Struggling with my weight, anxiety, and depression

[cake]

This is my first post here after I heard about this site recently. I’m 25 years old, and I’m currently 6’0 360lbs. I’ve been going through a rough patch. (haha, well it’s pretty much been my whole life). I’m been heavy my whole life. I’ve tried diets, and I have succeeded in the past just to gain weight back. I am now at the current heaviest weight I have ever been. It really hit me when I realized I can’t even wipe myself in the bathroom very well. It’s not ok. I know it’s not. I know that if I continue that I’ll just end up dying young.

I’ve had anxiety and depression in the past, and I currently take meds which have worked for me so far, but it seems to be creeping up on me again. I feel so worthless, so alone (having just gone back to school with most of my friends left last year).

I have always coped with my loneliness with food. It just keeps pulling me back down. I really am hoping to be able to find some new friends and maybe a girlfriend, but because of my weight, I convince myself that I’m not worth the effort. No one wants to date the “fat” guy. No one wants to be associated with me. I know this isn’t necessarily the case with everyone, but I can’t help feeling that I’m not good enough to even try. This of course, just makes it worse, and it doesn’t help that I’m shy. I don’t feel like I am worth dating anyone due to my weight. I don’t want to put other people through my issues that I have.

At this point I feel like I emotional eat to help me feel less insecure, which results in me feeling worse that I ate food instead of trying to lose weight. I don’t feel like I can even walk around anywhere comfortably because of my weight. I just feel like a fish out of water. I know confidence is half the battle, but I can’t help but feel completely worthless. I always tell myself that if I once I lose weight I can finally start doing things in my life again, like hiking, swimming, and dating. But this has been going on for 5 years now, and I’m still nowhere closer to getting to that place.

I don’t feel like people like me. I’ve always struggled talking to people and I instinctively try to not show too much interest in girls so that I don’t creep them out or make it seem like I’m not overly interested, but I think I sometimes put people off because they don’t think I’m interested. Everything I do in my life is to try and make people don’t have to think about me and try not to deal with me, but me being a big guy that’s pretty hard to do lol.

Let me just say though that I’m not struggling with suicidal thoughts, or anything like that. My depression is not at a point where I’ve had issues like that, but my boredom really onsets me just feeling like a terrible person.

I just don’t know what I should do anymore. I can’t go on like this for much longer, it just sucks. I have goals in my life but most of which I don’t feel like I can do because of my weight. Every time I try I just binge and it just gets worse. I’m just at a loss for how to go forward.

[anon17277947]

Hi friend,

I battled with weight issues for most of my life. Resulting in being bullied and made fun of for most of my life. Which was already hard since I’m autistic and deal with a lot of health issues.

It was so bad that even in the time in my teen years that I had lost so much weight…I didn’t even see it. I had no idea. Because people always called me fat and still did so I believed it. I didn’t even realize how much weight I had lost till many years later as an adult and looking back at photos.

As an adult, I was diagnosed with PCOS. Which gave some answers but has never taken away the fact people make fun of me, don’t take me seriously and make me feel like I’m not worth being treated like a person.

I understand the struggles of emotional eating. I’ve gone through it. I still do. I understand the struggles of not being able to do the things you love or being able to be as physical as you’d like.

It doesn’t help that I battle with crippling anxiety, public performance issues and sensory problems. Making gyms very hard. I’d like to get a treadmill but they are expensive. I was losing weight while working with a doctor about my PCOS. I was taking meds and receiving treatment for my varying health issues. It was going great and then I lost my health insurance.

I’ve fallen into a deep depression making getting out hard. It’s often hard just to get out of bed. I don’t have my medications. The one thing that sticks is, yes I do try to actively make healthier choices because I’m afraid of what will happen if I spiral out of control and I gain even more weight. I’m the heaviest I’ve been. I try to drink water. I don’t drink soda. I do buy coffee but I drink decaf now. I try to stay away from too much salt and sugar. I stay away from red meat most of the time and eat it only occasionally. I eat more chicken, Turkey and fish than anything. I try to buy Whole Foods and not so much foods in boxes and cans. Not to say I never do but I try to eat healthy Whole Foods as much as possible. It helps. Following “diets” are hard. They just make most people feel frustrated. What’s needed are life style changes in our lives. So slowly making healthy changes over time and gradually can help instead of all at once. If You make drastic changes all at once you’re going to end up overwhelming yourself and fall back.

Small changes over time. It helped me. I was maintaining weight for a long time. I’d lose very small amounts at a time but it’s better to lose small amounts or maintain than gain.

It’s been hard refindibg my balance since I lost my insurance. I have always felt like I’m unwanted, unlikable and unlovable my entire life. Struggling to find a balance has made it worse because it feels like theirs no hope. I know how challenging change is. How hard it is to work it off.

But I continue to make small changes in my life for my health and weight. It’s a very slow process. My doctor sent me to see a nutritionist. Is this something you could do? Pinterest has a lot of cool healthy recipes. Maybe you could find some that you really like. I did curves for a while. Public places are hard on me but maybe you could try it out. It’s such a loving environment with lots of encouragement and support.

Anyway. This is long. I just wanted to say I understand. I’ve been fighting these same things all my life. Finding balance and making the changes is hard. You don’t have to go at this alone. You have a friend here if you need one. I’m slow to response sometimes. But I’m on discord.

I hope that you find strength and courage my friend. And a support system that lifts you up.

You are cared for. You ARE important. You matter! No matter what.

• Kitty