Okay. I need some help.

NightWriteMermaid

TW: Eating Disorders, Sexual Abuse

To start this off:

YES I am aware this is a serious problem. YES I am seeing a therapist. YES I have spoken to my doctor. YES I am going to bring this up with my therapist. I'm posting this because I'm wondering if anyone else has gone through this, and I want to know what people who've gone through similar situations have done to help themselves get healthy. I am not seeking medical advice, and if you're going to be mean please just close the tab.

Now that that's out of the way. Hi. We'll skip the gruesome details and I'll sum up my past: I used to be very attractive, and I was suffering from eating disorders in order to be at the weight I wanted. I was sexually abused by my uncle, and a few years later raped by the person I thought was my best friend. I received psychiatric help and stopped suffering from my eating disorders. I gained a lot of weight because of physical health problems (100 pounds) and only recently was put on medication to correct the weight gain problem.

When I gained weight men stopped giving me cat calls, and they stopped leering at me when I walked down the street. I didn't correlate it to my weight gain, because I wasn't thinking about it, but it helped me a lot to get over some of my reactions to the sexual abuse I suffered. When I went on the right medication, the weight gain stopped. I felt like I could take charge of my Life again. I wanted to get healthy. So, over the course of a few months (and using this site), I lost 25 pounds.

In April I was able to get some new clothes that actually fit. A short while after that, I was walking in the grocery store, and this man just stops and stares at me the way a man hasn't stared at me in a long time. It made me incredibly uncomfortable, almost panicky. The next day, another man also stared, but then approached me and started making conversation, but he was getting way too close and not backing off when I would step backwards. I freaked out. I couldn't handle it. I proceeded to spend the next month eating more food than I'd ever eaten, and I regained all the weight back and then some. Just to get it to stop. And it did.

I am incredibly sad. I just looked in the mirror after checking my BMI. I am now morbidly obese. I never wanted this for myself. But I'm terrified of getting stared at or looked like I'm a piece of meat again. I'm not being narcissistic or arrogant, but I know that when I'm healthy, I'm well above average for attractiveness. I get that. But those looks they gave me just made me want to be ugly for the rest of my Life if it meant no one would touch me again.

That said, I want to be healthy. I miss so many things I used to do, and I KNOW my weight is going to end up hurting me if I don't lose it. Has anyone else gone through this? What did you do? How did you get over your fears? Any tips that my doctor and therapist may not have given me?

Thanks in advance. Sorry for the rant. I'm pretty upset.

TL:DR :: Morbidly obese woman afraid to lose weight because of men's reactions, based off of previous abuse. Help?

bergpa

I'm certainly not an expert but I'm wondering if taking self defense classes might help you to feel more not as panicked around men? If you were confident that you could defend yourself, maybe you wouldn't feel as dependent on the weight for protection?

liznotyet

Wow. Sounds like you may be ready for a change. If you are looking for advice, I would stop worrying about weight for a while and just focus on fitness. If you gain strength and tone it may improve your confidence. Self-defense arts like aikido, and strength/grace programs like pilates and cardio barre build resilience and personal boundary awareness. If you are not yet ready for that level of challenge, some Tai Chi would be a gentler start. You deserve to heal from the hurt, but you won't as long as you keep reliving it. Get busy.

lisanhorowitz

So sorry you had to go through all this pain. Here's something that might help your mindset. It is not fair that you feel like you have to gain weight so men can stop staring at you. If you lose weight you can bear in mind that most rapist are people you know (like you said in your story it was your best friend) so that guy in the grocery store is most likely harmless. Another thing that may be hard for you to do is call the starers out on their blatant staring. They'll probably get really embarrassed. If that's too much try going out with a super confident/ supportive friend who can call these men out for you. You deserve to be happy in a healthy body and be proud of how you look, and also wear the clothes you want to wear for your body. Best of luck!

hiker583

So sorry to hear about your terrible experience. You are very brave and you will get over this. After reading your post, it seems you have become paranoid, which is very understandable given what you went through. I would suggest though get over that first. If you have other girl friends, talk to them, ask them do they also notice men staring at them and how they react. Learning self-defense is great idea, it will give you confidence.
On your weight loss, think of how you will feel once you are back to your pretty self. Don't let those idiots on the street stop you from getting what you want.