Needing some support and maybe friends?

AlexisSpiros

Hello from Germany!
A friend of mine got me into MFP when she learned that I've been basically dieting and then spiralling out of control for a long, long time, so I decided to join here. My first month hasn't been going too bad either I guess. I'm 170 cm/5'7" tall and currently 125.3 kilos/278 lbs. I've started out with 130 kilos/290 lbs in the beginning of March and I really hope to be able to lose more during the next one or two years, however long this will take. But I'm in dire need of support because whenever the scale tells me I didn't lose a single ounce, I feel really, really bad about myself. And I'm feeling bad about my body to begin with, so this is a constant struggle for me.

I've really been overweight for all of my life. My family likes to tell me that it's because of everything that happened in 1989 in Germany. They all bought the tasty western German products for us kids, so we were somehow raised on chocolate and sweets. Several pounds of chocolate for Birthday, Easter and Christmas were a common occurence and no one ever stopped me stuffing my chubby face with it until I felt sick. Foundation for an unhealthy relationship with food laid.

Most of you probably know that being the chubby kid at school isn't making life any easier. I got the regular treatment: bullying, mean nicknames, no friends except the teachers (oh yes, I was the teachers' pet, it didn't help my situation though). To make things worse: no one to talk to or to confide in at home because my parents always had more severe problems, at least I felt this way. There was this constant fear that my dad might lose his job, lack of money. Typical upper lower class issues you might say. As a result, I kept all the horrible things to myself, never once complained and used food and self-harm to either punish myself or feel a bit happier. Things spiralled out of control from there and I kept gaining weight. My mother's family never got tired of teasing me about it either, but at the same time kept giving me sweets, chocolate and cake on an almost daily basis. Even more weight gain and shame about eating set in.

When I was 16, I was finally diagnosed with several issues at once, only because I ended in hospital after an overdose of painkillers one night. Eating disorder, impulse control disorder, borderline personality disorder (in Germany, it's called emotionally unstable personality disorder, which really is the better description of it I think), severe recurrent depression, self harming. I still kept gaining weight and especially my mother made me feel horrible about my body every single day. For prom night, I had wished for a fancy black and white dress (it didn't only look exceptionally beautiful, it would also help me hide some of this awful fat on my body). Upon finding out another girl would wear the same dress, my mother just said the following: "You can't wear this, the other girl will look better in it." Thus, I was forced to wear an awful lavender dress without sleeves. Not only do I hate the colour lavender, at least in clothing, but it also doesn't suit me. I looked pale as death - and severely unhappy all evening. Looking back at the photos, I was the only girl that didn't smile at all, I look horribly sad. That was when I was 18.

Ever since, I've been on different diets, got psychological treatment for my disorders, but nothing really did the trick, the only thing that's gone is the self harm, but it has been replaced by an absolutely crippling social anxiety. I basically stay at home all day, never go out to have fun (going to a bar, club, whatever alone isn't my kind of fun either). My closest friend lives 250 miles away, all the other ones are in the US, but I should be glad about every single friend I have. But what I really need is more support for my weight loss attempts. My dad does his best to support me, but he finds it ridiculous how I weigh all my food. At least he stopped buying me sweets. That is not to say that I don't want to be able to enjoy them again one day, but first I have to learn moderation, which is really hard with an impulse control disorder, I need a lot more therapy for that.

So, I'd be really happy to meet some nice people on here and maybe some friends that have the same goal as me: weight loss.