I know my obesity is a significant component of my depression problems because it has severely affected my self-esteem and view of myself (and it colors how I think others perceive me as well, whether what I think people think of me is anywhere near reality or not!) It doesn't help that weight is a big part of what many in my family considers successful, and I have family members, especially my grandmother, who constantly brings the subject up. Its like it doesn't matter how successful you are, what kind of person you are, as far as they are concerned, I'm a disappointment because I am obese, and the only thing that matters is how much weight I've lost and am Im still losing. Conversations with my grandmother almost always come back to who in the family is losing weight.

Growing up with that has had a major impact on me, so when I couple my personal family perceptions that were trained into me as a youth along with the society at large's perceptions of obesity (after all, fat people are always a joke in tv, movies, and books, and the hero/heroine/love interest is ALWAYS skinny, pretty, etc, while the comic relief side kick is almost always nerdy, clumsy and not-to-bright - and the fatter that side kick is, the more clumsy and dumb they are portrayed) it really is no wonder that I have a really hard time seeing myself as having worth and being lovable even being a large person. Add to that the fact I've never had any kind of romantic relationship whatsoever, or even the possibility of one, even though I would have liked to have one, and I can see exactly why I have problems seeing myself as a worthy individual.

I spend way too much time alone since I don't really have any friends, and if I'm not busy, then my thoughts tend to spiral downward. With my job, I do a LOT of driving, and those long car trips are the worst as I have too much time to think, and those thoughts are usually never good.

If I think back far enough, for me, obesity came first, but got worse as depression grew. I was large and chunky from puberty on (and only found out in adulthood that I had PCOS, which results in a lot of weight gain at puberty for a lot of women), but I don't remember it really bothering me until I started getting older. Then I started dreading doctor appointments because I knew my pediatrician would say something, or family visits because I was old enough to really start paying attention to family conversations and to hear my grandmother's comments. In elementary school, I had a best friend that I spent a lot of time with, but his parents pulled him out of our school in junior high, and from that point forward, I was alone, so I think the perceptions of the other students around me were more noticeable and hurtful - before, I wasn't paying any attention to my other classmates because me and my friend were too busy having fun doing our own thing, but when he left, I lost that insulation blanket, so to speak.

anyway, I think for me, part of my depression problems are resulting from the obesity. But at the same time, its quite possible that depression then in turn makes the obesity worse, especially when food is used for comfort.

Sorry to hear you are struggling with depression @MzCara148 it really is no fun at all. I also have depression and I am pretty sure my emotional eating got me in the mess I am now getting myself out of when it comes to weight. We are ALL emotional creatures and a lot of us take comfort in food. But when that comfort becomes Obesity then it becomes a problem.

Being obese makes me angry , and depressed . The doctors treat you awful , people stare at me in stores , other people make remarks . so many years I ate to hide from all of that . plus I was sexual abused as a child for years , so that makes you pack on the weight as well . I have never been on meds for my depression , because I always smile and laugh and joke around in the doctors or in the hospital. They think I am fine . so i don't know which came first the pain or the fat or which one to blame .I am 52 and I am tried of it , all of it and now I am angry at the right thing ...my fat !! Now I am doing what I should have done 25 years ago . I don't even want to stop until I am 200 pounds down . We are here for you @MzCara148 !!

Red_Dwarf74 wrote: »

Not every Doctor treats you awful to be fair, mines follows me on Twitter!!

That is true, but I hate to say can be rare these days. I had a time finding a PCP that I liked and trusted, and when I finally did, I stuck with her, even when I moved 4 hours away. Its so hard to find a decent doctor these days, and, I think, even harder in the psychology field. I'm looking for a counselor myself, but I am very, very leery of most of the ones I run across and am searching for a specific kind of help, and I'm not just going to go to just anybody. I want someone who will listen to me and not just work from preconceived notions, and I need someone who understands my background. I hate to say it, but many, many doctors these days have an almost god-complex where they tend to treat their patients like the patient doesn't know what they are talking about and like the doctors and science and medicine has all the answers, and frankly, that just isn't true and can be harmful at worse. medicine is always changing, and what might be standard practice today may very well turn out to be found to be harmful later. It can be quite disturbing to realize just how much we are trained to trust the medical community blindly and then to find out how often the medical community makes serious mistakes - but will flat out deny it ever made those mistakes!

I have a friend who could seriously use some help in that area but she is terrified to go to a counselor because she is terrified they'll send her to a mental ward. She had an aunt who was sent to one years ago, and it really messed the poor woman up worse and had a profound impact on my friend. Furthermore, that friend has had some very bad experiences with doctors, too. I once took her to a hospital because she was experience severe pain in her lower left abdomen. She had nearly died when she was a teenager from a cyst on her ovary that had ruptured, and she told me this felt the same way. However, the doctors in that hospital just completely dismissed our concerns over that and would not listen to us when we tried to tell them what was going on. They insisted she had a pending hip fracture and tried to keep her in bed, then insisted she had a heart problem and was a pending heart attack. Meanwhile, they actually ODed her on pain meds - she was so doped up she was completely out of it and couldn't think coherently at all and barely knew she was in the world! We finally checked her out AMA and I took her to a bigger city hospital over an hour away. They had to let her lay for 2 hours to get some of the dope to clear from her system before they could even begin to run their tests, and they found out within an hour what was actually wrong, gave her the correct medication for it, and sent her home - after she had spent 3 nights in the other hospital. This new one also confirmed that she had absolutely no heart problems at all, unlike what the other hospital claimed. So you can understand why this friend of mine doesn't trust doctors anymore!