I Wish Mom Had Ozempic. She'd Have Liked Me

Semaglutide drugs would have made a huge difference to my mother's mental health - and to our relationship

- SHERRIE PAGE GUYER

"I'M FROM HEARTY GERMAN people," my morbidly obese mother used to say. "If the mule was sick, my ancestors would strap the yoke to their own backs to plow the field."

At first, I accepted my mother's heritage as the reason for her size, but as I grew older, I noticed Halloween and Easter candy disappeared overnight, Christmas cookies meant for gifts were never given, and special desserts baked for company never made it to the table.

Cakes, pies, ice cream—anything sweet—was her heroin. I'd find a sea of candy bar wrappers under the driver's seat in her car and spy her waking early to replace the box of cookies or cartons of ice cream she'd eaten the night before.

As a child, I knew my love was dependent on not questioning the "crazy." Like the kid of every addict, you dance around the secrets. The dance we all did included a silent deal: We pretended not to notice, and she pretended, too.

In my teens, that choreography changed. My parents' divorce resulted in my father and younger brother moving 100 miles away, leaving me with my mother and her food addiction.

By high school, I started to call her out: "What happened to the brownies I made for the cheerleader bake sale?" I'd demand, annoyed, already knowing the answer.

I became the bad guy: A shallow brat with nothing more than cheerleading and silly bake sales on her mind. That became our shared narrative and caused untold friction between us. Especially when despite our shared genetics, my body wasn't turning out like hers.