and-rebuilt-my-life/#comment-444 Arkansas Reader Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:39:58 +0000 http://mydiettips.info/2010/03/fortresses-to-build-and-to-destroy-how-i-recovered-from-fatness-and-rebuilt-my-life/#comment-444 This book details one woman's attempt to overcome both her health problems and her traumatic past. It is useful not just for those seeking to lose weight or overcome abuse but for those looking for their internal strength to overcome obstacles in their lives. This book is more than an autobiography, it is more than therapy. It is a journey of spiritual and personal growth for readers and how one woman found the courage to overcome the haunting memories of an abusive childhood and use that experience to help others. Rating: 5 / 5 This book details one woman’s attempt to overcome both her health problems and her traumatic past. It is useful not just for those seeking to lose weight or overcome abuse but for those looking for their internal strength to overcome obstacles in their lives. This book is more than an autobiography, it is more than therapy. It is a journey of spiritual and personal growth for readers and how one woman found the courage to overcome the haunting memories of an abusive childhood and use that experience to help others.
Rating: 5 / 5

]]> By: Allie Hughes http://mydiettips.info/2010/03/fortresses-to-build-and-to-destroy-how-i-recovered-from-fatness-and-rebuilt-my-life/#comment-443 Allie Hughes Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:03:12 +0000 http://mydiettips.info/2010/03/fortresses-to-build-and-to-destroy-how-i-recovered-from-fatness-and-rebuilt-my-life/#comment-443 This is one of the most powerful and beautiful books I've ever read. Ms. Morgan relates her issues with food addiction back to her often traumatic childhood. I have had problems in my own life with obsessive eating and always wondered why. The questions to the reader at the end of each chapter were so helpful to me in my own discovery of this question. This book is for everyone seeking an understanding into their addiction or a loved one's addiction. It is thought provoking and so beautifully written. You won't be able to put this one down! Rating: 5 / 5 This is one of the most powerful and beautiful books I’ve ever read. Ms. Morgan relates her issues with food addiction back to her often traumatic childhood. I have had problems in my own life with obsessive eating and always wondered why. The questions to the reader at the end of each chapter were so helpful to me in my own discovery of this question. This book is for everyone seeking an understanding into their addiction or a loved one’s addiction. It is thought provoking and so beautifully written. You won’t be able to put this one down!
Rating: 5 / 5

]]> By: Julie Bray http://mydiettips.info/2010/03/fortresses-to-build-and-to-destroy-how-i-recovered-from-fatness-and-rebuilt-my-life/#comment-442 Julie Bray Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:01:01 +0000 http://mydiettips.info/2010/03/fortresses-to-build-and-to-destroy-how-i-recovered-from-fatness-and-rebuilt-my-life/#comment-442 This is a courageous account of one person's journey to authenticity. The writter's struggle was with obesity but the concepts can be interchanged to apply to anyone suffering from any addiction. I would recommend this to anyone who is tired of living with the emptiness of trying to please everyone but herself and is ready for self-awakening. Rating: 5 / 5 This is a courageous account of one person’s journey to authenticity. The writter’s struggle was with obesity but the concepts can be interchanged to apply to anyone suffering from any addiction. I would recommend this to anyone who is tired of living with the emptiness of trying to please everyone but herself and is ready for self-awakening.
Rating: 5 / 5

]]> By: C. Lehew http://mydiettips.info/2010/03/fortresses-to-build-and-to-destroy-how-i-recovered-from-fatness-and-rebuilt-my-life/#comment-441 C. Lehew Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:19:56 +0000 http://mydiettips.info/2010/03/fortresses-to-build-and-to-destroy-how-i-recovered-from-fatness-and-rebuilt-my-life/#comment-441 While ultimately I found the book inspiring, it was difficult to read in a continuous sitting. I found that I had to "digest" one chapter at a time. The writer's story made me feel uncomfortable at times. Perhaps because it reminded me of things I had experienced and would rather forget. I do believe her personal discovery has important messages for the reader. And the exercises or meditations at the end of each chapter are very helpful to someone on the road to recovery/discovery. However, this is not a book for someone who is not ready to seriously examine why they have used fatness as a source of protection. It can be quite painful to do the work the author has done. It was well written and well organized. Rating: 4 / 5 While ultimately I found the book inspiring, it was difficult to read in a continuous sitting. I found that I had to “digest” one chapter at a time. The writer’s story made me feel uncomfortable at times. Perhaps because it reminded me of things I had experienced and would rather forget. I do believe her personal discovery has important messages for the reader. And the exercises or meditations at the end of each chapter are very helpful to someone on the road to recovery/discovery. However, this is not a book for someone who is not ready to seriously examine why they have used fatness as a source of protection. It can be quite painful to do the work the author has done. It was well written and well organized.
Rating: 4 / 5

]]> By: J. Al-hashimi http://mydiettips.info/2010/03/fortresses-to-build-and-to-destroy-how-i-recovered-from-fatness-and-rebuilt-my-life/#comment-440 J. Al-hashimi Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:23:00 +0000 http://mydiettips.info/2010/03/fortresses-to-build-and-to-destroy-how-i-recovered-from-fatness-and-rebuilt-my-life/#comment-440 I just finished this book and have a couple thoughts. This author is incredibly insightful and the reader is given so many jewels of wisdom about parenting and the outcome. For instance she says: "The immature mother subconsciously believes that the magical trick is working and that the sacrifice of the child is appropriate to history and circumstances. It seemed to provide my mother with some sense of justice, of payback, "of now it's time to get mine." Profound and original stuff, and there is a lot of it in this book. Alexis Morgan has reached incredible insight and understanding here, but at what a cost to her life... it was simply horrific to read.The physical-mental-emotional torment this author went through was not only life-threatening but also stole her happiness and rippled through her family disaffecting the health and happiness of her daughter and it could not have been good for her husband and others. Ripple negative impact from a deliberately destructive individual. It made you want to reach through the pages of the book, go back in time and make the author a ward of the state at age four. <br /> <br />Yet, through it all... 60 years... the author's mother took pretty good care of herself. <br /> <br />What's kind of disturbing is the pride with which this author describes her mother's career accomplishments and "good moments" of non-abusive interaction. <br /> <br />While the book is intensely personal and the author's analyses brilliant on many relational points, I was concerned for this author on one important point. When it is obvious that this author's mother is pathologically competitive, jealous and cruel, I just don't know why anyone would keep going back to the well for more... it just cannot be worth it. Ms Morgan speaks of geographical distancing and gradually setting boundaries, but clearly that wasn't enough because as she points out you cannot control what other people say and do and her mother continued to sucker-punch her with abject mean-spiritedness even when the author was in her 60s. She left the house at 19; why blow four more decades on trying to make her mother into someone she couldn't be? <br /> <br />It seems obvious to this reader that that the sooner this author walked away the better for her. She was destroyed over and over by this mother and the mother's influence on her brother... what's the point? I understand the time frame the thinking on this took place; the author is in her 60s. I think a more enlightened point of view nowadays would be to cut it off with someone this overtly cruel, even if he/she be a parent. The author repeatedly references the Fourth Commandment, to honor thy parents, as a guide to her behavior but it is the book's bad message. If the parent is narcisstic bully with no empathy or regard for her daughter, then how is honor the proper response? It just isn't. Unconditional love in return for deliberate life long cruelty/deprivation/neglect is not reasonable. Period. <br /> <br />And this point is easy to make in two quick arguments. While pretty much everyone can reproduce, not everyone is psychologically healthy/mentally balanced.Clearly, in the innumerable permutations of the human personality there are people who cannot wish for better for their children or even wish them well. And, there are those, like this author's mother, who actively wish to destroy them when they have power over their lives. I see total avoidance and self-protectiveness more than forgiveness and continuing interaction as the solutions here. <br /> <br />Secondly, what does "honor" mean? Refusing to deal with someone that uses every opportunity to do you harm, and/or historically has basically destroyed you over and over is not the opposite of honor. And there is one more point that the author seems to miss: this author's mother functioned better, even normally, in areas of her life like her civil service job, but not with her daughter. Her daughter, this author, consistenly triggered vicious jealously, competition and vengefulness. Evidently, this narcissitic mother saw her darling four year old daughter and felt mostly rage and resentment and retaliation and then with a sense of entitlement acted on those emotions... for a lifetime, refusing to recognize or be grateful to this child for all she was forced to do. Heartless. Nefarious. Unforgivable. <br /> <br />I would defer to Alice Miller's point of view on the "honor thy parents" commandment when dealing with a sadistic parent. When a parent is this destructive it is a pathology and that person needs to be cut out of your life. Go to the book by Alice Miller: "The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effect of Cruel Parenting," in regards to the Fourth Commandment, Page 130: "... as soon as we opt out of this value system it would be absurd for an adult woman to be expected to honor her parents for either being brutally cruel to her, or for looking on and failing to intervene." Exactly. She goes on to say that the idea of most therapists is that success of therapy is forgiveness of the errant parent by the person in therapy and goes on to explain the ridiculousness of that position. I would hope that this is changing in therapy-world. <br /> <br />Page 53 of the same Miller book: "People who have done you such harm do not deserve your love or respect, even if they are your parents. The price you pay for such filial devotion is appalling, the terrible physical torments you repeatedly go through. You can free yourself from the Fourth Commandment." <br /> <br />Other than the constant trying to make a relationship work with her mother the book had some outstanding analyses. I wish Ms. Morgan the absolute best. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Rating: 5 / 5 I just finished this book and have a couple thoughts. This author is incredibly insightful and the reader is given so many jewels of wisdom about parenting and the outcome. For instance she says: “The immature mother subconsciously believes that the magical trick is working and that the sacrifice of the child is appropriate to history and circumstances. It seemed to provide my mother with some sense of justice, of payback, “of now it’s time to get mine.” Profound and original stuff, and there is a lot of it in this book. Alexis Morgan has reached incredible insight and understanding here, but at what a cost to her life… it was simply horrific to read.The physical-mental-emotional torment this author went through was not only life-threatening but also stole her happiness and rippled through her family disaffecting the health and happiness of her daughter and it could not have been good for her husband and others. Ripple negative impact from a deliberately destructive individual. It made you want to reach through the pages of the book, go back in time and make the author a ward of the state at age four.

Yet, through it all… 60 years… the author’s mother took pretty good care of herself.

What’s kind of disturbing is the pride with which this author describes her mother’s career accomplishments and “good moments” of non-abusive interaction.

While the book is intensely personal and the author’s analyses brilliant on many relational points, I was concerned for this author on one important point. When it is obvious that this author’s mother is pathologically competitive, jealous and cruel, I just don’t know why anyone would keep going back to the well for more… it just cannot be worth it. Ms Morgan speaks of geographical distancing and gradually setting boundaries, but clearly that wasn’t enough because as she points out you cannot control what other people say and do and her mother continued to sucker-punch her with abject mean-spiritedness even when the author was in her 60s. She left the house at 19; why blow four more decades on trying to make her mother into someone she couldn’t be?

It seems obvious to this reader that that the sooner this author walked away the better for her. She was destroyed over and over by this mother and the mother’s influence on her brother… what’s the point? I understand the time frame the thinking on this took place; the author is in her 60s. I think a more enlightened point of view nowadays would be to cut it off with someone this overtly cruel, even if he/she be a parent. The author repeatedly references the Fourth Commandment, to honor thy parents, as a guide to her behavior but it is the book’s bad message. If the parent is narcisstic bully with no empathy or regard for her daughter, then how is honor the proper response? It just isn’t. Unconditional love in return for deliberate life long cruelty/deprivation/neglect is not reasonable. Period.

And this point is easy to make in two quick arguments. While pretty much everyone can reproduce, not everyone is psychologically healthy/mentally balanced.Clearly, in the innumerable permutations of the human personality there are people who cannot wish for better for their children or even wish them well. And, there are those, like this author’s mother, who actively wish to destroy them when they have power over their lives. I see total avoidance and self-protectiveness more than forgiveness and continuing interaction as the solutions here.

Secondly, what does “honor” mean? Refusing to deal with someone that uses every opportunity to do you harm, and/or historically has basically destroyed you over and over is not the opposite of honor. And there is one more point that the author seems to miss: this author’s mother functioned better, even normally, in areas of her life like her civil service job, but not with her daughter. Her daughter, this author, consistenly triggered vicious jealously, competition and vengefulness. Evidently, this narcissitic mother saw her darling four year old daughter and felt mostly rage and resentment and retaliation and then with a sense of entitlement acted on those emotions… for a lifetime, refusing to recognize or be grateful to this child for all she was forced to do. Heartless. Nefarious. Unforgivable.

I would defer to Alice Miller’s point of view on the “honor thy parents” commandment when dealing with a sadistic parent. When a parent is this destructive it is a pathology and that person needs to be cut out of your life. Go to the book by Alice Miller: “The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effect of Cruel Parenting,” in regards to the Fourth Commandment, Page 130: “… as soon as we opt out of this value system it would be absurd for an adult woman to be expected to honor her parents for either being brutally cruel to her, or for looking on and failing to intervene.” Exactly. She goes on to say that the idea of most therapists is that success of therapy is forgiveness of the errant parent by the person in therapy and goes on to explain the ridiculousness of that position. I would hope that this is changing in therapy-world.

Page 53 of the same Miller book: “People who have done you such harm do not deserve your love or respect, even if they are your parents. The price you pay for such filial devotion is appalling, the terrible physical torments you repeatedly go through. You can free yourself from the Fourth Commandment.”

Other than the constant trying to make a relationship work with her mother the book had some outstanding analyses. I wish Ms. Morgan the absolute best.

Rating: 5 / 5

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