who are they kidding???

I'm feeling pretty down today. My family (in recent years) has pretty much ignored the fact that I have a weight problem, and the fact that I keep getting larger and larger.  I'm visiting my parents in Klamath Falls for about a week, and today, just out of the blue my dad pops up with this:  "I don't know if this has anything to do with your weight problem or not, but when you were a baby you had pretty bad colic for over three weeks. I would stay up with you and walk you  and you hurt so much it would make me cry."  "what would that have to do with my weight?" I asked "Well I dunno. Just a thought" was his reply My dad and I don't get along very much, and I know he didn't mean that to be hurtfull. I think I'm just too over sensitive when it comes to my weight. I wanted to tell him what really contributed to my weight problem was all the years of emotional abuse he and my mom put me through. All the years of calling me a fat ass, forcing me to exercise (which just made me hate anything involving physical activity) telling me to get my fat lazy ass up or that she wished she would have aborted me. Then feeding me bags of chocolate to make up for it instead of apologizing or talking to me. I mean, I know that I am the reason I am so big, I wish I could have brought my weight under control a long time ago. But back when I was 10 through high school...what do they think treating me like that would do to me??? I look back at pictures from back then and I wasn't even a chubby kid. I had a bigger build than my siblings, but I wasn't fat. And I thought I was huge. I believed my parents. Now I am huge.  

Oh I can so relate! Here are some tidbits of what my folks would say to me: oh ya big cow, don't crush those little kids (when I would play with my sibs)

every one of you kids was conceived in drunkeness I hate you they gave me a name (silly one that would make no sense If I told you what it was, but translation was you are eating an incredible amount of food).  My dad would say I was putting the "cab on it"  short version of the name -just the name would make me feel so shameful, then I'd get pissed and not care. Guess what?  After I grew up and got help via OA - I was telling my bro and sisters about my bulimia - every single one of them have/had an eating disorder.  All of us.

Hmmm, I'm not sure where your dad was going with that colic observation - stomach problems?  That they thoguht you were a handful at a young age?

All I can say is, the first 18 years were theirs...the next 80 years are all yours. Make the best of it, don't put your self in long exposures to toxic people, even if they gave birth to you.  My dad is gone now, I try to accept they both did the best they coudl with what they knew. I cannot change it, so i change my feelings about myself.   ((((savidge)))))

I hear you.  I was lucky in that it wasn't my parents, but my brother, who is 10 years older than me used to call me names and say horrible things about my weight.  Both my parents are obese, so they wouldn't say anything to me about it, but my brother . . .  I got to where I wouldn't even stay in the same room with him.  Still I can't completely excuse my parents though, If my son says anything negative to either of my daughters, he gets in huge trouble.  No way should one sibling be allowed to emotionally abuse another and IMO they should have stepped in. Ironically he now has a way higher BMI than I, sleep apnoea and who knows what all else.  He carries most of his weight in his gut.  One of the names he used to call me was Roly.  That was way before Bob the Builder had a machine call Roly.  When my son (who was 2.5 at the time and big into Bob the Builder) saw him for the first time he said, "You look kinda like a Roly."  Unfortunately big brother didn't catch it;  I so wish he had.  But it still makes me smile to myself.   I also remember at age 7 my grandmother telling me I was quite a chunk and was going to end up just like my mother.  OK, Grandma, and that's supposed to help in what way?!  My mother has been around the 300 pound mark for as long as I can remember.  I have always hated being compared to her. I too remember always feeling like the fattest girl at school.  When I look back at the pictures, I see that I definitely was not.   I like what Neecee said, "They got the first 18 years, you get the next 80."  Even though how I got this way may not have been my fault in the begiining, it is my responsibility now. 

I just wish I could give you a big ol' hug......trying hold back emotions though....darling I feel for you.....in earlier posts I've said that noone ever made fun of my weight I now realize that wasn't entirely true.......my dad was an arse!!!!!  I remember him saying "no man will ever love a fat woman, if you don't lose weight you will be all alone when you grow up"  I was 10-12!!!!  What a mind bender!  Freakin liar!  I think I have found more love now than I ever did! He apologized right before I got married when I told him to never talk to my little sister like that, that I never had a problem with my weight until he said something......... Darling, you are going to have what I call "your fat girl days"  please keep reaching out to somebody....sooner or later they do fade away (no matter what weight you are) if you surround yourself with non-toxics and people who truly love you

Heya,      Yeah, unfortunately we can't pick our relatives.  :-(  I'm adopted, and neither of my adoptive parents are obese or have eating disorders.  In fact, they raised me (since the age of 2) with pretty balanced meat/veggie/fruit/bread meals.      But when I was 22, I finally got to meet my extended biological family.  I'd always wondered why I'd had an eating disorder that dated back to preschool, and speaking to my maternal grandfather probably gave me some clues.      My biological mother (who was dead by the age of 21) was apparently extremely irresponsible.  They'd had me as teenagers, and she had primary custody of me.  My grandfather described one incident where she'd requested he come to her apartment to watch me (I was about 1 1/2) while she went out with some friends.  Well, after he'd arrived, he'd discovered there was no milk or baby/toddler food anywhere to be found (or diapers for that matter).  I'm guessing this was a somewhat regular state of affairs.  To make a long story short, she didn't return that night or for the next several days.  When she finally contacted my grandparents, she called from 1,200 miles away in CA!  I guess she'd gotten an impromptu urge to take off on a road trip without telling anyone.      Anyway, when I've binged, it's always been with an extreme sense of urgency as if I'm not going to get enough food.  I've always been very possessive of my food and hated sharing it with anyone else (sort of a touch my food, draw back a stump kind of thing LOL).  I thinking this dates back to those first couple of years when I probably wasn't well fed or fed regularly.  I'm not sure why else I would have been stealing food and feeling the need to binge when I was only 3 or 4.       But good luck in dealing with your own demons.  I think the psychological seeds for morbid obesity are almost always planted in childhood, even for those of us who don't actually become obese until later in life.

I don't even know what to say but I feel like I should say something???   In a weird way I kind of envy you. I mean, what happened to you was horrible and you should have NEVER been treated that way!  What I mean by envy is that you have a cause for your weight problems.  You know the events that happened in your life that set you on the path to where you are now.  Perhaps I know mine to but I'm not really sure.  My parents were great to me. They were always very supportive. I suppose they didnt' teach me to eat healthy and may have shown me how to overeat but it was never anything intentional. I think it was the kids at school that gave me the most grief.  My dad and step-mom were more unhealthy than my mother.  Unfortunately my mother passed away when I was 10 and I moved in with my dad.  Maybe it's then that I really learned to overeat and the weight problems before were just genetics. My step-mom always cooked a LOT of food. She was also super morbid obese. My dad was just overweight.  I was always overweight but I do remember it getting worse from 10-13. I started a diet when I was 13 or 14 and got my weight back down. I didn't know it then but I looked the best I've looked in my life.  Like all of you I looked back over the pictures and while I was overweight I wasn't obese and I was looking damn good.  I graduated and it went downhill or perhaps that's uphill from there. There were countless other diet attempts through the years that lasted a month..maybe 6 months to a year at times but now I'm here fighting the good fight with you all. :)   I agree that Neecee said it best with the next 80 years thing. That applies to all of us.  What happened in our past doesn't matter anymore. We can't change it. All we can do is live for the next 80 years and make them healthy, otherwise you won't get 80!  :)

When I was 13, my dad told me I was "gross, fat, and ugly".  Unfortunately, I believed him, and felt huge from then on.  But when I looked at pictures of myself back then, I looked normal.  Other kids didn't even make fun of me, because I wasn't very much overweight.  But my family sure did!  Now I am 5 foot, 1/2 inch tall and weigh 283.5 pounds.  I'm on my way down, but I evenutally did become huge.  I can relate to your experiences with the emotional abuse. Denise Phares