How to make（使） peace with your belly fat. When I was a young girl, my Vietnamese refugee（难民） mother, a manicurist, went in for plastic surgery（外科）. A tummy tuck（缝摺）, the nearing of her nostrils（鼻孔）, and a chin implant, and figured（ 认为） she would be home the next day with her beautiful, new body. Two hours into the operation, she lost oxygen to her brain. The human brain can go without oxygen for up to four minutes before permanent（永久的） brain damage occurs. 14 minutes passed before the surgeon（外科医生） called 911.

  After five days in a coma（昏迷）, she flatlined. She was just 38 years old, and I was 11. For the next two decades, my family never spoke of her or how she died. I kept asking questions, but they said I was being too emotional（感情的）, stuck, living in the past. And I believed them. But I always felt like there was something missing, and nothing I could do could feel that void（ 空隙）.

  Even though I lost my mother to extreme beauty standards, my father and aunties would openly（不隐瞒地） criticize（批评） my body at the dinner table. No one is going to love you if you're too fat. And when I say fat, I mean, they were concerned（有关的） I wasn't a size 0 or size 2. I was a monstrous（巨大的） size 6, and this terrified（恐吓） them. They were afraid that I would become unmarriageable, destined（ 指定） to die alone. And they reminded me of this every time I called, every time I visited, every time they fed me, which made eating quite complicated（复杂的）.

  But it's those kinds of lines that can sink deep into your psyche（灵魂）, minimizing（使减到最少） who you think you are and what you think you could be. My worthiness（价值） was tied to my body because my elder's approval（批准） meant everything to me. So then I took on their degrading words, and then I did the work for them. I became desperate（不顾一切的）, willing（愿意的） to date（注…日期） anyone with a pulse, hoping that if they cared for me, then maybe they could fill the void of my mother's death. I stayed in abusive relationships too long. I gave my body away to strangers like it was no big deal.

  But maybe the honest truth I couldn't admit was that I didn't think I was a big deal. I didn't deserve（应受） to be happy because I was so flawed（ 有缺点的）. And if I was in a relationship, no matter how dysfunctional, I better stick with it because who knows if I could get anything better? All of this thinking took up a lot of energy. Instead of focusing on pursuing（继续） my own dreams, I became obsessed with my body in all the wrong ways. I remember right after my mom died, I started a food and exercise journal.

  I've done all the diets, tried all the exercise fads（时尚）, gone on silent meditation（冥想） retreats（撤退）, chanted positive affirmations in the mirror, and none of it has ever worked. None of it has ever worked because I was so disconnected from my body. It wasn't a part of me. It was a problem that needed to be fixed. My body was a nuisance（讨厌的人）. And it was the very（ 恰好的） thing that stood in the way of me being loved for my family and from me being worthy（有价值的）.

  All things told, I was a living hypocrite（伪君子）. I wrote and performed a solo（独奏曲） show about how beauty killed my mother. Yet even then, I felt insecure（不安全的） in my own skin. Getting dressed in the mornings, trying on clothes at stores, it's also triggering（引发）. And then after having a baby, I was devastated（毁坏） about my body. All I wanted was to return to my pre-baby（婴儿的） weight.

  But when I finally got there, I was still disappointed because my body had this belly fat that hung off my body, but now with ugly, ugly stretch（伸展） marks. Another reminder（ 提醒物） of my imperfection. My belly fat is a part of my body that I hate the most. I think about it every day.