To think my life has been ruined because of my weight

[drizzledancer]

This is a very difficult post for me but i am going to try to be honest.

I don't remember a time when weight and food wasn't a big deal in our house. I was a fussy eater as a child and I also spent a lot of time with my grandmother. It was boring so I hate for entertainment. I have some really horrible memories of how both my parents treated me - I remember lying on a chair reading a book once and my dad came in and yanked up my top, poking me really hard in the stomach and telling me to get out and play. I also remember appearing in the local paper because my church was doing something and my dad making me name all the other kids and saying they were thinner than me. I think they were just really embarrassed by me. My mum used to scream when she saw me eating so like any self respecting kid I ate in secret which obviously made things worse.

Objectively I think I was a bit chubby as a kid; it's hard to tell because looking at photos sometimes I look normal size and sometimes a bit lardy but i can't tell.

I was bullied badly at school but never over my weight though which is weird.

In my teens I slimmed right down as I was in quite a restrictive diet and I exercised too. Then my mum died and I gained it, as no one was cooking so I just got into the habit of grazing. This was a bit of a pattern.

I won't go into all the details but basically throughout my adult life I've managed to slim down and everyone says how lovely I look and how pretty I am, I get male attention (shallow I know but when I was about 27 I remember in a really hot summer wandering around town in a little sundress and flip flops and boys/men were looking and smiling and winking.)

But I never keep it off as I binge eat and I end up fat again.

I've gone between 9 and a half stone and 14 stone. I'm 5'3.

Because of my appearance I've never really had the confidence to date and I'm definitely past that point now. I still binge eat and I hate myself for it but can't stop. I've tried counselling but it hasn't helped.

Has anyone actually managed to change?

I'm so angry with myself I've wasted my chance to meet someone and get married, have my own babies, be happy.

Obviously, there's a point where outward appearance is meaningless but it has to be there in the first instance.

What a timely post drizzle, I had a proper tantrum the other day when the last straw finally broke me - yet another comment about my weight from a family member, which lead me to have a hissy fit (to my lovely, quite chunky husband) that it was no longer "ok" to be a little bit fat - that it was morally reprehensible, that us fat people (I'm 5"3 and 14 stone, have slimmed down to 11 stone about 3 times in the last 10 years but always put it back on again - I'm 43) are no longer acceptable in society and that if you can't wear a size 12 you're a failure. Being fat is as socially unacceptable as smoking. Weed. In a library.

My parents were not cruel or mean, but there were definitely issues there around food and being conditioned into thinking fat was undesirable. I've subsequently spent the last 20 years on a diet, which doesn't work and I've merely got fatter and fatter.

I can't tell you that I've managed to change, and I can't tell you that all those underlying fears and resentments we carry from childhood ever go away. But I can say that I have learned to live with them, and accept them as part of me - and I certainly haven't given up on being able to change. But I absolutely sympathise with the feeling of being invisible.

We may have to learn how to become happy with ourselves as fat, but sadly, with the pressure to be fit and slim now a constant drone of white noise permeating our every waking moment, it's becoming harder and harder.

On the plus side, I've just joined Slimming World. Never tried that one. Can't expect to keep doing the same things and expecting things to change, that's my motto.

I think that I will never move house in my life again for various reasons. I don't have enough money etc. But life has a way of surprising us and doing things to us that we would never guess. My uncle has just got married and he's in his 80s. People meet each other all of the time, at work, at church, at charity events, on walks. Things happen that surprise us. Anyway, everyone is focusing on partnerships. I wonder something else. Would you ever consider becoming a mother via another way, e.g.., adoption?

OP - what did you do about the male attention you received at the times you were slimmer than now? Did you go out with anyone?

How old are you op?
Have you ever tried being the one to give the attention rather than waiting for strangers in the street to hit on you?
I can promise you it isn't your weight. But I think you want it to be. It's comforting to blame a small thing like weight and hide behind rather than put yourself out there, confront your self esteem issues and possibly be rejected.

If I assume you're all correct, it's not my weight what is it?

It isn't confidence, maybe I'm just ugly.

No it is confidence.
People with confidence don't say things like you are about themselves.

Would you feel confident if you had never had your hand held, been kissed or held by someone who fancied you?

No but I'd make it happen. If I wanted a relationship I'd go out and try and find someone to connect with. I'd date, flirt, go online.
We can't comment on if you are ugly or not but even if you were which very few people are then those people do find relationships. Look around at couples! They aren't all slim and classically good looking.

I can't date and I get no attention online so there we go.

What's getting no attention? Do you message people? Why can't you date?
You don't have to have a relationship but if you want one you may have to make effort.

People like you always think it's making no effort, and you won't accept I've really tried.
I can't date because you kind of need someone to date.

And to be fair I've said countless times now I won't have a relationship, that I'm too old for all that, I'm talking about sadness for my past not future.

Why do you refuse to tell us your age?

Because I don't want a hundred stories about meeting people in their 70s:)

I think you're using your weight as an excuse not to do all the things you want - meet someone, have kids etc. You refuse to tell us your age so I have no idea whether you are able to have kids or not but what I do know is that you are never ever too old to meet someone. I understand why you feel like your weight is an issue because I struggle with mine too. I was abused by my parents as a child and had similar experiences with being told I'm fat etc so please don't think I'm happily sat here in my size 8 clothes with no sugar cravings. I struggle every single day with food and exercise.

To be honest you don't sound mentally well. I think medication and/or counselling is the way forward for you even though you've already dismissed it.

Men and women are attracted to literally all different shapes and sizes. What people tend to be put off by is negativity.

Drizzle, I did comment earlier wrt weight, and sorry if I've missed the info but what kind of support do you have in RL? Have you got good friends?
Self esteem although built from within can only be nurtured by those around you when you're so fragile.
I agree that it's hideous to even contemplate dating in this day and age.
I felt exactly the same as you ( not for a minute suggesting our paths may be the same) but I was mortified when Mr Feral asked me out. I thought it was a dare. So much so that I got paralytic before the first date and took my friend with me
You come across as a lovely person but is that because you don't have to go through meeting people in real life etc? The pressure isn't there?
I tried online dating briefly and found I got no interest either and had nothing in common with anyone I spoke to, or the ones that I did suddenly threw in a cock comment

Did that even make sense? I'm tired and (grief) whingy tonight, sorry.
What I was trying to get at, is that without my friends building me up in many ways, I wouldn't have the confidence to do half the things I've achieved. I still often think they're lying about my strengths and that I'm humouring them by going along with ideas etc but their chipping away at me does eventually work.
When I slump back into myself, I feel hopeless and not unlike a big lump of clay.

Thanks. I do have friends but they are married, they have families of their own.

I definitely don't get any interest online (glad it's not just me!) but none in real life obviously so that's why things are as they are.

Drizzle You should read 'Fat Chance' by Robert Lustwig. In fact, anyone struggling with their weight should. It details how (as someone said above) the body becomes conditioned to 'surviving' and resists dieting. It goes into the science in some detail (made my head hurt reading it).

My point is that I think if you are struggling with your weight and feeling 'like a failure' as a result, the dieting process can almost reinforce that sense of failure because some people are scientifically set up to fail for solid scientific reasons.

It's not you, it's your body. And yes, there is something inherently depressing about that too because it seems pointless.

However, I think the way to think about it is as if you were, for example, gluten intolerant. You would be forced to change your life to avoid gluten for health reasons and this would be a lifelong uncompromising change to address a 'disease'. You can lose weight by doing what worra said, but you'll have to accept that it will require a permanent adjustment to keep it off. You will be fighting your own body, not yourself as an individual who is a failure.

FWIW I've always been slim and attractive (by society's terms). My best friend at uni was short, overweight, ruddy complexion and yellow blonde frizzy hair. Not attractive by society's standards. She got ALL the guys, who were attracted to her for same reasons I was as a friend: engaging, great self-esteem etc. I do not believe for a second that your weight has held you back from relationships. I suspect men can intuitively pick up on the sadness in you even if you mask it well. They certainly do for me, and my appearance has never helped me at all.

Having said that, I'm with you on the counselling and CBT etc. Never again for me either! But please read that book and at least take from it that YOU haven't failed. Maybe understanding the science of your struggle will give you a different angle to approach it from.

With all my heart I hope you can find a less sad place. And if you do, I hope it means you care less about the things you've missed out on in the past because you have a different place of contentment. Your life is not over! You still have the future ahead of you.

(Apologies for my username which seems a bit crass here! )

But what do you do to show you are interested in a man, OP? Do you have any male friends? You still haven't said what you have ever done about male attention when you have been more slim? Or were those men not your type, or giving the wrong sort of attention?

I didn't stay slim long enough for anything to happen. And no I don't have male friends and I don't tend to get interested in men.

It could be that's there's just something hugely unattractive about me as an individual - appearance or otherwise - but unfortunately I can't accept that given that when I was slim albeit briefly I did as I keep saying get attention.

Had I been able to stay that way I know my life would now look very different.

What do you mean by "I don't tend to get interested in men?"

The pp asked what happened when I was interested in a man and I said I don't really get interested

drizzledancer - you only need to be attractive for one evening for the sort of man who winks at you when you are slim . Maybe the real problem is, you don't like men that much, but still hope one of them will get past that barrier and all your other defences and keep trying to get to know you, regardless.