Hello, I am now 50 and I’d love to talk about what’s been a lifelong issue. To understand if this is weird.
I’m not especially tall, just under 5’3”. I was always a very skinny child.
Age maybe 14 I put on a bit of weight, which I now realise is normal.
I’m not sure of my weight at this point, but under 8 stone (I know I was 3 and a half stone aged 10!) so quite a jump. I probably looked a bit like I do now, so I felt fat and I started dieting... With the wisdom of a 14 yo, I went on slim fast shakes and lived off crunchie bars. I began to put on weight.
At the same time, my mum began to drink heavily. I was so so stressed. There were huge expectations on me, academically and looks wise. My dad always worked late, so I looked after my mother, counselled her, was her protector. Tried to deal with her drinking.
She was hideously abusive to me, calling me fat, stupid, ugly, disgusting, mad.
By the upper sixth I was over 9.7 stones. I was obese. Disgusting. She would tell me so. To lose weight, I used to starve all day, at school. But hunger meant I’d often binge at night. I’d then feel disgusted at myself and overeat to punish myself, eating stuff like stale cooking chocolate. I felt shit. I wasn’t allowed to socialise, my mum wouldn’t give me money and was over protective. But by now, I didn’t want to go out anyway, since I was so fat.
I worked hard at school, I got into Oxford. What she wanted. She also always told me I was stupid, maybe to spur me on. It never did. but I wanted to study a particular subject, so I applied myself (for the first time). Despite jumping through these academic hoops, she was still foul to me. Her focus was now on despising the way I looked.
In my year off, I went abroad for six weeks (linked to my future course). Instead of enjoying it, I made it my mission to lose all the weight while I was away.I starved myself. Ate almost nothing for six weeks (strictly no more than 250 calls a day). Dropped to 7’12 stone. I was so disappointed since I had expected to lose more given the concerted efforts I’d made not to eat.
From then on, I had a pathological fear of ever putting on weight. Sometimes I’d drop to 6 stone 10 but despite all my efforts, I was a failed anorexic and could never get to much less.
anyway, I’m now 50. My weight has crept up to 8 stone. I’m now 8.6 stone. Revelation: I think (?) I don’t actually look fat. I look sort of normal. I mean, part of me thinks bits of me look fat, but other bits are skinny. I’m trying to get my head around things. was my mother actually lying to me? I have almost no photos of me at that age since I wouldn’t allow myself to be photographed.
My fear of ever going over 7,7 stone, led to so many hard and wasted years when I was young. I’m recognising how unkind my mother was. I now have a 13 year old and do all I can to impress positivity.
I’m not sure the purpose of this post, perhaps to gauge things. Eg my mother always said she was telling me these things before others did. She made what she said sound like she was doing me a favour, i.e. should she lie about me being fat and disgusting?
ultimately, owing to continued efforts to keep my calorie count way down, I ended up being bulimic from 19 to 33. Sometimes I’d go on new starvation stints, to maintain the low weight. I lived in physical pain from under eating for my whole 20s (though I looked amazing, or so I was told by so many people, but I felt utterly shit).
I still have my weight at the back of my mind. I need to get to a better place. Does anyone else relate or have experience of this, or thoughts for me to consider? Sorry for the length of this post 😜. Thank you!