My Mother's Story

I took these shots of my mother when I was visiting her in Bodman-Ludwigshafen near Konstanz in Germany last year.
She grew up on a farm with one younger and two older brothers and was the only one sent to boarding school.
There they made her cut her hair short which she didn't like and she recalls running away from the nuns (it was a catholic institution) who she claims were mean.

A few years ago she told me in tears that she would watch the other students get hugs from their parents on returning to the school after their summer holidays, but she never got a hug or told she was loved. Instead, she was given some money and told to buy something nice with it.
Her anorexia began there followed by over twenty years of bulimia which nearly killed her.
She had moved to Scotland on something of a whim when she was twenty after meeting my dad who was teaching English in Germany for a year. They became pregnant with my older sister quickly and in the midst of a volatile relationship that spanned two decades and created another two children, her bulimia escalated and escalated.
Finally in the year 2000, she left Scotland and went back home to enter into a treatment centre where she stayed for seven months to help her to recover from her eating disorder and work through some of her demons.
When she left, she rebuilt her life from scratch.
Now she has an excellent job after spending several years in study in the medical industry.
We have different views on things and have somewhat a fragmented relationship, but there is still a lot of love there between us and I admire her for her strength in overcoming her challenges to the best of her ability.