I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, but then again, I'm not sure there is a right place for this - and that might be a big part of my problem.
I've struggled with my weight my whole life. Unbeknownst to me, I've also struggled with PTSD, anxiety and depression, multiple sleep disorders, and PCOS, which probably goes some ways to explaining why the weight loss methods that worked for other people didn't necessarily work for me. My wife has even more health problems than I do, and a lot of the time it feels like we're both struggling to just function day-to-day; there aren't very many spare resources to go around, and as much as she wants to be supportive she isn't very good at actually helping me achieve lifestyle goals because she's got to focus on keeping herself going.
It sucks.
I've got a lot of little problems - I've battled multiple eating disorders, and have to put a lot of work into fighting body dysmorphia on a daily basis, to the extent that leaving the house takes a fairly significant effort of will. I'm seeing therapists, doctors, I'm taking the medications I'm meant to be taking, and I'm trying my best to do everything I know I'm supposed to do - and I keep failing. I'll manage to control my diet for a few weeks or months, and then my wife gets sick and can't cook and I get sick and can't cook, and suddenly I'm up twenty pounds. I'm doing well on my medications, and then my health insurance glitches and I have to go off of everything for three months while they sort out paperwork, and then I'm back to square one getting my head together all over again.
It feels like every time I take a step forward something comes and knocks me two steps back, and I'm starting to get really, really frustrated with the well-meaning people who keep advising me to get back up on my feet and try again. As though I haven't been doing that for the last sixteen years! I have the same doctors trying to offer me the same information they were giving me five years ago, because (I guess?) they assume that if I retained their info I would be following it. I'm starting to run out of ways to deal with people telling me I need to focus on X - sleep, exercise, mindfulness, tracking - not understanding that every time I shift my focus to one thing, I have to take it away from another thing. I'm not fighting a lack of knowledge, I'm fighting a lack of resources, and that's the one thing that nobody in my life seems to be able to offer.
I've tried asking for help; so far, I've yet to have a friend or family member who's actually able to follow through in ways that make my life any easier. My family is helping me pay for a gym membership, but they live far away from me and can't do anything about the part where I don't have the energy to make sure that my wife and I both take our medication, get to our appointments, work, and then also get myself to the gym. Everyone else talks a good game about offering time or resources, but when I actually need it, they're never around.
The biggest challenge, though, is that I'm not giving up, and I'm starting to feel like a complete and utter idiot for sticking with things. I know the old saying, the definition of insanity being to try the same thing over and over expecting different results. I know how stupid it sounds, to say "Okay, I'm really going to try to focus on exercising when I can and keeping a caloric deficit" for the umpteenth time, when the last however many times I've said it have resulted in me falling off track and gaining weight back and getting sick and bedridden and ending right back at square one all over again.
I have absolutely zero sense that I have the power to change my situation. I have zero sense that any of my best efforts will result in success, because they never have. But, I can't just say "okay, I guess I fail then". I don't know why, since I have very little in the way of motivation and no hope whatsoever. I feel stupid, my efforts feel futile, and after years of work I'm at my heaviest weight ever. I feel like if I couldn't succeed at 20, or 25, when my body and metabolism were at their prime, there's pretty much no way I'll be able to get anywhere at 31. Soon to be 32.
And ... I'm going to keep trying to use MFP and go for walks when I can, and try not to cry when someone inevitably asks me how it's going.
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