Losing weight with mental illnesses/my LONG story

The point of this post is to motivate you through my weight loss & mental illness story. If you don't want to read the whole thing, at least read the last paragraph that I spaced down for you.

First off, my stats: Height: 5'4. Weight: 184. Highest weight: 191. Goal weight: 120-140

You're probably wondering why I said "weight loss" story when I've only lost 7 pounds. Well, I first started losing weight about 7 years ago. I was 11, in 6th grade, weighing an unhealthy 160 pounds.
Let's backtrack a little bit... I was healthy in 3rd grade before my family problems started. I weighed roughly 70-80 pounds, was active, & ate healthy.. until stuff happened. My parents split, my friends disappeared, & I started puberty. All I wanted to do was lay down & pig out on whatever was available. My mom took me off my ADHD medicine because I was too much of a brat to take them. If you don't know, Adderall suppresses appetite, so to be going through this trouble & not having anything to hold me back from eating too much was a very bad thing. Around this time I developed depression & schizo-affective disorder.
Moving back to 6th grade.. when I read 160 on the scale for the first time, I knew I HAD to do something about it, but I didn't try too hard. Luckily I made a few friends that lived close to me. Almost every day we walked & played at the park. I lost 10 pounds that school year. 7th grade came around, mom put me back on my ADHD meds, met a girl who also had some weight to lose. She was skinny compared to me so I didn't understand why she wanted to lose weight.. until I lost some weight. We walked all around our huge neighborhood almost everyday, just for fun. I lost 5 pounds that school year, leaving me at 145.... then, it became an addiction.
The summer of 2009 was spent walking & swimming during the day, & 3 plus hours of dancing & doing Pilates in my room at night.. all while living off a small sandwich & sugar water. I'd do that for a few days, then my blood sugar will get so low & I'd get so hungry that I started bingeing on LOTS of food! Sometimes I threw it up, other times I just let myself feel sick. The number of days I restricted & exercised outweighed my binge days, so I lost 16 pounds in less than 3 months, leaving me at 129. I was happy with that weight, but wanted to lose more because of my gut. I was only 13 & already struggling symptoms of 3 eating disorders. I wasn't diagnosed with one because I kept it a secret & I don't think it was a full blown disorder because I recovered too quickly.
We moved in 8th grade & money was tight, so we lived off pizza my sister brought from her work. I was 14 going on 15 & I believe I weighed around 155. I told myself if I got back up to 160, I'm gonna diet & workout again. I tried. Failed.
For my sophomore year of high school, age 15, we moved to a bad neighborhood. I met some cool people that I hung out with, but my bingeing problems increased. Oh, I didn't mention it, right before 7th grade, my dad died, which caused my psychosis to worsen. I wasn't diagnosed with schizo-affective until last year, but I know for sure I've had it ever since I was little. Back to my story.. in 11th grade I got sexually assaulted which led to me being harassed, bullied, followed, you name it! As my depression got worse, so did my bingeing. At age 16 I think I weighed 169. I tried losing weight again, failed because I went back into my old habits of bingeing & restricting, this time with my bingeing days outweighing my restricting days.
At age 17 everything got worse. We had extra money, so we spent it on Chinese takeout, fast food, & going to restaurants. My psychiatrist diagnosed me with schizo-affective disorder & hospitalized me for 10 days. The hospital I went to fed us GOOD! 3 HUGE meals a day with snacks in between. I weighed 178 when I got out.
June of this year, age 18, I joined a gym & lost 7 pounds in a month, then gave up. My depression made me stay in bed all day, avoiding even my closest friends, even my family! I got up to 183. Started starving myself.. ruined my metabolism even more than it already was, then gained 8 pounds, putting me at 191.


A week ago I weighed 191. Today I weigh 184. My trick? I cut out ALL processed foods & anything I thought was junk. I walk at least 80 minutes a day, belly dance, Pilates, squats, & I lift weights.. Since I was used to bingeing & being lazy every day, the first day was hard, but I sat & thought about my past.. how I let my mental illnesses hold me back. That is more motivation than ever for me!! I went from laying in bed all day, depressed.. to healthy, happy, & active. It was like there was a switch in me that turned off my bad eating habits & turned on positive eating habits along with a positive mind. I am for sure, a hundred percent I'm gonna stick to this. Sometimes it takes 6 years to finally lose weight. Sometimes you have to fail constantly to succeed.