Weight/rape/ptsd/eating

[Cannottakethis]

Once all of my repressed memories came back after having been an average weight my entire life I ballooned up to 225 pounds from 125. I just never stopped eating. After multiple hospitalizations medications and therapy, I started to lose weight after about 6 years. I was feeling better, I had gotten married, and I had gotten a career. I got divorced I made it to my goal weight, and was able to maintain it for a while. As I got into my first domestic violence relationship, then weight begin to come back on. I never got back up to the original high weight, but I have struggled on and off since then. The different medications that I've had to take for the other mental illnesses that I have have exacerbated my weight issues. I currently see a medical doctor, nutritionist to help me with my weight issues. I recently started a kickboxing class as well. My weight loss and my body image have been a huge issue for me and has caused me huge amounts of stress. The PTSD was definitely the catalyst for my weight to start changing, and I have not been able to grab hold of it. Even in the last five years, when I met my husband I was at My goal weight again, and have ballooned up 60 pounds and have only been able to lose 25 in the last two years. It's just a never ending battle.

 

[Deleted member 37085]

Just had a repeat memory of when I was a very little girl sitting alone at the kitchen table in California(?) and was forced over and over repeatedly again and again to eat what was now my own vomit which used to be a food item that I had simply refused to eat I guess? Some sociopathic jerk-off was forcing me to eat my own vomit again and again! OMG! that was originally a food item(s) on my plate; this person would come into the kitchen through the swinging door and this door would make weird sounds as this sad excuse for a human being entered and exited the kitchen.

This seems like it was almost ritualistic behavior as this excrement (inhuman) kept coming in and out of the kitchen and shoving my vomit back into my little girl innocent mouth and repeatedly over and over again. Since "babysitter" cha-cha in California was the one who per sister's recollection - turned me upside down over the commode and repeatedly flushed my head down into the commode bowl, she may have been the one who repeatedly made me eat my own vomit.

I feel strongly that this also resulted in my having serious food intake issues as well. Sorry @TexCat for inferring you have had hypo-T or depression (I misread your post). Due to undiagnosed for years Hashimoto's T I subsequently went without thyroxine for several years also which I believe caused my weight to balloon.

Thank you @TexCat, really helpful thread here.

 

[Deleted member 37474]

Just had a repeat memory of when I was a very little girl sitting alone at the kitchen table in Cali...

I am really sorry that that happened to you. Babysitter sounds evil. I too am from the "clear you plate generation." They must have had some parenting book out there telling everyone to do that, or it was related to the children that lived through The Great Depression and then raised kids? Whatever it is, not a healthy plan.

I am eating each day, but my portions have gone way down. Yesterday, I had a bowl of cereal and after that forgot to eat until around 4 pm in which I only ate a small bit of barbecue on a slice of bread. Last night, salad (felt full). Some veggies and pieces of hibachi steak at the restraunt. Yesterday was, emotionally, a very hard day for me, but I was still functional so I was still eating.

 

[Friday]

What has been your experience with food and ptsd?

It's complicated.

 

[ninja]

It's complicated.

Very much.

I'm working through the food issues a bit at the moment. I unintentionally lost a significant amount of weight when a particularly difficult period of depression/anxiety hit a few years ago. Prior to that I had wanted to be smaller. It occurred to me only recently that a massive reason why I wanted/want to be smaller was because I wanted/want to be less of a burden. I'd sometimes like to evaporate into thin air and hide/not exist. When I am going through difficult times that is what I wish for. However, I also tend to crave sugar when anxious and tired and have trouble sleeping when anxious so become more tired, therefore crave more sugar. I find exercise helps to stop this cycle.

I wasn't eating enough+other less than great behaviors around food for a long period, intentionally. I spent hours thinking about food. Eventually I ran out of energy to restrict and so began eating more & went through a period of eating everything all the time it felt like. I am starting to finally find a balance with it again. & getting to the point where I just don't care to use food for more than nutrition. The desire to become less of a burden and hide in "air" is still present, though it manifests itself a little less in how I manage food daily. Food issues are exhausting.

 

[Nessa7]

My parents did not consistently provide food, and I know that this is all tangled up with my PTSD. I had all of the bad habits that kids learn when they don't have food growing up. I've stopped eating every time food is offered because I didn't know when I would be eating next.

My dad didn't really eat. When he wasn't mentally healthy, he'd eat a couple boiled eggs at midnight and that would be it. I think this example subconsciously convinced me that I don't really need food to live. It doesn't take much for me to completely forget to feed myself.

After I spent months stretching out whatever was in the pantry, my mom would go out and buy a ton of food without planning how long it would last. Eating the fresh stuff at just the right rate so it doesn't go bad or run out too soon wound be an obsession until it ran out. Food going bad and my supply of nonperishables is a major source of stress.

All the schools that I ever went to shamed students that couldn't afford lunch in some way, but it got a lot worse once I started 6th grade. You would get saltines and a slice of cheese if you didn't have money for lunch. I had been shamed all through elementary school, but this was more than I was willing to subject myself to. If I didn't have money, I didn't eat. My parents never gave me money for food, so I had to hoard whatever other relatives gave me and gifts. One time my father found it and put it in the bank, and it was devastating because I didn't know how else I was going to feed myself. To this day, I keep a ridiculous amount of cash in my home. I don't even know where all of it is.

I also eat too fast, which I've heard is normal for kids that didn't get enough food growing up. I'm working on it, though.

 

[Deleted member 37474]

My parents did not consistently provide food, and I know that this is all tangled up with my PTSD. I ha...

Your past is heartbreaking to me. My daughter has a dairy allergy and can't eat many things. She will sit without at school if she forgets her lunch from home because there is little that she can safely eat. She went on a church trip and the hosts provided pizza that night. Even though we turned in her diatery needs, all they offered her was a banana. They did try to find sandwich stuff too, but the bread had dairy. My daughters friends have been known to share foods with kids that are without. I am so sorry you were shamed.

 

[Changing4Best]

I was a normal healthy weight when I was raped long ago. Then I was hyper-sexual to some extent. Block...

I am an emotional over and undereater. I overeat when I am somewhat or mildly upset and I undereat or don't eat at all when I am super upset.

This was not always the case. When I was diagnosed, they put me on some psych med that caused weight gain. I mean, like, I went from the weight I had been at all my adult life (135 lbs) to 60 pounds heavier in 4 months time!!!

They took me off that medicine, but the damage was already forever done after that. It took me 6 years to lose that weight, only to gain it back again slowly over the following years. I got up to 187 on the new medicine that replaced it maybe 2 years ago, dieted and counted calories and got back down to 140, stopped counting calories, because it is a pain in the "you know what." I am now at 158 and my Dr. is nagging me that she thinks I am "obese" (my height is 5'7") and so my BMI is one point over what it should be.

According to the chart she gave me, that means that I am "overweight" and just barely at that, NOT OBESE! However, she is not budging on her opinion, and still considers me to be "obese." Dr.s drive me crazy sometimes. I guess there is no gray area for them. Either you are healthy, or you are sick. There is no being just a little bit not feeling well, or just a bit ill or a tiny bit overweight. Diagnosis is everything. And once they have diagnosed you with something, there seems to be no way to get undiagnosed from it!

For instance, I know 2 "diabetics" that are no longer needing medications for diabetes. They changed their diets and have no more need of the medicines that were once required for them to keep the disease under control. However, their Dr.s continue to test them for the illness as if they still have it, even though they are both refusing medication for it and have had healthy blood sugar levels for over a year or two, if not longer. Go figure....

So anyway, I am taking a medication that causes weight gain. No way around it. I am probably doomed to being "obese" in my Dr.'s eyes forevermore. Even if I am only one pound overweight.

 

[Cannottakethis]

@SheilaKathy
I'm on a med a psychiatrist called a fat bomb. It's part of the struggle.

After reading everyone else's stories, I felt like I had more to add.

I grew up with a mother/narcissist who was extremely focused on weight and looks. There was diet food everywhere and fat was a 4 letter word. When I gained the weight she made passive aggressive comments about it rather than asking or researching that trauma victims often change their looks to become less desirable.

And after l lost all of the weight she still pet my 95% flat belly and mentioned that I wasn't done yet.

As an adult I've had some disordered eating. I used to be a stress eater, now I'm a stress starver. And now I forget to eat. I never thought that could happen but it does.

 

[Teasel]

Toddler til 7 or 8 I was a bit chubby. Though I've many memories of there bring no food from 3 or 4 till not sure when. I remember It was Mums job to do the shopping and she was oftentimes too depressed or actually more than that weren't given enough money...

As someone else said, I've always fretted about where the next meal will come from.

From 8 I got fatter. From 9 when csa started I started to put on a feck load of weight.

15 when csa stopped I started to lose it. Even dieting was so extreme I remember losing my eyesight.

During first and every subsequent abusive relationship I also put on feck loads of weight.

So as an adult when single even if v depressed I'd be quite overweight.

But during relationships I'd get heavier n heavier.

Also have often times as an adult - if I lost some weight and got some bit of attention from a man - I'd get scared and start binging pronto.

Also in the past 2 and a half years, refreshingly, have been putting on feck loads of weight due to trying n failing to quit smoking 10 times rather than cause of being mental.

Recently weighted the most I ever have. But I ain't smoked for 6 months now and in the last month I lost 8 lbs.

Go me heh.

 

[Deleted member 37085]

Go You! @Bearlinda! Wow! and no smokes in 6months! Radical! Rockin' You! Woo-Hoo! I'm currently struggling with food addiction! among other things related to my ptsd.

 

[420kitty]

I didn't realize I had PTSD during this time but just felt extremely depressed. I lost 20 lbs in a month by not eating. My immediate family was worried about me because all I would eat was soup. Everyone else commented on how great I looked. When I started to feel mentally healthier I gained that weight back but slowly lost it again due to work and building muscle. I've gained and lost 100 lbs twice in my life so far. I have a difficult relationship with food, lol.