I can relate to but my life is TOTALLY Different from my 600 lb life

I had bariatric surgery many years ago and never regretted it ever. I still can relate to the food addiction issues of the " my 600 lib life " patients.

I'm posting because there's so much more to talk about and resolve to stop the excess bites and thus the creeping weight gain- feeling physically vulnerable or threatened ...

feeling even slightly bullied for age or even being middle aged or a " normal." Normal Healthy weights as opposed to tv /film actress anorexic ..

feeling like opportunities passed you by ( and blindly refusing to see the ones ( life opportunities ) standing there now unpetted unacknowledged..going away

I understand your last sentence so well. Well, how I took it really gets to me. I am only 31, but I feel like I let so many experiences/opportunities in my life pass me by. Not just with dating/love life, but thats what I'm talking about right now. I let myself eat whatever I wanted, so my appearance showed that. I feel like I lost the good chances of finding someone to truly love me and have a life and family with that person because I was stuck in obesity which caused me to be stuck in a relationship where I was taken advantage of. Not enough confidence to leave. Not enough love or respect to stay. But I stayed bc I didn't figure I would find any better. I finally left, and ended up in another similar situation. All because of my confidence levels. I didn't feel like I would find who I truly needed, so I settled for who would have me. I'm not saying that nobody would love me unless I was beautiful. But confidence is a funny thing. It makes you feel that way. And while I'm at it, lower confidence also makes you blind to opportunities in the present. With me I sort of get stuck in a loop of bad situations bc I'm doomed to repeat myself or because I don't deserve something good, or because things like that "Just don't happen to me". BLAH! I am smart enough to realize that all these are lies I tell myself because my confidence is low. Anyway...

Middle aged is not a bad thing. You still have your looks, but you have experience to boot. I get feeling insecure about it though. Becoming older terrifies me. I don't even let myself think about it. I am only 31, but I feel a midlife crisis coming by the time I'm forty. The anxiety of getting older is just too much. Like I don't have so many other things to worry about. It has nothing to do with age to me, it has to do with missed opportunity. Never truly finding love. Never truly being successful in my life. Just not living. I feel like my life is just passing me by.

I remember once telling you that you needed therapy, and feeling happy in another post you made bc you talked about a therapist. I'm sorry if I made it out like there is anything wrong with that. I need therapy too. Nobody is perfect. I am right there with ya. But we can defeat these thoughts. These things that hold us down and don't let us utilize our full potential. I'll keep you in my mind if you keep me in yours. :)

((( )))) wow I really liked your post !

Of course I can totally relate .. and by the way it's funny (and outrageously sexist! ) that a beautiful thirty year old woman could consider herself middle aged at a time when these traditional age-preconceptions are totally constantly being broken across the board.

I personally wish I had been open to therapy from childhood on - I think I would have made far better choices and given myself a much happier life.

I just hope the suffering I ( needlessly) endured leads to better more accessible art..

Obesity is just a symptom of the issue, and fixing obesity does not fix the issue. The cause is something else entirely, and needs to be addressed.

I would bet that the majority, if not everyone one of, the people on this show survived major trauma or abuse, likely physical if not sexual. Abuse causes a dysregulation of behavior, as does trauma. Some people eat. Some people drink. Some develop anorexia. Some develop binge eating disorder. Some develop a personality disorder.

There are high correlations in general between obesity, trauma, and mental health.

To over come that dysfunction requires a solid support system and a lot of therapy, but also a willingness and the ability to change. The true sadness as a counselor is that not everyone has the ability to change. In fact, most people don't want to change, because the pain of change has to be less than the pain of staying the same.