Poll - to Shop with Bitchy Cousin, or Not?

I have no idea how many people actually read this blog, but what the hey, I'll ask for some user feedback. My brother is getting married in September, yay. My mom and I have been stressing about finding dresses for the wedding. We looked once and saw NOTHING. And we looked at nice places, like Lord & Taylor, Macy's. Either they were sun dresses or waaaaaaaaay too expensive. I didn't even go into Nordstrom's, the store that sells $300 scarves. And then, you probably imagine how difficult it can be to go dress shopping if you're not a size 6.

Anyway, we need to buy dresses, soon. My mom called me the other day and said that my cousin, X, wanted to come with us. Now, I am less than comfortable with this for a couple of reasons.

Let me start off by saying I'm not fat, but I'm not thin. I'm not exactly toned and athletic, and I could stand to lose some weight and be in better shape. But I'm not obese, I can shop at most normal stores, and the tops and Lane Bryant are too big for me. Also, I used to have eating disorder issues. I was an obsessive dieter in high school, and in college I graduated to constantly dieting, obessing about my weight, starving myself or making myself throw up if I did eat something "bad". It took four years of therapy to get past that and put it in perspective, and I have a pretty healthy attitude about it now. It was a big issue for me. Thank God I got a handle on it (with the help of a good therapist) before I really hurt myself with it. I did get to the point where I had low blood pressure and low energy, but thank goodness, it never got to the point where I was throwing up after every meal, or losing hair, etc.

But in the past, this cousin, X, who weighs 80 pounds and wears low rise jeans and skintight outfits (even though she's 39) has said some pretty insensitive things about my weight. And has just been insensitive about weight in general. I remember once, when I hadn't seen her for a couple of years, she actually said "You look really good! Last time I saw you, you were kind of fat." Goddamn. What do you say to that? In case you were wondering who actuallly says things like that, my cousin X does.

Other times she's just done things like make incredibly fattening meals that include things like bacon, bacon grease, bread and pasta, and then after the meal, revealed how much bacon grease was included (I had no idea bacon grease was an ingredient), and how obviously you couldn't eat this often or you'd be a huge fat pig (here she used her arms and puffed out her cheeks to mimic a huge fat person). You guessed it - I barfed up as much of that meal as I could a few minutes later in the bathroom. My mom caught me. That was when she first took seriously the idea that I really had a bona fide disorder related to food.

My cousin, X, is the kind of woman who doesn't have very many female friends, at least not good ones. She has guy friends, and likes getting male attention. She has a reputation for being spoiled, catty, selfish and bitchy. To put it lightly, she's not usually considerate of others. At all.

So how the hell am I supposed to go dress shopping with her? I am not a fan of shopping anyway. Partly because it's not easy finding work appropriate clothes, especially since I'm an in between size. Size 12 at some places, 14 or even 16 at others. Sometimes I'm all of those sizes all in the same store, which is mind boggling. I know people who gasp when they hear me say size 12. Apparently I don't look like a typical size 12, whatever that means. But shopping is a bitch. I don't do it often. In fact, I put it off as long as possible.

Just to clarify, I know that in front of my mom, she's not going to say anything as overt as she has in the past. But she is really good at backhanded remarks...you all know how that is. Ugh. I could try and explain this to my mom, but she has a hard time dealing with the fact that her neice can be a bitchy bitch, so she might just sigh with exasperation and say that I'm holding grudges, and I need to let things go and let the past be the past. Fine and dandy, but my cousin is still insensitive and bitchy, but my mom wants to get along with her because she's family. But, I really don't need to have my self esteem ground into a fine powder because she makes some patronizing comment about how a dress "does so much for me". I'm really tempted to just make an excuse not to go. What do you all think?