Messages By: airabell

Hello everyone, I'm a newbie here.

I wanted to ask this question because there seems to be some confusion out there and that includes me about whether obesity is an illness or disorder or not.

I mean, I can easily find clinics and academic depts studying and providing assistance for anorexics and bulimics and you can get government assistance in the form of medicare (Australia) for getting help for those eating problems but when it comes to obesity, it just doesn't exist.

Both my sister and I are morbidly obese.  I now have high bp and a heart problem.  I cannot seem to control my eating beyond a few hours to a few days.  It does seem to me to have the hallmarks of an addiction.  My sister had lapband surgery recently.  She had the money, I don't.  It cost her several thousands of dollars.  She still strongly craves food, but she just can't eat now.

It really confusing cause I don't know whether to be mad or not.  If it is a disorder, an addiction, it seems discriminatory to not provide medical assistance.  If its not, then what the hell is happening to me and others like me?

Look forward to your replies, particularly from health professionals.

When I was 2 years old my parents divorced, I didn't understand of course how at the time just what type of effect this would have on the rest of my life. But it has been devistating. My mother remarried and I was adopted, I was lied to during my childhood being told that this new man was my "father". He beat me, he sexually abused me, while all the while I watched as his own children he had with my mother grew up loved and never treated the same as me. I was the household slave, I cooked, and cleaned and was not alllow to go be with friends, while my younger sister was allowed to be a child, she was told she was beautiful and talented, while I with talents of my own such as art, music, gymnastics was told I was ugly, stupid and would never amount to anything. My step father would often come to my bed at night and say things to me, the "things" I don't remember all I can see is his face leaning toward me in the evening darkness, my mother in the next room. Even my older brother tried to have sex with me, he touched me inapproprately and tried to penetrate me later on. All the while my mother professed to have a loving family. She ignored me, would not speak with me, didn't share with me yet I kept trying to reach out to her. I wanted to be loved so much, I wanted to be cuddled like the other kids, I wanted to be happy and feel protected and safe. Even after my mother divorced this man who was my step father, and after she told me of my real father she still treated me the same. I was still nothing more than a housekeeper. I saw myself as a worthless person. Somewhere insdie me I wisely knew what I wanted, I wanted to feel connected. I tried to build a relationship with my father which ended after 20 years with him running off with someone my own age for a wife. His choice I know but he didn't bother telling me he was going. I could not reach him for well over a month I panicked. It was happening all over again, just like when i was 2 years old. How could he do this? Did I matter so little to him? It was as if a part of me was dying and no one cared. I have had three failed marriages, looking for that connection still. I know it's wrong of me to do this, I just don't know how to stop the pain and stop wanting to be loved. I am a Buddhist and am not truly stupid as my family assumes. I keep their dirty secrets for them, and were I to divulge what I know they would only deny what happened. No one ever said they were sorry...is that really so hard to say? I am sorry for them, yet on the other side the emotional one, thinks that they don't care if anyone suffers as long as they can lie and pretend that they are good and kind. My mother has these peopl eshe knows at her church, they are a couple and she treats them like they are her children with love, resepct and caring. How can she be  this way when she treats her own child as if she is dirt on her shoe. She is two faced. She is fine and wonderful in front of others, but in private the story is very different. This year on my 48th birthday she sent me a card, and what she said was cruel. She said that my son who lives in amercia is fine, and she is "supporting him" in what he does, she said she was proud of him for going to college. I am one of the only children who has a college degree and she has never said she is proud of me. This type of manipulative taunting is sent to hurt, and is deliberate in nature. I just don't understand why she feels comelled to be like this. Does she hate me so much that she feels the only way to ontrol me is to hurt me. I am no longer a baby, I am nearly 50 so why can I simply not just leave all this behind me. I have cried so much that my heart  aches, I feel drained and afraid when I think of all of it. I have had therapy but it has not given me the tools I need to step away from this and truly feel beautiful. To comensate I eat. It is the only thing that I can have that no one can take from me. It is the only thing that is non emtional, non involved and has nothing in it that harms....but then I eat so much that i have gained weight over and over. I lose 40 lbs, then gain back 60. I have recently lost 14 pounds, but my boyfriend instead of telling me I did a good job said I was too fat to find sexually attractive. I am no beauty queen, and I know that I need to lose weight, due to back injuries, age, and hyesterectomy I have gained this weight. I belong to a dieters club however I am defeated at every turn. I am trying very hard, but no one seems to really care, all they care about is the current thing. I am still too fat to be loved, according to him. He lives with me and I know I should kick him out but there is one thing more. My son who is 20 is in Iraq, I miss him. The love we share is very special, but I feel like I am not being a good mom to him either now. He has had such a rough time growing up as a latch key child, in both the US and the UK where I now live. I know it's all complex but the human mind is this way. My Buddhist faith and teachings help, but I still fall down. I wish above all that I could find someone who loved me the way I am, who didn't want me thinner, fatter, shorter or taller, that wouldn't just up and leave and never say goodbye. I have much to give it just seems that in this life no one wants to know my heart, and that is beyond sad to me. I have no self esteem and you would think that with all I have done I would be proud, and happy. But life simply hasn' been that way, not for me.

I have checked into gastric bypass surgery for him and was told he must be 18.

I have met very FEW people who have been really happy with the long term results of gastric bypass surgery. Find another way.  My stepdaughter was lazy, unmotivated, and had no one in her life that took an interest in whether or not she lost weight. She had the surgery at 19, 6 years ago, and has been in the hospital 7 times since for MAJOR complications. 

So, who is bringing the food into the house? Who is preparing it?