I get so out of control emotionally I just have to stuff my face.
It is all that makes me feel better. I live alone and don't have any
family or friends. Just my dog and way too much food.
I weigh over 500 pounds now and I'm short! I know it's risky. I know it's
unacceptable to the world. I know a lot of things but I can't stop
eating. I just can't. I have a lot of physical difficulty because I
am so fat but nothing is near as painful as a)the BPD and b)the
torture I am confronted with for being this fat every single time
I leave my apartment, which I'm not doing all that much anymore.
Patsy
I think I have my size and my "self" all stuck together. I hate
both my size and my "self". I eat to feel better. There is just so
much emotional pain with BPD and I can't get along with anyone because
it's so much work, and I'm never "good" enough for anyone. I talk too
much. I am too intense. I process all the time. I'm a lonely anxiety-
riddled 56 year old woman with BPD who just eats in place of any other
type of feeling soothed. I am scared cause I am now over 350 pounds.
No one understands and I get teased all the time - adds to my pain and
makes me eat more and so I keep getting fatter.
Kelsey
I never let myself get above 200 pounds, that's because of something my
grandfather said to me as a teenager and for some reason that put a limit
of 200 into my head. All the women in my family are overweight, a
generalization, yes, but true. I'm severely haunted by my weight because
I look like my father's side, but have the weight of my mother's. My sister
doesn't appear to have a problem with this, but I think she does, she just
doesn't vocalize it. I used to always get in trouble when I'd attack her or
my mother on their weight (I did this when I was hurt and feeling vulnerable
and wanted to hurt someone else and since weight was so sensitive for
me, well....).
I lost 50 pounds two years ago through healthy eating and
exercise. I walked 6 miles a day and did Callanetics in the AM and PM.
I ate mostly veggies, grains, and fruits. Then I moved to SOU.CAL. and I
have to drive everywhere and my fiance likes eating so I gained all the weight
back. I then started Phen-fen and lost the 50 again in 2 months. I had a
total health check afterwards and was fine. Then got hooked on drugs which
also kept my weight down. Then got clean, put on anti-depressants and
I'm back up 20 pounds. Now under 200 may not seem like a lot to many of
you, but to me? It might as well be 1000.
I felt better at 150, I felt sexier at
150, but it wasn't the 150. It was my mind. My fiance thinks I'm sexy at
170. My fiance thinks I'm sexy at 200. My brain thinks I'm fat at 150 (my
lowest adult weight, BTW). Work on your attitude and the way you view
yourself. This is the first time I realized how much that counts. Also, at
150 I still physically saw my body at 200!!!!!!!! I didn't see how thin I was!!!!!
I look at pictures and can see it, but when I looked down at my body I still
saw 200!!!!!!!
Amazing how your brain can screw you up....
Ericka
I also have some type of eating disorder, but I'm not sure if it has a
name. It has, though, screwed up my metabolism. In eating, I deal in
terms of black and white, all or nothing. I will go days, weeks, even
months without eating anything and in between those times I eat
everything. I've even noticed that it doesn't have to do with trying to
lose weight when I fast...it's more of a control issue. In fact, if I
happen to step on a scale and discover I've lost 5 pounds while not
eating, I start eating again. Funny, the first time I went without
eating at all I lost 32 pounds. Each time I lose less and less until
this last time when I gained 5 pounds in 3 days without eating anything.
My metabolism has been pretty beaten up by all of this...can it ever
get back on track?
If I could've seen what I really looked like and learned not to
believe what others told me, I wouldn't have started hiding and hoarding
food, I wouldn't have worried so much about it and I honestly believe I
would have grown out of it. I'm not saying I would have been skinny,
but I don't think I would've gotten over 140 or 150...and who knows,
without my obsession with food, maybe I would've stayed at a nice 120.
kelly
I live for the "if I was skinny and
beautiful, then I'd be happy, I'd be loved, I'd be successful..." So
what if none of that happens? Then that means my inside is just as ugly
as my outside.
kelly
I am not, nor have I ever been overweight. But, I see
this issue as being possibly the most damaging of all
to the self-esteem.
I know one of my best friends thinks
that if she were only "the perfect weight", or if she
thought of herself as attractive, that this would nullify
her pain.
I see her as beautiful, because she is loving,
warm, supportive, and caring. I couldn't imagine not having
her in my life...but she makes comments constantly about
how lucky I am, and how thankful I should be. This does
not tend to make me feel very good, and I've told her
how I feel about it. I feel very awkward going places with
her because I know the topic is going to come up at some
point in the day.
I guess it wouldn't be so bad if she
said how she felt about herself, but she reverses it and
says stuff like "I hate you" and "you b*tch" if she thinks
I look pretty or something. I feel so guilty, and I don't
think I've done anything wrong. I am the way I am. I know
she loves me, but she is just in so much pain about her
own weight, that it comes between us.
I tell her over and over again that life isn't just about
the way you look...but maybe I am wrong. Am I doing more
harm than good by saying things like this to her?
anon.
I thought I'd be a better person when I was smaller, then I started suffering
major depression, probably because I wasn't now that I think of it. I'm not
as depressed when I'm bigger. I'm no different larger than smaller. And I
don't really like myself in either way. I discovered that I really hated myself
one day when I was trying to explain my addiction to a friend who acts as
a sponsor for me. Then I was REALLY depressed!! I'm working on just
accepting myself now and my doc wants me to do it a piece at a time. We're
working on the cynical, berating self right now and you know what? She's
a real b*tch! But I know that that part of me comes in handy when I'm being
mistreated and I can turn it outwards, only when I'm being treated fine and
she sticks around then I turn it inward and hurt myself.
Ericka
I thought I looked like that when I was 13 (when I was actually chubby
at 128...I can see it now in the pictures I look at) and I still think
I look like that when I'm not looking in the mirror and see that I've
gone way beyond that picture I've always hated. I'm not saying I
wasn't a fat kid...I was...it just wasn't nearly as bad as I was led
to believe. Because of what everyone was saying to me, I ballooned to
220 by the time I was a high school senior. I believed them. I wish
I wouldn't have. I think I could've grown out of the chubbiness if I
wouldn't have ended up with such a complex about food.
Kelly
All throughout my early teen years, my weight hovered around 170 pounds.
However, I'm also 5'11" tall.... with a big, strong, sturdy frame. When
I look back at pictures of myself, at that weight, I wasn't overweight
at all.... I was large, certainly, but I wasn't fat.... so no amount of
dieting would have changed the way I looked.
Unfortunately, this was the era of "Twiggy", so I got all the insults,
all the teasing, all the humiliation.... and I was told by doctors, and
books, and my family and friends, that I needed to diet and diet and
diet. So I did.... from the age of 11, I tried every diet I could find,
from the most sensible to the most extreme. By the time I gave up on
dieting, 13 years later, I'd gained a serious eating disorder, and a
screwed-up metabolism.... and I am, now, extremely overweight.
I only wish that, somehow, I'd figured out what was going on, back when
I was a young teen.... I wish I'd understood the difference between
"big" and "fat", and recognized that I could never change "big". That's
all in the past, of course, so I try not to dwell on it too much.... it
still makes me want to scream, though, when I hear statistics like "half
of all 9-year-old girls in this country believe they're too fat, and
have been on weight-loss diets", or when I see the emaciated look that's
promoted these days as the "female ideal". I look behind me, and I see
crowds of little girls following in my footsteps.... and it makes me sad
because I know the pain that's ahead of them. :-(
Barbara
I have the same problem with eating -- a lot or barely anything. I think
it is an eating disorder, just no one's named it yet. And for months,
until recently, I barely ate anything and lost 10 lbs (it's like next to
impossible to lose weight on my AD) but since I'm overweight, no one
really noticed. My therp isn't concerned either. I think unless you look
like an anorexic people think you can't be one.
anon.
I've got to say that since I have started dropping pounds like crazy (I began
at 246lbs) I am feeling better about *how I look* to some degree. It doesn't
change the emptiness and anger etc. but when I put on some of my nicer
clothes I actually think I could pass for an attractive woman...at least I
think so. I just want to give you some hope that it is possible to feel a
little better after dropping pounds.
What makes me sad is that when I weighed 100lbs and I gained 7 pounds my
mother told me that I was gaining too much weight and from that time on I
thought I was so fat and I wasn't even close. Imagine what it must have been
like for my mom when I was 246lbs...I think until I weigh 100lbs again I will
always have a distorted body image. You know?? People can say things that
hurt way more than any punch or kick any day.
Melanie
Do you think it's possible to be heavy and (unconsciously) have the reason be
that you are afraid you will still be awful and unloved if you were and
*average* weight? I have always said that this wasn't my motivation for
being big.....but could it be a subconscious one?
anon.
And in response to the above Kelly writes:
I definitely do. I don't think it's why I got so heavy ('course
subconsciously they say it's a defense mechanism...a wall you build
around you so no one can get close...and I know that's true), but I do
think that's why I seem to sabotage myself every time I start losing
weight. I'm so afraid that I'll still be treated the same way and that
actually the ugliness everyone is so repulsed by isn't my weight, but
ME.
kelly
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