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.

You sound a lot like my cousin drizzle. She'll blame her looks or her weight, or whatever reason for why she's never met anyone, but the fact is she was always just too set in her ways and was never interested in letting her barriers down for anyone.

How do you make female friends, drizzledancer? What do you talk about and do with your female friends?

I don't blame my 'weight' I blame me.

It's very difficult to get things across on here. I tried to make a joke and got told that was the reason I was single - my awful negativity and I KNOW that's not me.

Maybe it's lack of confidence except I wasn't the most confident person when I was slim and in any case plenty of people lack confidence and have relationships.

Maybe I'm just not attractive enough full stop except I have had periods of apparently being attractive to men.

Maybe it's an uncomfortable truth that sometimes you're just too unattractive? Don't know.

I'm not sure where you're going with this but I have friends from school, university, work, hobbies. Never really had problems making or keeping friends and never have any major problems in the relationships.

You do need to be interested, and want, to be with someone for a relationship to happen. If the person can sense you're not interested then they'll back away. It may be you got superficial attention when slim, but that wouldn't lead too a lasting relationship if you weren't genuinely interested.

(Am I reading too much into this - are you implying you are not interested in MEN, maybe more so in women?)

So why are none of those friends male? Do you act differently around men, or do they blank you when you talk to them? Or are your hobbies and interests very feminine?

Drizzle Don't blame you, like I said earlier, it's not you. And if you'll damage your self-esteem if you do that. That's what will undermine your connections to people.

( I take back my question, you've clarified below).

why are none of these friends male

At secondary school it was pretty much always the boys who were awful to me, not the girls. I had the odd girl be bitchy from time to time but nothing major. The boys were awful. Obviously I didn't really make any male friends.

At university I did a female dominated course.

I work in a female dominated sort of place.

i have just never personally experienced having male friends.

cakey seriously

I have a relative who came out recently year in her late 50s after a life of being single lonely. That's what came to my mind suddenly when you said you didn't get interested in men. You did clarify though.

drizzledancer - it's not you, then. You are quite capable of making and maintaining relationships. It's your unlucky experiences. Your dad and bullies at school were hopeless role models and they have affected how you interact with men to this day. Men can make wonderful friends. The real attraction often comes after the friendship. I think you are scared of being hurt again, which is understandable.

I've read get first part of your thread. Can I suggest that you go to a website called getselfhelp. It is packed full of the materials used for CBT. I think CBT approach is the way to go for you. Counselling probably dealt with the why's. You have enough insight into why you were emotionally abused as a child. You know this counselling is only going to bring up the bad feelings. CBT helps you deal with the here and now. Please look at the sheets and do them. If you feel they help maybe a CBT practitioner can help. Whilst you are doing this try little things to build your self esteem. A good haircut, nice makeup, as manicure so you can be the best you can be in the here and now. Please be kind to yourself.

I don't think they have. I think opportunities just go. Anyway thanks for advice.

But what opportunities? You did a female dominated course and work in a female dominated workplace! And you clearly feel more comfortable in female company. If you were in a room full of men and women, who would you feel safest talking to?

Round, would you agree that meeting the opposite sex (assuming one is heterosexual) and having experiences with the opposite sex is normal?

Would you agree that most people will experience that?

I haven't. I'm not arguing the toss about how I'm a closet lesbian, I wasn't actually thinking when I chose my course or my career of the best ones to meet men - maybe i should - but I'll tell you now the other women who do my job or who did my degree are married with their own children and have been for some time.

Most people meet with members of the opposite sex, but a large proportion of men and women have trouble relating to each other effectively. You are really far from abnormal!

What you are doing, though, is looking at the friends who have what you want and comparing yourself unfavourably. You are ignoring the legions of men and women who are currently feeling like you do.

It sounds like self sabotage actually. You when slim were scared of the male attention and the thought of someone actually liking you so you quickly binged to get big and "invisible" to protect yourself.

OP I will be frank - I too got more attention from men when slimmer. I should say that I still had men wanting to shag me when I was bigger but seemingly only had people interested in a relationship with me when I had lost weight. Weirdly though I was super confident at my biggest.

I had binge eating issues stemming from childhood problems. Both my sister's have / had eating disorders as well and my mum's eating is fairly disordered too.

The only thing that sorted me was being unable to eat secretly / not having much opportunity to binge eat. I moved in with someone who was a super healthy eater and we ate together a fair bit - prior to that I'd eat a tub of Ben and Jerry's and a packet of biscuits for dinner and that was on a non binge night! I was hardly alone as at work / with friends / didn't have much spare cash when I wasn't at home with my flatmate.

I also developed a problem with going to the loo, it's very painful if I don't eat healthily and have lots of fruit, veg, fibre and water.

I still overeat occasionally but to a lesser extent.

I would dispute it's self sabotage but thank you for the rest.

Round maybe I'm not abnormal but I don't know anyone else my age who has never even had a casual boyfriend/girlfriend.

Don't laugh, but have you considered the option of a one night stand? I think after this long, the idea of the physical side of things is probably massively overwhelming.
This would be a way of getting it 'out of the way' and may then give the confidence to find and develop a proper relationship without the pressure and awkwardness.
But I am sleep deprived today so fully accept that you may think this is the shittest idea you've ever heard

But drizzle - if you had less self respect, or less fear of someone being cruel to you, I'm sure you could have had a casual fling if you'd really wanted! I think it would have made you feel worse about yourself, mind you, not better. I get the impression you are thinking a little bit along the lines of not seeing the point in a man if you are too old to have children with him?

There's other ways to meet people. Join a club or hobby. Ask your friends to organise a dinner party with single friends too. Go speed dating!
I'm very interested in how you weren't slim enough for long enough to have a relationship? So did men start dating you when slim and then because you gained a little weight they stopped contacting you?

I'm not really a 'casual fling' person :) I'm out now this may be rushed.

If I had been a slim girl - or just a normal size I think I would have been treated very differently. Being big and I think lots of people can empathise with this I sort of had to over compensate with personality and I did. Throughout uni and first year or so at work all I heard was what a really lovely girl I was and people meant it but really it was a sort of backhanded compliment. Like I'd sit up all night hugging friends who'd split with their boyfriends and making them cups of tea and getting them to see their boyfriend was actually ok and had only been talking to beautiful Ali who studies French and is on the lacrosse team. And the boyfriends liked me too but in that sort of 'what a nice girl' way.

When I bought my first house it was a pretty little home and I decided I would be the person who lived in it (I was 24) and dieted and that summer I had actually left one job and had a period of leave before starting the next and lost loads of weight and yes make attention came. I was helping a friend out in her bookshop and living in a touristy place while my house sale went through and then real life started and I didn't like my new job and gradually the weight went back on. Not as big as I'd previously been but big enough to not look nice.

So the next decade was gain lose gain lose but the thing is life keeps happening: I guess men just haven't been part of my life and it's only now I really am starting to understand what I've never had and I can't escape the thought that a slim girl would have been a 'really lovely girl' that someone would actually be attracted to and I'd be living a very different life now.

I cant reiterate strongly enough I'm not looking for dating advice, it's not going to happen, I don't think I want it too now. Joining clubs and going to dinner parties (don't think any of my friends have ever held a dinner party) is not going to cut it. Thanks but that's not why I posted

Please look at my advice I hope you find it constructive. I think CBT is the way to go.

Thank you slut (that sounds awful) but I'm really not convinced by any sort of therapy; it's my life, it is what it is.