Ask Eric: Mother worries she hurt daughter

Dear Eric: By the time I was 8, I knew something was wrong with me. Children stared at my odd face. Sometimes I’d catch adults doing the same thing. It made me very uncomfortable.

As a teen, my deformities spread, and I had to have two grueling surgeries for spinal abnormalities. Afterward, I came up with elaborate ways to make up my face, do my hair and dress to disguise my oddities

The problem is that I brought all of my damaging coping behaviors into the life of my daughter. The pressure I inadvertently put on her to look pretty made her terribly insecure. Forty years later, the additional effects of aging and childbearing have convinced her she’s so ugly and unattractive that she might as well give up. She is now severely obese and wears rags for clothing that reinforce her thinking.

This breaks my heart. Because I got so messed up myself, I do not know how to help her. Do you have any ideas?

Eric says: First, please work on forgiving yourself for not giving your daughter what you didn’t have to give. While you may have put pressure on her or allowed some of the pain you were processing to impact her, you also are a person trying to navigate the world as best you can. So, grant yourself some grace.

And grant your daughter grace, too. No one is created in a vacuum. You didn’t single-handedly shape her personality, and you don’t have the power to single-handedly change her mind about herself.

But there’s incredible power in vulnerability and honesty. It can transform the relationship you have with your daughter and the relationship you have with yourself.

First, if you’re not already doing so, work on processing the trauma you’ve experienced around your health and body image with a counselor. Once you’ve made some progress, you’ll be in a good state of mind to share with your daughter what you experienced and what you wish you had done differently.

The goal, however, shouldn’t be making her change. That’s her work to do. And if you are sharing with her with the intention that she behave or think differently, it’s likely to have a negative impact on her. Instead, try to work toward accepting her for who she is. That will have the most meaningful impact.

Dear Eric: I live in a fairly upscale apartment building located in a fairly upscale part of a city. It’s quite a nice, new building and I enjoy living there.

But one apartment on the first floor has a bad odor that emanates from it when walking past the door. Because the apartment also opens from the back to the pool, the odor is heavy across a large swath of the lounging area.

The best way to describe the smell is a combination of rotting garbage mixed with dirty diapers that somebody is trying to cover up with cheap fabric softener. I am sure of which apartment it is coming from, because one day I was passing by the door just as the 20-something female tenant was going in and the very recognizable putrid stench blasted out like a wrecking ball slamming me in the gut.

In an era in which anybody like me who complains gets labeled as an entitled “Karen,” I hate to report it to the leasing office. I also have a heart and don’t want to mortify the young woman.

I’m stunned that nobody else has complained. But maybe they’re like me and have no idea what to do. Do you?

Eric says: Alert building management, if for no other reason than if the smell is that bad and that consistent, it strongly suggests a larger problem that could put the resident or other residents at risk.

Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110.