I Look Like A Victim Of Abuse

[Ahe]

I'm morbidly obese. I'm disgustingly huge. Weirdly I don't see other big people this way, but just seem to feel utterly sickened by myself. What disgusts me is not necessarily that I'm big, but because other people can see it and it makes me feel as if they can see just by glancing at me that I'm a human being who has clearly been abused. I don't believe that anyone can inflict this level of self-abuse without having experience some sort of primary abuse. Everywhere I go people look at me. I've had some people just gawp at me, others give me real looks of disgust and some avoid eye contact and show visible signs of discomfort when I speak to them, particularly people who tend to be very very slim.

I hate myself and it seems every day I see the pounds creep up and I continue to eat and eat and eat. It's stupid that I've let myself become this size. I feel as if I've just continued to abuse myself and everyone can see that I am damaged. I'm so ashamed I don't even want to leave the house sometimes. It feels as if I've got a little red flag on me which says 'Issues, don't go there'.

I've tried every diet under the sun, but I just hate myself so much that whenever I feel a painful emotion I eat to punish myself and when I feel a positive emotion I eat as a reward (it seems no other reward compares to food). It seems lately that I no longer get any pleasure from eating. I stuff my face full of rubbish out of the habit of self-abuse, not because I'm even enjoying it. I hate the fact that the whole world can see that I'm a victim just with a quick glance. I hate that I've done this to myself.

 

[Oju]

Hi there.
I too am fat! I too have the same issues you have. I stuff myself with food and don't enjoy it because I am addicted to food. I became addicted to food at the age of 10 after my abuse. It is hell to live with an addiction to food, it has/is ruining my life. People don't understand, but it is the same as an addiction to drugs etc but harder because we have to eat food to survive so cant just avoid it as you would with drugs etc.
Diets wont work because you need to find out the reason why you want to eat all the time. This is why I am in therapy ....... I only hope it works so I don't have to live this hell life.
You are not alone!

 

[Epi]

I don't know if this will help in any way but. I am not heavy (underweight actually). I am going to be perfectly honest with you. I find the way obese people are treated to be horrible. The vile looks, open harassment and overall abusive way people of size are treated is just, wrong. Makes me sick, as if someone who is that heavy can't somehow be aware of it.

How is it supposed to be helpful to hurl abuse and denigrate someone who feels so unhappy with life that they are eating themselves to death? Addiction really is the correct term for it. Though it sounds a misnomer, it is a compulsion. Same if it were booze, dope, gambling or sex. In fact it's probably harder to recover from as you need food to live, you can quit drinking but you can't quit eating.

You don't need or deserve to be treated like garbage, nor do you need to be pitied. You deserve respect, care and love. Just like everybody else. Now the hard part.

You deserve it, but you have to make it happen. Only you ultimately have the power to be healthy. Not just physically but also mentally. You owe it to you, to forgive yourself, to try and change your life for the better. Good place to start would be your doctor. Get your health stabilized at the weight your at now, get advice on how to change your diet in ways you can make yourself do. Start small, don't try to drop it all at once. Besides being dangerous to starve yourself, it's also likely to fail because it is a huge change, and an unpleasant one. But every pound you lose will be one more closer to where you want to be.

Most importantly you need to believe that you deserve it, that you deserve a better life. Because you do.

 

[Udija]

When I see someone with extra weight on them, I don't think "victim of abuse." I tend not to think much about it at all. If anything, I think maybe they have off kilter hormones or

Weight is one thing. Who you are as a person is another thing. Maybe you equate them, I don't.

You are using food to self regulate. Makes sense why diets don't work. Diets don't regulate emotion, diets don't make the pain less. Dealing with the trauma might help.

 

[Obig]

This comes up on parenting forums all the time, because a lot of women gain 80+ pounds when pregnant! And at best that takes about a year to work off. More often 2-3. By which time most women are pregnant, again w/ #2, and getting fat all over again. Or adding anohter 80 on top of the 20 they hadn't worked off, yet. So, after #2 #3 etc... They just keep trying. And many never manage it. So they're 30-50+ pounds overweight for a decade, or life. Some 100+ pounds overweight. It becomes a very hot button topic in parenting-land: weight & what other people think. And, ancillary, what now obese people used to think of obese people before they got pregnant, injured, hormonally imbalanced, put on bedrest for 6mo, lived for 2 years in the hospital with their kid going through chemo, were working 2-3 jobs plus taking care of their kids all on 3 hours of sleep to pay the bills just a few of the myriad myriad ways that previously slim & athletic people become what they'd never thought they'd be... And how embarrassed they are of themselves back when (and angry at people who sneer at them, now).

I've read probably 5 or 6 thousand posts on all of the above.

In the Top 10 reasons from those posts that other people think fat people are fat? Trauma & abuse doesn't even make the list. Much less the most common thing people think of.

The single most common thing people thought other people thought? What they themselves do/did. Doesn't matter what it is/was.

It's called judging others by ourselves. We all do it to greater or lesser degree.

Am I saying you're not being sneered at? Nope. People are assholes. What I'm saying is that why they're sneering is based in their own ignorance or insecurities. The gym rat tends to think fat people "just" need to work out like they do, so they're lazy. The calorie counting fanatic? Tends to think its gluttony. The carb counter, the Vegan, the yo-yo dieter, the nutrition buff, the health nut... If other people just did what they do, they wouldn't be fat. (Or poor, or whatever. If I work hard and make good money, then clearly, if you don't make good money then you aren't working hard like me :rolleyes:). It's 100% insecure self defense mechanisms in people trying to convince themselves they have "control" in areas that they really don't p. The scary thing won't happen to them ... Because they do XYZ. Whether it's weight, or work, or parenting, or rape, or car accidents, or, or, or.

It's the exact same place "blame the victim" comes from. It makes people feel safe.

What other people are thinking about you? Has almost nothing to do with you, unless they love you. It's all about them. Their own hopes & fears. Not your reality, or your life.

 

[Monuj]

I'm overweight, and I've struggled with my relationship with food all my life. I feel your pain.
When I'm distressed, I eat and eat and eat - I eat things I'm not enjoying and I eat things I don't even like. I've put on 10-20kg in the shortest amount of time I can imagine lately.
Going back four or five years ago, I was the opposite. I had control issues and I didn't eat enough. I restricted food and when I was in high school I had an eating disorder.
Everything about me and food is wrong. I just can't seem to manage having a healthy relationship with it. I too, hate myself because of these issues.
I know, however, that I have to try NOT to hate myself. If you hate yourself, blame yourself, think of yourself as horrible... you will end up feeling depressed and worthless. I know, because I do. What happens then? You feel terrible... so, I'm guessing, like I do, you end up dealing with it by eating those emotions. It's such a vicious cycle and it's so hard to break. As I said, I'm yet to break it, but I think that is your starting point - trying to stop that negative self-talk that says I'm worthless because I'm overweight. One actually doesn't cause the other. You can be overweight and still worth something... worth quite a lot, actually.
This is so important to try and work towards overcoming, because shame is the most destructive of emotions. Try not to attach to those thoughts and not to attach to those thoughts that people know you were abused. I assure you, they don't. Most people wouldn't even have a clue that these things could be possibly linked.
I read a quote recently that asked the question why we refer to ourselves by saying "I am fat". We don't say, "I am fingernails"... we say, "I have fingernails". So why don't we say, "I have fat"??
It seems a silly distinction but it really clarified something for me and it helps manage your own thinking... You may have fat... but you are NOT fat. It is just one part of you, just like your fingernails.

We have to stop being so hard on ourselves, avoid attaching to thoughts that cause that feeling of shame, because that is so destructive and that is what causes us to engage in unhealthy emotional/punishment eating.

 

[Semus]

Now I am midlife andI am over weight but not fat. My mother and mother in law are both grossly obese. I self harm (smoke cigs) because I don't want to be fat. My mother thinks that her obesity makes her "invisible", but that is not really true. I have seen people's reactions to her most all my life and been affected by it. Enough so that I have ignored, except for a 5 year quit, the advice to quit smoking cigs.

I have also had periods when I was moderately but not severely under weight. But for me, I am no better off then our mothers... I am self harming. Just not in the manner they chose. I have been put in situations where rude remarks were made by patrons of restaurants seated nearby to either or both of our mothers when out celebrating an event and I can assure you it didn't go unchallenged by me.

Neither mother has addressed her underlying psychological issues. I would encourage you to do so.

 

[Atik]

I feel your pain. I have been on both sides of the fence on this. I was underweight in early life. In fact, I had something known as 'failure to thrive' as a child. I did not eat much. Maybe growing up in a home with DV and then being sexually abused kind of ruined my appetite. During my junior year in college I gained 50 pounds. It was my first bout of deep depression (in adulthood), and I was terribly lonely this year as I had ended a 2 year relationship, and just had a miscarriage. Food was my only comfort. Food did not judge me, it did not talk crap, and it tasted good. It was the only pleasure in life that I had left. I gained the weight rapidly enough that when I decided to take a year off of school to recoup, I came home to people who did not recognize me. I remember walking up to my friends house, her parents outside in front of the garage motioned me inside, and later when they came inside my friend had to tell them who I was. They were not the only ones who did not recognize me. It was appalling how people treated me. When I was skinny people were nicer to me, they looked me in the eye and treated me like I was human, but when I gained the weight I became invisible to many, and those who looked at me only judged me. Some people even treated me badly with an open and obvious sense of entitlement, as if my weight meant that I was no good and therefore they had a right to treat me that way. When I was skinny and I needed help at the grocery store, a store employee would walk me to my item and hand it to me rather than just tell me which aisle it was on, but when I was obese they might tell me what aisle it was on, but not even look at me when they did it. It was amazing to note the huge difference in how I was perceived and treated when my appearance was one way versus the other, and it made me sick to call myself human. How on earth could a human treat another this way simply based on appearance? I was the same person whether I was skinny or fat. We can be some sick creatures. Something that helped me was finding a partner. I made it my goal to eat healthier foods first. So I did not eat less, I just replaced donuts with wheat toast with jam etc. My partner and I held each other accountable for exercise. We would meet up and walk the nearby trails. Over time, changes came, and it was slow enough change that I was able to stick with it. Trying to go cold turkey, or changing too fast would not have worked for me. I could not change people, but I could change myself, an on my own terms.

 

[Ihab]

Thank you for the messages and advice everyone.

I realise that it is my responsibility to make changes and I am the only one who can, but it's hard to deal with the underlying psychological issues. I'm finding therapy actually makes my eating worse because it stirs up all of these negative memories and emotions in me. I've gained over half a stone since starting therapy.

It is a really hard addiction/compulsion to break because all of the positive things I try to replace it with don't even scratch the surface of my emotional wounds. Even though food no longer brings me comfort, I feel there is no better alternative for me.

I've been to my GP for advice and to be honest I have enough knowledge to write a book on nutrition (I've seen dieticians, nutritionists, health couches, tried hypnotherapy, weight loss groups etc). I know how to lose weight logically, but my emotional brain is in the drivers seat.

I'm not surprised the world tends to treat me badly and abuse me, because they must look at me and think 'oh well she treats herself that way and so we can treat her that way and it won't matter'.

I want to be healthy and thin. I want to be the sort of person that looks physically in control. I feel looking this way just highlights my complete lack of self-control. I just want the world to think I'm alright, even if I'm not.

 

[Ligu]

Honestly, I have never made the connection between an obese person and being a victim of abuse. Of course, I know it is a possibility, but I usually feel rather sorry, as it is so unhealthy and do think they must have certain issues they cover up with food. Next realizing that they probably know that already themselves. I would see the therapy as a temporary influence on your weight, which means once you go through the pain and negative this could seriously have a profound positive effect on your weight issues.

 

[Ici]

To the op - your last line really struck me. I think just about everyone wants to look like they are ok when they are not ok. Some of us just hide it better.

I want to challenge you to consider that maybe it's ok to not be ok.

It's common for Ptsd symptoms to get worse after starting therapy for awhile. Therapy made me gain so much weight this last year. When I took a break from therapy, it got better....

But damn. Healing from trauma is freaking hell. I want my crutch of food and yet, it shows. My self injury scars tell a story too - that I'm not quite ok. Even when others don't know what the scars are from, I do, and they see the scars all the same...

I think a lot of people without Ptsd spend a lot of their lives trying to come off better than they are.

Maybe the real courage and he real peace is found when we become ok to be known for all that we are. Scars, extra weight, and all.

You were hurt by trauma, you are hurting now. That does not make you less of a person (even if society treats us that way.) it means be can be brave enough to be real.

Those who live with a false front - they are not really happy or at peace. Their shame is only just a little more hidden to themselves and the world.

 

[Awacuh]

Excellent point @ici. The more I dropped the false front, the easier it all became.