My story is similar to many others that I have read about in the past. I started gaining weight at around 9 years of age. It started with sexual abuse from a family member. I know it had to have started as a comfort from what was happening to me. Children don't always know how to express themselves or how to deal with emotional stress. As the abuse continued into my teen years, I used my weight as a way to ward off unwanted attention from my abuser.
I continued to eat, not only as a coping mechanism but also as a way of dealing with the depression I always found within myself . I hated myself and what I looked like but to my way of thinking I was going to show my abuser that I was in control. Unfortunately it didn't work. The abuse continued on until my late teens.
By the time the abuse stopped I was already on the road to self destruction. I had attempted suicide, was drinking and using drugs. I had always been an outcast in school because of my weight but that was just the way I liked it. I was a loner and had few friends. The fewer I had the better I liked it. I had a problem trusting people and didn't care to let anyone know the person I was inside.
After I graduated from High School, I met a man that I got into a relationship with. Much to my parents disapproval, about a year after we met we were married. It was not a marriage of love but more of what I was used to as a child that had grown up being abused. Subconsciously I had sought out a man that was an abuser as well. The year that we were married was a miserable one. It was a cycle of him being loving, me walking on eggshells, to him beating, degrading and humiliating me.
After ending up in the hospital I woke up and said to myself enough is enough. I have to get out of this before I end up with him killing me. I called a friend from home to come and get me. She was there the next day to take me back home to my parents. From there I started to piece my life back together.
During the years of my life I had been on one diet after another at my parents urging. I would lose weight and then put it back on plus some. Now I wanted to join the Navy and knew I had to lose the weight to get in. I put all of my strength into getting the weight off and getting my body into shape for boot camp. The Navy standards for a woman of 5'2" is a weight of 115. Being of medium build I had a long ways to go. At the time I was sitting at nearly 250 pounds. I was able to get down to 130 pounds before I went to the recruiter. I had another 15 pounds to go before I was due to leave for boot camp.
Once in the Navy I was in for a treat. Boot camp was nothing like I had expected it to be. It was hard with a lot of mind games to go along with it. It was definitely a learning experience. I grew up a lot in the 8 weeks I was there and learned a lot about myself. Where I had thought of myself as a failure for so many years, I was succeeding. My self esteem, confidence, and self respect skyrocketed. For once in my life I like, no I loved, who I was. Not because of the weight I was at but because I knew I was somebody that could make it in this world no matter what was handed to me.
I left boot camp and went off to school. There I met a man who taught me what love really was. He taught me that you didn't have to be abused, degraded or humiliated to be loved. All I had to do was be myself. We were married 2 months after we met. I know it seems like such a short time to know someone but we have made it last for almost 9 years now and I look forward to many more years with him.
Since we were married I have gotten out of the Navy and have two beautiful girls. Over the years I have put the weight back on. I am now at 203 and maintain between 200 and 205. I don't diet or try to loose the weight like I once did. For the most part I am happy with who and what I have become. There are times when I get down on myself and wish I could be smaller again. On those days my husband makes me sit down and look straight into his eyes. There I can see the love he has for me. He reassures me that he didn't marry me because I was thin but because of who I am inside. He tells me that my real beauty comes from my heart and for my love of life and that no matter how much I weigh he will love me for the strength, support, caring, love and passion I give him. He then laughs and says, "Besides, when I make love to a woman I don't want to be hitting nothing but bones. I want to have some cushion between us. I want to have someone I can hold onto and know I have a real woman in my arms and not a sack of bones." Tears always well up in my eyes and I nod my head because I know he speaks from his heart and what he says is what he means.