If you are reading this I am dead. Or healed. Or neither.

I started writing this on 3/25/2012 after getting on the scales at my doctors office and reading 497 lbs.

I did not start out fat, when I was a kid I would run all the time, up to 10 miles a day. I biked, hiked, and did all sorts of things that fat people cannot do. Because I was not fat.
I hate fat people. I hate the way they look, I hate the way they are sloppy and eating all the time, the waddling walk they use, and I hate the dull look of defeat that many of them carry in their eyes, or the false joviality they put on to hide the misery.

That is a testament to self-loathing if ever there was one.
What I have found out, through therapy (both self and led) and a lifetime’s worth of experiences, is that I have been trying to kill myself for 29 yrs. I have just been to chicken to do it for real. I just keep eating and eating and eating, knowing eventually it will kill me. And I will be released.

It did not start out that way. The first time I tried to kill myself I was 11. And I thought I did it right. I put a belt around the clothes bar in the closet, got down on my knees, and rested my weight on my neck, knowing when I lost consciousness and fell to the side, the belt would twist and continue to suffocate me.

What I did not count on was my little brother, only 7 at the time, finding me after I had passed out and pushing me out of the belt. The little shit. How dare he stop me.

That experience scared me bad enough I did not do something that drastic again. But I started eating when I turned 20, and I have not stopped yet. I have gained 300 lbs in ten years, I have had some good years in there, but for the most part, it has been up, up, up.

So when I turned 35 I figured something besides me eating too much must be going on. So I went to a therapist and we started to talk. It was hard. I don’t trust easily, and have always felt I should keep my demons inside, hidden. Be secretive at all times. There is a reason for that…

I just now made the connection. I was going to talk about this later in my story, but now I have to talk about it now. I was raped as a child, I was abused physically and mentally, I was brainwashed, and I was used.

My sister and my uncle have alluded to the fact that I was sexually abused. One said my father did it, the other said my mom’s later boyfriend.

Let me start with the boyfriend. He was a large black man. He lived with us after mother dear left my dad. I remember him beating me black and blue from my head to my feet with his belt. There are even have pictures of it. What I do not remember is him raping me. But he did. I have vivid memories of the dreams I had at that point in my life. I had an escape. When I was in my bed, the bed would drop down and I would slide into an underground world where everything was good. I had friends, and we had lots of fun.

I now realize after speaking with my sister about the amount of time he would spend in my room alone with me that I disassociated completely from the events. Whatever happened during that time, I hope is forever lost. But the effect it had on me was profound.

And if my uncle is correct, and my father abused me also, it is probably why I was so quiet, why I never said anything, and why to this day I think I should not talk about anything that goes on in my head.

At twelve, I ran away for the first time. I made it to my dad’s, tortured his new family for a year with my craziness and moved back with the mother. It was then that I was told I had to get a job, that she could not afford to feed me. I was 13.

We lied about my age to get me a job trimming trees, I lasted 2 weeks. Then I went to work at the company where she worked. I would go to school in the daytime (pure torture between the gangs and the jocks) then I would go to the my job and work all night. That is where I learned about pot and cocaine, caffeine and speed. At 13 I was popping speed and living on Jolt cola and whatever tiny residue of cocaine they left behind on the copier glass when they were done. I learned how to talk dirty, to objectify women, and to lie. Well actually that was a talent I had learned long before, that is just when I mastered it.

And this is where I stick. When telling about my childhood this is where it ends. The reason this is where it ends is because things start going a little better. Yes it was still hard. I worked full time from the time I was 13 until I took my first vacation at almost 20 years later. But the physical abuse was over.

Mentally, the mother still abused me regularly, for the next three years, in fact. And I did a number on myself too. I read all the time, whatever schlock I could find. One of the books I read was Nancy Friday’s Men in Love. It prompted me to try all kinds of experimental dangerous behavior. And it warped my sense of sex and sexuality, well that and the molestation of course.
We moved to a different city, something that had happened every year or so my whole life, and that is when I started to see a semblance of stability. We still moved, but at least it was in the same town, not a different state. When I was 16 I left the mother for good and moved to across the country to live with my dad. Who may or may not have molested me. Whether he did or not, he loved me, provided a way to go back to school and live a normal life for a few years. In fact, I lived longer there than I have anywhere else in my life. I grew up, made friends, got married, had kids, and became fairly successful financially.

So why have I not been able to get past that childhood trauma? Why have I let these events control one aspect of my life for so long?

I think about ending my life every day. I say it with nonchalance to myself. Hey, I have done a lot, seen a lot, have some great kids. Why stay? My job is done. I have tried to open up to my wife, but she threw walls up so fast I got scared, and had to tear them back down. Just yesterday, when I was telling her about this history I was writing she asked me some hard questions that I did not want to answer. I feel that our relationship has changed over the past year, that she is slowly distancing herself from me to protect herself.

I cannot blame her, I found out our church was a fraud and quit going. That is hard for Mormons, the lie that the church know what happens after we die is very persuasive, and since I have quit, she goes to every fucking meeting she possibly can, and drags our kids to them too in the hope she can make up for my abandonment.

So now I have to figure out how to get through the anger and pain, and change myself and how I treat my family. I am an absentee father at best even when I am there, at least I feel like it. Most of my kids are closed off, emotionally unavailable, and very private. I feel responsibility for doing that to them.

But I cannot change my relationship with them until I change the relationship with myself. I have to stop hating myself, seeing myself as a “less than” that everyone secretly laughs at when I am not around.

I have always thought I would just wake up one day and everything will be better. I have done my self-discovery, I have found out why I am messed up, so why can’t I stop the stupid destructive behaviors that are killing me, hurting my relationship with my wife, and not allowing me to have the relationship with the kids that I long for?

When I dream, I am always alone. How do I change that?

Hi anon, interesting post, but not much to help you. The reason I post is to point out to you a danger you may not be aware of: I have a half-brother who makes his bucks collecting corpses for local mortuaries. A year ago he and friends were called in to collect a deceased female weighing north of 500 lb. Since Larry has always been fit, he grabbed the head and shoulders, while his buddy grabbed the legs. He says that as he grabbed hold, he could feel and hear the tendons and cartilage in his arms tear. Net result was hospitalization and under doctor's orders physical rehab for at least a year, before he could even move his arms again. Did the obese party ever suppose she could be the cause of such a calamity? Did the half-brother give half a thought to the enormous weight he was dealing with? No one can say, but it might be helpful to you to keep that in mind when next you contemplate cutting a hundred lb or so off the burden your heart carries. Best in your efforts to take the small steps necessary to get started.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2013 04:49PM by davidlkent.

But that was a heartless, f-cking post. This is a RECOVERY board, dude. We're here to support one another.

@ OP: Please ignore this initial response and read the more empathetic, supportive posts below.

We care.

Shannon ;o)

Well, I hope that you just did, by coming here and truly opening yourself up.

I too, had a horrific childhood. And because of that, I got married when I was 15 and started and family of my own right away. I know what hard work and responsibility at such a young age is like.

But one thing I kept in my mind, is that I didn't get to pick my childhood. I didn't necessarily feel like I was owed better, but I sure as hell wasn't going to continue to live that way. I wanted much better for myself and was willing to do the work to make it so.

Today, almost every day is bliss. Because I won't suffer through BS. I don't have to and I won't. I treat myself how I want to be treated. I also treat others the same way, and you know, I get a lot of kindness from others because of it.

You are a really good person. I can tell from what you wrote. You are kind and gentle and it seems as if you might feel responsible for what you experienced as a child, and perhaps how you've built your life because you didn't know any better or have the tools to make it blissfull. But you can do it starting now. Imagine what you want and take the baby steps to get there and start walking. Believe me. You will get yourself there. You will.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2013 04:54PM by Devoted Exmo.

Dear Anonagain,
You are in my thoughts. Sending hugs and hope.

Giving you a little bump.

discovery does not bring joy, awareness and knowing - besides a justification for the situation (when it was dissociated from current memory)_ can help make sense of paradoxes, or catch 22s that situation may have held or enacted for you. So you've got the knowledge you are aware. then what?

First know I wish you well on your journey where ever you are it in, and wherever you are in reality both geographically and physically.

YOu are right- awareness- working within awareness- to be able to contain awareness- and calmness, to be able to stay- in a knowing-ness of life's greatest sadness unfairness and ugliness is a tremendous challenge. It is not just to be happy- it is to be able to stay, to stay on the state of knowing and not leave the stage or suddenly forget or dissociate because it was once so hard to know and experience, how would it be any easier- to know. KNowing is difficult- living containing knowing not forgotten far past not forgetting now in the present not forgetting little details glimmers of forgetting- forgetting your keys, where you were driving, did you turn off the lights, was that done, as swirls of difficulty living in knowing walk through life; through day and night.

Might I add the concept of aN ANCHOR? OR of being 'grounded'? not just useful in other people's linguistic strategies, making your own anchor in this now- be it a piece of jewelry, a cup you carry your water in- something NOT from any part of your past (prior to your present waking up, awareness) so you can hold your awareness between dissociative episodes if or when you need to. ONce for me that was a book of mormon, no more. It was a certain specific quad, leather, little cover- no more. Need another anchor separate from the abuse. The strategy of using some trinket or item as an anchor wasn't new- it was needing a new anchor item- in a new life without active mormonism that caused me to swim in confusion.

I am not you, how ever I might share some of the strategies which I am aware of or which I did or do.
I think then for me was mindful ness technqiues, and some items discussed on a positive psychology website (articles included with examples.)

I think besides awareness, identifying triggers & set up strategies to either change the setting, the situation, to avoid the trigger so I do not have to react or dissociate without my choice- like for me it was coffee cup with wine in it, sounds silly doesn't it? (it was in the hand of someone who hit me & allowed others to mistreat me) and plastic thin hair brushes with black bristles- never buy use or have em in my life or while raising kids in their lives, see em on an aisle turn around walk another aisle (because it hit me it reminds me of what hit me.)

some may say avoidance of triggering cues- of nouns- that resonate across time with the situation- and, these things, or these settings, or these situations- start defense mechansisms again in my present which I do not want to live- so I don't. I deliberately identify and avoid actively any triggers which bother me. Some may say I am being just cowardly I know differently.

When the church became a big catch 22 for me, paradoxically, it no longer held a safe secure truth I could use to live through my life... rather than a safe harbor with safe rules, mormon doga, mormon controlling social structures, mormon paradoxicaly history, commandments, politics- began to dis content, cause me anxiety- since what I needed what I found from them was a safety. As I matured into awareness this safety, formerly provided by the church, was gone.

A routine- differing than childhood ; additions and subtractions from when active in the church making it more constructive or positive sculpted scripted carefully for me some big changes with help, some entirely by me.

another thing which can help is to recall or remmeber what if or what is the BEST ever- from any time in your life. Array that hobby, that favorite thing (as long as it is not ilegal) in your life- for me its certain favorite food, types of hair style, and boots (not to fall over, not to get stomped on again, to stand strong, to last long and land on my feet when I fall down and get up or be big enough not to get walked on) ok but everyone's got different favorites.

for my spouse- its the freedom in a map. its collections of writing on water law and water history.

for me now its a shelf of yarn that not only looks good it feels good, for him its piles of rock samples. for me its a dog that comes running and a dog charm on my car keys for it was always a dog that was loyal to me for more than my adoptive family. but obviously that's probably true for everyone!

I have rambled about focusing on today's positivity seeking a pattern that is real, that is authentic, and is not triggering for me. it was developed grafting authentic harmless parts of life from BEFORE my awareness- with positive changes trying to maintain living WITH awareness- sufficient not to trigger defensive reactions.

how do you- move- from unawareness, or partial awareness, to awareness, keep aware, and then thrive? well for one thing, obviously you survived- that's tremendous given those obstacles. now you were asking me- how to not just survive, but thrive?

and when mormonism is n o longer a support but an obstacle- is it all of nothing- or is part of it still a support? or a support to one's spouse or one's employer? or is part of the routine very very good not to discard- is it the eating at the table together? or your favorite part of food storage (like mac and cheese on sale)? or feeling secure with extra blankets? What did you not want to fix- because that act, that routine- it is good. Ripping off a bandaide from blister hurts but you won't be in danger- taking stitches out yourself is another thing. you want to identify and keep carefully in place supportive parts of your routine- daily habits daily focus daily experience- that makes you & your family survive. Andthen you tweak move or change minimal parts improving it- because you want to.

I think the pain of the past, knowing the reality does not have to be contained in dissociated unrememberedness only when life holds some meaning here. some comfort here. right? I am loathe to take any of them away without a replacement, or a boatload of hobbies, experiences, positive patterns I have found and learned habitually in a routine0- BEFORE I rip another 'bandaide' off and take away yet another, not so good for me anymore habit which used to be a comfort and was a survival skill part of my defense routine package which made me able to survive my childhood & life.

oh best to you in all you do.

The right answer, obviously, is to get into serious therapy.

The other right answer: Gastric Bypass Surgery. If you have a job, you have insurance. Like you, I was extremely fit and active as a teen/young adult. But medication I began taking in my late 20's caused me to gain 100 lbs. In 2004, I had the surgery at one of the nation's leading bariatric clinics. I lost 150 lbs. and I've maintained it since.

Nobody knows this about me so that's why I've gone anon. But I swear my quality of life changed dramatically. I can hardly remember the obese person I used to be. Such simple things, like personal hygeine, knee pain, breathing, mood, social interactions, activity levels, food enjoyment, personal motivation - EVERYTHING changed for the better!

When you feel better, your life gets better. That's a promise.

Good luck. I'm pulling for you.

^ This ^ I'm pullin for ya, anonagain!

I don't want you to underestimate your role as a father. My father died in my early teens. It had a profound and detrimental effect on me. I was so numbed by grief that I don't think I ever processed his death properly. It affected my self esteem and my most intimate relationships for years.

One of my biggest regrets is that I was never able to form an adult relationship with my dad. He was so smart and so sensible that I think he could have given me some really great advice and guidance. Like you, he had seen a lot of life. He had a lot to give and a lot to share, as do you.

***********************

Our bodies are not ourselves. Live long enough, and your body will eventually betray you. Your hips start to go, your knees start to go, and suddenly the sports that you always thought you might return to are no longer open to you. You get a few sags and wrinkles. Gravity starts to win. Who is that aging person in the mirror? Surely it isn't you. Inside you are the fit, vibrant person of your youth. Where did that person disappear to? It happens to all of us. Do the best you can and don't worry about it beyond that.

***********************

There is a Buddhist saying. If you committ suicide, you will still have the same problems, only you will not have a body with which to solve those problems.

That thought has kept me going on the dark days that we all, at times, endure. Perhaps it will help you as well.

Please try to think of yourself with the level of kindness and tenderness with which you would want others to see you. You are a person of value. You are deserving of every possible consideration, especially from yourself.

Words to live by.

;o)

Your post reminded me so much of my mother, please, please stay on this earth it can get better I only say this because I have watched my Mother battle her demons and I have seen her overcome them. I would never have wanted my Mom to chose suicide over the crud we went through on her journey, it would have left me broken and hopeless.In all honesty it would have destroyed all of the family if she had chosen suicide over the stuff that life threw at her and us. You have worth you just cant see it now, just like my Mom could not see it when she was dealing with her own childhood terrors. As for the weight, when my Mom truly stopped loathing herself(it took a mild stroke to put an end to that) it started to come off, and my sister started running with her to get her into shape. All of this happened in her late 50's and she is now 60 and running in mini marathons. She has asked us about what went on and if we had been better if she bowed out all 3 of us kids and my Dad tell her no, that the journey she went on although tough at times made us all better people. She truly is a butterfly now, she helps everyone she can with her story. Please stick around the world needs you be it today or 40 yrs from now. Sending you good love and good vibes, blessings or whatever you need to help you through this.

My phone does not usually let me post to the board but it is right now...I'll take it as a sign.

I have walked almost everywhere you have walked. I know what empty pain feels like and I know what it's like to kill yourself slowly.

But now I also know what it's like to feel safe, what a stomach without anxiety feels like, and I can fall asleep at night without terror.

You can get there. This is the lowest you ever have to be, and every little step you take will help you heal a little bit more.

I agree with other posters when I say that therapy and keeping yourself safe are the biggest priorities. You are a good person who deserves help and peace and I wish you all that.

Good Morning Anonagain. Sending a smile and a hug your way. I hope your todays are better than your yesterdays.

Thank you all for the kind words and the support. That was the first time I have ever admitted to the abuse out loud. I am touched and moved by people who do not know me spending the time to write me and try to help.

And it has. Admitting the abuse publicly, even though it is anonymous, helps purge the poison from my system. I will keep this thread and go back to it when things get bad.

I have already read it 10 times at least.

Again, thank you all.

Your bravery manifests in the fact that you posted your story! You are a strong person! Promise me that you will do one thing today that makes YOU happy, an then again tomorrow, and the next day, an the next day. Your past experiences will always be with you, but you can decide how your past affects your future. You can do this. (((HUGS!!)))

Take one day at a time. Try just a little improvement each day. It adds up after a while and you can feel some accomplishment. Good luck, you have friends here.