How I got to 316 pounds, before 22.

Well you signed up here and that's a great start! If you feel you have the will power to make yourself happy by becoming fit (mentally and physically), then food logging is a step in the right direction.
Also, you are not alone out there! There are plenty of people in similar situations - so find your support circle. It can be here, a community group, and your 1 real friend that you mentioned. Make a plan together! Start small - plan your diet, plan your daily meals, and start logging together.
Keep your protein high, and your carbs low. Always eat breakfast - meals should get smaller throughout the day. The weight will start coming off and you will start feeling better, because you're eating better too
Next step is to plan the exercise - again start small, or else you will lose motivation! You have to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can run.

Hope I helped a little

Your story breaks my heart, and made me tear up. You can do this, believe me, if I can, anyone can. You are young and worth the effort it takes. I am 63 and was @ 290# when I began on MFP 3/12/12. My knees were so bad, that it was an effort to just walk. Going up a flight of stairs would leave me winded. I did not begin to even walk more until I had lost 90#. I was a 24W, now I am 130 and size 10, sometimes an 8. My best advice to you is to seek your doctors advice. Weigh, measure and log everything you eat and drink. Stay at, or slightly below your calorie allowance each day, and try to be active. Just move more.
Best of luck to you sweetie! You can do this and MFP'ers will give you all the support you can take!

One more thing, if you decide you want to take the journey to lose weight, you need to build a support system. Even a small one or an online one (99% of my support system is online). Even after you start making progress, people still give you the same looks... They don't know that you've already lost 50 or 100 lbs.

Hi. You are brave to tell your story so openly. I think its time you addressed the matter but i think you do need help. If i were you, i would find a supportive councillor because you also have emotional issues to deal with as well and emotions and overeating tend to go hand in hand for a great many of us.

You can get into a happy place, lose weight and then when something goes wrong, you get stress, life changes direction suddenly, or not so suddenly, all of a sudden you resort to your old eating habits.

I've been dealing with depression for years and i have a fair bit of experience with councillors. I've been using my psychologist for extra support this year and so i run along for one session and then i'm good to go again. You would be benefit from regular sessions i think. It will make you stronger, give you tools and help keep you motivated.

Its not that you would talk about eating all the time. You would talk about whatever you need to talk about, whatever is bothering you. The support you receive from a good councillor or psychologist will be great. Of course i'm assuming you've got some form of health insurance to be able to access it.

The thing is if you don't start get on top of this problem now, it is likely to get worse. Most women and men put on weight as they get older.

The other thing is most people who lose weight, regain it. Lose it and regain it. lose it and regain it. Whatever approach you decide to take, if you want to avoid that pattern, you will should be aware of this tendency. Certainly its so often emotional stuff that sets people back to square one.

One of the big things is getting motivated and staying motivated. Getting off a to a good strong start seems to give people motivation. I know it does me. So set yourself some sort of program or rules to live by that are reasonable and achievable and stick with them.

I believe that weightloss is more likely to be successful if you find it easy and rewarding. So design a program that you find quite easy and rewarding. Rewarding as in feeling better each day as you see the scale shifting. Not rewarding as in Oh i've been so good lately i have can have a big piece of chocolate cake.

Here's some things i started out with at the beginning of the year that have worked for me.

1. Stay away from added sugar. Fruit fresh and stewed fruit is fine
2. Don't worry about exercise. Plenty of time for that later and weightloss is 80% diet anyway. Just move about more if you can.
3. Eat lots of fresh vegetables. There are plenty of good recipes out there to make them interesting and delicious.
4. Don't go low fat. It undermines the enjoyment of your food. And anyway fat is satiating.
5. Try to eat mostly whole foods and minimise your consumption of processed foods.
6. Deal with emotional stuff quickly by seeking supportive help.
7. Commitment. There's a lot of mental stuff that goes on in weightloss. Become aware of yours. cut out the negative talk and brainwash yourself into anything positive and strengthening. But avoid lying to yourself.
8. Keep a detailed food log. You don't have to count calories. You do have to monitor what you eat.
9. Don't graze or snack. Eat properly prepared healthy meals. And pace them so that you avoid getting hungry.
10. Weigh regularly or use a tape measure if you prefer.
11. While there is some change in thinking in around very low calorie diets which says that its ok for people to do these diets for a short periods - no longer than 3 months, for the long term, its easier and more sustainable to take it a bit more slowly. I did not cut my calories severely. That was how i avoided hunger but i still lost fast enough. You can easily afford to lose 2 pounds a week. The calorie counter on this site seems to cause many people confusion. Look for one that does TDEE and then take about 500 calories off or go for eating about 2000 calories a day if you are going to count. But for losing weight over the long haul, you can't rush it. So you better make sure you enjoy the journey. Discover a way of eating that you feel you can do for the rest of your life. It will probably take some time to work out but its an evolving thing. However, its good to start off eating foods that you think you will want to eat in the long term. Ie do you want to protein shakes for the rest of your life. No? Then don't start. They are expensive anyway. And sweet which doesn't help.

Some new things i've picked up along the way this year that have helped.
1. Keep your protein intake up. I'm not into the whole shake thing. I think they are mostly sweet so that's not helpful in my book. Also don't go for all the fancy preservative laden type meats. Look for lean meats. Eat fish. And just eat less of all of it - i.e. you don't need to start eating chicken every day. I almost never eat chicken because i don't like the way they are raised.
2. reduce carbs like bread and pasta and rice but keep your lentils and chickpeas and beans high as these latter foods have higher protein content, higher fibre, help lower cholesterol, are filling and have low GI. They require some effort in the kitchen but its well worth it.
3. Eat a wide variety of healthy nutritious foods all the time. Some people get into a thing of eating the same meals all the time. That's a great way to get bored with your food and will lead you astray.
4. Boredom is bad for weightloss. Find new interests. Going to bed at a reasonable helps too with eating in the evenings when people often get a bit bored.
5. Reduce your overall carb intake. But if you try low carb you might find it a bit hard if you were to take the Atkins approach. On the other hand, paleo looks like more fun and i know a guy who was doing well on paleo but included dairy as well.
6. Try the 5:2 fasting diet at some point. And learn what its like to eat hardly anything. A lot of people who try this diet love it. I did it for two months. check out the fast diet website for more details.
7. Be aware of how much fibre you are eating or not and increase it. Its so curative. there's a great show on youtube called catalyst - gut reaction. Watch it to get the picture and then read up the wikipedia entry called gut flora for more nuance and detail.
8. I did low carb for about 6 weeks this year. What i liked about it was what i learned about about fat and it helped me increase the variety of my foods.
9. Read books on losing weight. Read from a variety of ideas rather than a lot of bgooks about the same angle and while none of them may have all the keys to your situation, they will probably all have something that will be useful to you. Try to keep an open mind.
10. I've written a thread about binging in the food and nutrition forum. Have a read. Its called How do you control your sweet tooth or something like that. Carbs, especially sweets, and your emotions are the key aspects of binging habits. And yes it does often become a habit but you can break that habit. I've hardly binged all year.

I wish you all the best. Sorry for overloading you with info. Please copy paste for another time because you may not be able to take it all on board now.