Karen, I hope you have a speedy recovery now that you've got some antibiotics! I'm glad you've got your sister there now and you're such good support for each other. That's really wonderful to hear!

I'd say I had good self-esteem until I was about 10 or 11. I saw myself as a friendly, smart, and capable girl, and I don't think I really thought about how I looked. I started to get self-conscious after that, and then with puberty came depression and anxiety. I hated how I looked, I didn't see myself as a good friend or daughter, my grades tanked, and I just felt worthless. I was always chubby, but in middle and high school I felt fat and disgusting. I don't remember when I started bingeing, but I do remember trying to hide how much I was eating early in high school. Over the years, I definitely treated food like a comfort and I would binge regularly. I'd feel awful about it and try to hide evidence of it. There was a LOT of shame. For years and years, I didn't see anything good about myself.

This last fall was a low point for me. My depression had gotten out of control and I had badly messed things up with school and work. I finally got some good help for that (including a medication that actually works, fancy that) and from November to April it was a slow road to getting better, with lots of ups and downs. Sometime in April, something clicked, and I felt like I was worth... something. It was worth it for me to invest in myself -- to spend time and energy to get and keep myself healthy.

When my depression was really bad, my dad kept telling me to think about all the other people in the world who were in my situation, and to think about how they felt about themselves, and to ask myself no matter what they felt or what they did, did I think they still deserved to be loved and happy? Maybe it finally got through to me that I deserved that same compassion.

I still really struggle with feeling like I'm worth *other* people's time and energy, but at least now I think I deserve my own. I don't think I could have gotten where I am now if I didn't feel that way.

I don't think achieving a healthy weight will fix me. I think that it will be one more experience I can add to the list of things I've been able to accomplish, which I think will help me feel like I am capable of accomplishing other things.

When my depression was really bad, my dad kept telling me to think about all the other people in the world who were in my situation, and to think about how they felt about themselves, and to ask myself no matter what they felt or what they did, did I think they still deserved to be loved and happy? Maybe it finally got through to me that I deserved that same compassion.

That is an awesome Dad.

My mom told me to stop being so selfish and get some help, all with the most disgusted look on her face one could imagine.

This really helped though. I see it now. My whole world came crashing down when I was graduating college and had nothing to look forward to. The grades were done, all that hard work and there was no pay off at the end. That is where my depression and 200+ pounds came on.

Thanks Karen for the insight! I am so glad you have your sister there to talk to and keep you company. That has to be awesome. Now to just get over the uck so y'all can go float on the lake ASAP!! I like the tattoo idea. Although you kind of spent the day listening to our woes. LOL. But you asked!! You have to definitely worry about yourself now and just know you are helping us just by being you and making us take a look at stuff even if we don't want to. It's not up to you to fix us. We have to get there on our own.

Oh, wow. I had no idea what I was unbottling when I sent the message to Karen asking about compulsive eating! Thanks, Karen, for your note of privacy, but I didn't send my message privately to you because I was scared of sharing...I just didn't have time to properly compose a post for grand consumption, and I knew from your awesomeness that you would understand my questions without me having to write out a veritable book. I find this utterly sad and duplicitously ironic that so many wonderful, fabulous ladies and gentlemen face having rock bottom self-esteem when these are the very people that for me make all the differences in the world.

Honestly, I haven't thought about this issue in great detail to understand my own path. For a little explanation, my original question to Karen was about why if I opened the door and ate one item, why would my mind obsess about it until I gorged myself on all remaining related items... The first time I remember doing this was sneaking chocolate from the freezer when I was either a pre-teen or early teen. I've been slightly heavier than my peers since I was school aged, really. I never went through a lean/lithe phase like my daughter seems to be in now (for the last several years, her height has changed, and she has put on a few pounds, but seemingly all healthy ones)...

I know I snuck the Andes Mints, and if I had taken only a couple, it probably would have gone unnoticed. I don't remember details, other than I convinced myself I hadn't done it, and lied to my mom and stepdad with the utmost belief in my truthful lie. Probably my next time I really though about all this was high school. I always wanted more. If I got fries at school, I always buried them in their own weight in ketchup. If I ate pizza, I ate half of a deep dish myself. We were a family of 6, so if we went out, it was usually to low priced buffets to make sure everyone was able to get enough.

Once I moved out on my own, I didn't have the problem at first that I recall... I think I was married before I remember eating all sorts of junk in mass quantities. I was in delightful oblivion about the status of my marriage. I could put away a large jar of Nutella in a single setting. My ex called it my "liquid crack." That was around the time my daughter was born...well, after, but when she was little.

I never really thought about my self esteem being related to any of this. Like Heather, when I was a size 8, everyone else was a size 0 or 00. But I was curvy and had large breasts (comparatively). I got the inappropriate attention there, but I was never asked out. Or if I was, it was a joke. Without realizing it, I sought out guys that were just as damaged as I was in some form or fashion. The good Catholic school boy who was great with video games but had no idea how to relate to girls. The hyperactive computer football junkie who acted like he was five. The emotionally unavailable, mentally abusive man who married me because the idea seemed good, but he loved marriage - not me. I could go on, but you get the point. I've always loved the nerds, but I think that attraction was to balance the scales. Hmm...

In HS, I had some good close friends, and I was not embraced by many others. I was a nerdy, goodie-goodie who got made fun of for getting good grades, liking school, and all kinds of other things. But I was mostly okay with myself. I think. It's hard to remember more than 20 years ago.

Then I graduated high school and had to take some time off before I could go back to school since I moved out of my mom's place to get the heck away from my stepdad. LONG LONG LONG story there... I hooked up with a HS crush who said all the right things, knew how to schmooze, and I was so desperate to be loved for being me, I loved enough for both of us, or so I thought. (This is the ex-hub.) 4 years into the marriage that should have happened, and he was cheating on me, and had been for a while. When it all came to light, I actually apologized to the other woman (who I thought was essentially my best friend)... WTF, right? Yet, when my ex asked for a separation, then asked if I had anywhere I could go, I told him, "if you want to leave me, you find somewhere else to go." Yes, my family lived in town and his didn't, but that SO wasn't my problem. Fast forward back to the cheating, and I took him back... We had our daughter after that, and things were good for a while. Then they weren't.

Then one morning, I woke up and realized I went from being my parent's kid to my siblings' sister to my ex's girlfriend, then wife, to my daughter's mother...and I had no idea at all who Carly was. It scared the hell out of me. So, I set out to reclaim me. Through this process, I have mostly lost my siblings, parents, old friends, and my daughter (the ex was more or less gone by this point). No one liked the idea that my universe didn't revolve around them anymore (my daughter, especially). I got called a crazy *****, a horrible, hateful person, and all manner of other insulting names. I used to laugh because it amused me that when I got tired of being everyone's doormat or whipping horse, that automatically made me a *****... Probably at least in part because of how I set the bar before that... So I'd made myself as my own worst enemy.

I do have crazy spells where I am so down on myself it is ridiculous. They don't happen as often, and when they do, not as intensely, but I know I'm still not who or where I want to be. I'm the only one who can change that. I think I've gone so long not believing I could do anything that when I do, I convince myself that has to be someone else who did it - that wasn't me, it really wasn't a big deal at all, because how could I have done it, etc. I just don't know or understand this, because I would say I don't have bad self esteem. Mostly, when I look straight on in the mirror, I like what I see. I can rock an outfit feeling like the bomb.com. I can go somewhere and feel awesome, but like others said, it doesn't last forever. Sometimes I'm good for days, weeks, or months, but I always come back to not believing in me...

Lost in Translation, somewhere....Carly

Oops...left off the other answers. What am I doing to change this? Well, being part of this discussion for one. Self exploration. Trying to dig deep... I don't know what to do beyond what I'm doing.

Will a healthy weight "fix" me? No, will I be "fixed" when I get to a healthy weight? Yes. And I say that because I know I will never achieve my goals without fixing me in the process and along the way. My weight is a symptom my mental/psychological struggles, not the other way around. I know that as long as I have all this mental BS baggage, I can never achieve my goals fully.

As for me, I feel that at a very young age my self concept was broken. I am not sure of the exact details causing the trauma, but I have never felt worthy and deserving of affection just the way I am. I too am a people pleaser, trying to win some ones acceptance at the expense of my own needs. When eventually I realize that people pleasing fails, I feel used up, angry, and depressed. Food is my drug of choice. I could have just as easily chose alcohol or drugs. I use food to self medicate and to numb the pain. No. Weight loss will not correct the underlying problems. But I hope it will improve my health, and for now that is enough.

Andrea in Pennslyvania

Andrea, right there with you, food is my drug of choice, if not food, something/anything else as long as I could stuff the feelings, the loneliness, depression, isolation…

maryellen in florida

My self-esteem has improved greatly in the years since I met hubby. He's the one that taught me that I am worthy of love. It also improved when I started distancing myself from my mom. She rarely brings anything positive to my life. The only reason I see her at all is because 2 of my sisters are still minors.

The only negative thought left were about my weight. I could even avoid those most of the time if I avoided mirrors.

I actually find it kind of funny that this is today's topic. Since I come here to vent my stress and negative feelings, I figured I should share some positive as well.

Today, I caught a glimpse of myself, naked, in our big mirror (that I've avoided since starting this journey). My usual response to this is to hurry away while thinking, "I look disgusting." Today, I took a good long look while thinking that I'm looking pretty good. The rest of the world may not think so, but they don't know where I've been. If 30ish pounds lost made that much difference I can't wait to see what 40, 50, 60, etc. pounds look like.

ETA: I pretty much worked on my mental state first before committing to this journey. I could still benefit from therapy (I have symptoms of PTSD but I'd have to see someone to get officially diagnosed) but I can't afford it at the moment.

Hugs all around. I hope to be able to make time to reply to everyone as these are some very important issues. Work has me tied up for the next while, but know that love, hugs, and positive thoughts are flying at you straight out of SW Oklahoma - and yes that means you - ALL OF YOU crazy folks just like me....

Love and hugs, Texas style ('cause you know everything is bigger in Texas....),
Carly