I'm new here & using my phone, I pre-apologize for all typos, etc. I've had a reddit account for almost 5 years, this will be my third post, but I've been wanting to talk to someone, anyone for a while. I want to know things like, how many others in here were skinny kids whose parents starved them because drugs/drinks were more important than you, and your siblings? I want to know how many of you have had an easing of your mental disabilities (I have PTSD, depression, anxiety, misophonia) through weight loss. I want to be inspired by people who are genuine, not looking to sell a weight loss product, or a style of life. I, also, want to share a part of my own story. (TLDR below)
When I was little, food was often hard to come by. My mom, at one point, would spend money on a bag of lollipops (1978, age 5), and when we complained about being hungry she'd give us another one. There were times that was all we ate. From 5-7 she was a struggling divorced woman, sometimes there was just nothing to have. She finished school, got a job, we started eating more regularly. When I was 7 she married my most current sexual abuser, and got back into drugs, and drinking, but we, still, got fed regularly. Then she sent us to live with our father where I turned 8. My father was working, and going to school full time. My stepmother was postpartum, and having to handle 7 children. It led to severe beatings, food scarcity, and one of my siblings being removed to foster care. The next year I, and two of my siblings, were sent to live with my grandmother, and grandfather. It was a wonderful year, even though it was made clear that I was not the favorite (my aunt told me, told me who was, etc.) We had safe places to play, regular meals, fresh fruits, and vegetables (my grandparents had a "hobby" farm of 7 acres) we were allowed to pick from the garden, beds of our own, it was amazing. We were there because my mother (whom we were supposed to go back to) had been in an accident with a tractor trailer, she had to have a lot of surgeries, physical therapy, etc. The following year began one of the worst periods of my life. There's something about who I was back then that made people want to hurt me. In kindergarten there was a 9th grade boy who hit me every single day, he'd punch me in the stomach so hard I'd double over. He was extreme for my bullies, but he wasn't alone. The first year there was food along with drugs, the second year there was sometimes food along with drugs, the third year there was drugs, and the free lunch we got at school. During this time we were being beaten regularly, sexually abused, psychologically tortured, and I was being bullied at school. While I was starving at home I was being made fun of for getting free lunch on occasion, for how quiet I am, but worst of all I was constantly derided for faking being skinny while I was starving every weekend. I told my mother more than once what our stepfather was doing to us while she was working, sleeping, etc. She laughed me off until I had my two siblings with me, and we were all telling her the same thing. He was not the first, second, or even third person to sexually abuse me, but he was the longest running one. My mother averted her eyes so long as she got the drugs, money, and "security" she wanted. That last time I told her with my two sibs, she took him into her bedroom and yelled at him not to do it anymore, we could all hear her. No threats to leave, no threats to call the cops, just a scolding like you'd give a misbehaving child. The abuse continues, I plotted his death. When we went to my grandparents for the summer I came to a crossroads. I knew that if I went back I was going to kill him, I didn't want to have to kill anyone (I didn't, still don't, kill most bugs or anything else). If I said something to my father he might react the way my mother had. I took a leap of faith and told my stepmother (yes, the one that had beaten us) what was happening to me (I was 12, I lied about knowing it happened to my sisters because I was so desperate to get out, a guilt I live with 33 years later). We all were given over to my father's custody. My mother wrote a letter to the judge complaining that we were lying because we were lazy, we didn't want to have to haul water anymore (our last year in Texas included no running water, no electricity, living in a two room shack- not two bedroom, 2 rooms). As you can imagine, I was pretty messed up, and walking back into a household where I was the oldest of seven children. Food scarcity again, my father was finishing his doctorate, and working, my stepmother was working, so we ate, but it was always the cheapest food, and the smallest portions. Like two boxes of genericmac n cheese for the nine of us, no veggies, no meat. My stepmother was a recovering alcoholic who kept that addiction at bay by substituting it for coca cola, and watermelons. She'd walk around with a 2 liter under one arm, and a half a watermelon under the other. It didn't take me long to find her hydrox cookie stash, that began a habit it took me 30 years to get rid of - sneak eating. I was so hungry I would sneak a couple a day if the cookies were open. That year I was told I couldn't get pregnant because of all the internal scarring from the abuse, didn't matter to me, I didn't want kids. I, shot up 10 inches to my adult height, but never reached my full growth potential because of the long term starvation, and lack of good nutrition. I'm a whole 4'10" tall, the doctor expected me to be two or three inches taller based on my growth plates. I, also, got hit by a car. Also, my father made fun of me for being fat (I was 30 pounds underweight when it started). Decades later I learned he was being sarcastic, but I didn't understand it then, and tried to lose weight, which my body just wouldn't do. By the time I was 14 life was really, really f'ed up. Drugs, alcohol, marital, and financial issues kept our lives... interesting. I was severely depressed, and after two years of trying to lose weight, I began to self sabotage, and gained a food addiction, especially sugary foods. I didn't like food, didn't want it, but would eat as much as I could when I got it. I learned to feed my siblings, and myself ketchup sandwiches to ease our hunger pangs, and I let go of being active in my depression. By the time I was 16 I was in a children's shelter, having been taken from parental custody. I spent five months there before my grandparents were finally talked into taking custody of me. The mental issues, especially the misophonia, which I couldn't explain to anyone (1990), were crippling me. I took to self harm, and increased my sneak eating, creeping up to 150 pounds by the time I graduated high school, 3 months pregnant. (Didn't drink, smoke, or do drugs, I just had sex). I was self harming, and has received a diagnosis of PTSD with depression while in the mental hospital for month back at 16. That progressed to self harm, and suicide attempts. My husband, the father of all my children, was emotionally, and psychologically abusive, never laid hands on me, just kept me under his thumb. By the time I left him I was 240 pounds. I could help my kids to make better food choices, but sneak eating, comfort eating, and fi'd addiction kept adding pounds. I tried to straighten my life out, but weight kept creeping on. I didn't understand what I was doing wrong, and I couldn't stop sneak eating, even though I was alone. I had my share of boyfriends, never had trouble getting one (as an adult I've often been told I'm pretty/beautiful, w/ big boobs, and butt, and a great smile. .. I've never believed it, I only see a monster). But getting boyfriends didn't matter, having a full time job I enjoyed helped a bit, having friends didn't help. I smiled, I said all the right things, I laughed, and I went home to contemplate suicide. To shut the thoughts up, I ate. I landed in the mental hospital again. It didn't help. I worked hard to go from 275 to 230, the first time I felt good about myself, but I hadn't fixed anything else, the weight crept back up. I was 240 while I was a manager for a large chain craft store, I was stocking when I ripped my meniscus. I was told if I tried for workers comp I would be fired. I found another job, but it took a year before I could have the operation I desperately needed. I ate to comfort myself, to keep the suicidal ideation at bay, and so on. I gained a hundred pounds. It didn't really matter to me, most days, because I wanted to die. I couldn't stand living, and no one knew. My job insurance afforded me surgery, and I lost weight, but I eventually ended up in the mental hospital again. The job I had carried the extra stress i.d death threats, insults, hearing someone die (ers call center for a big insurance company), getting yelled at, and more. The workers were treated poorly, but I kept everyone there smiling, and laughing for two and a half years before I collapsed. I NEEDED to die, not just because of the depression but because of the misophonia. I've frequently thought about making myself deaf, the only thing that stops me is that I'm not certain the ringing in my ears would go away. I know it will with death. Being constantly in fight or flight mode is indescribable torture. I tried to go back, but they wouldn't let me go on short term disability, and I couldn't get the psychiatrist to say it was okay to go back. I finally quit instead of playing the run around game. I had already lost my health insurance before I quit because I couldn't pay it out of pocket. I lost my mental health care, the place I had been living. I had two bright spots, the youngest child graduated high school that same year, and went to live with his father, and grandparents. My husband supported me. Since then I've become a shut in basically, I can't go anywhere alone because the honest thought triggers a panic attack. I reached my highest weight, and my lowest low. I got angry. I'm a good person, I learn from my mistakes, I do my best to help others, I may be monstrous in my own eyes, but even monsters don't deserve the stuff I've been through. So, in September of 2017, I began to try losing weight. I went from 365 to 298, then my grandmother died at the end of May 2018, the one that kept taking me in as a kid, my aunt on my mom's side died that same day. I was devastated. I stopped, depression ate my soul.
I started coming out of depression in January of this year. I knew I had gained weight, but I couldn't face it, mostly I struggled through the end of the depression. Then at the beginning of April my nephew, his girlfriend, and his 3 month old son died in a horrible wreck. It was awful, there were a couple of weeks of depression, but his death (20 years old) did something to me that no other death had done, it made me want to live, really live. I stepped on the scale, I was 321.
The battle began, and on Sunday I weighed in at 304. I made it four weeks with clean eating, and exercise. My stepsons are visiting, so I've had a couple of cheat meals, my justification is that we see them less than once a year. I want to keep going, and I have more questions, but today I really needed to share. Thank you to anyone who actually made it through, bless your eyes.
TLDR: Sexually, physically, mentally abused through much of life, starved as a child, led to eating issues, weight gain, stays in the mental hospital. Trying to overcome it now, at age 46.
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