Thank you for your thoughts Anita. My parents are not from the US originally, and where they come from nudity within the family might be a bit more acceptable. Therefore, perhaps they did not realize the teasing, at my expense, was not appreciated. After all, they have seen me naked in my early life more than anybody else has…who knows, maybe that teasing reminded them of those young childhood days, memories of bath time. I think I was fine with being nude in front of them when I was 8, maybe even 9. But 10-11 seemed a bit too old from my perspective…maybe they just didn’t realize that. For example, once we were visiting a relative, after coming out of the bath I needed the room to change, my mom said it would be fine if she stayed she was just in the room getting some stuff together, but I insisted she leave too (and she did along with the others). I honestly don’t think they had any negative attentions.

I do remember a time when I was 14 or 15 on a hot day when my sister was almost insisting that I take my shirt off to prove that I don’t get embarrassed, my mom was the first person to defend me/lecture her on where I am in life right now with regards to my body, and why I am not comfortable with that. We recently took a beach vacation, I didn’t want to go to the pool. While my sister was insisting, my mom again told her it is fine if I don’t want to take my shirt off. Also, in incident #1 that you mentioned, she didn’t actually see me nude.

It’s strange, I go through periods of time where the above really really bothers me and I just wish they hadn’t done that at all and I think about other people who were “lucky” to not have that. Then there other times where I am personally bothered by the things I did or said to my family in my teens that wasn’t nice (unrelated to the above, not revengeful behavior), and I don’t think about these incidents at all. I developed some body issues in my teens, but I don’t think that was related to the teasing. During those years with the teasing, I had no issue taking my shirt off at the pool/going swimming. I feel like I didn’t actually think too much of the teasing when it was going on, but a couple of times when I was walked in on in the bathroom in my teens oddly reminded me of those times…and then it made me upset.

Would you happen to have any other ideas on how to deal with this, other than directly talking to them about it? I almost feel that would just be better to somehow manage to put this away, instead of bringing it up with them and further driving it into consciousness.

Much appreciated Anita! I have seen how much you help other people on this website, and I must say that you are absolutely awesome!