[ketobro]

Hi - this is probably going to be LONG, so I apoligize. Hopefully someone will bother to read it!! Background: I'm 24 years old, Male, from the UK (but currently living in Australia temporarily.) Where to begin..

For the last 10 years approximately, I've suffered with disordered eating. Binge eating. I'm very into the gym. I grew up as a fat kid, and always dreamed of losing weight and felt that would finally take me on the path to being happy, I HATED being a fat kid. I felt I was never meant to be that kid. But I couldn't take control of it. My dad made me fat.

My parents split when I was young, I think I was 4 at the time. Most of the actual breakup is a blur. All I know is there was lots of arguing, lots of drama and I avoided it - I always bottled it up and stayed away from it - I hated it.

Once they split, my dad fought for split custody which he got, so we lived half the week with mum, half with dad. They hated each other, but dad certainly made more of a point of expressing it - he'd reguarly bad mouth our mum (I have a brother who is 1.5 years older who shared the same arrangements as me, and a half sister who had a different dad, lived with mum, my dad hated her.) If we did anything he didnt like, 'shes made us like that', etc.

My dad was SUPER controlling - which I also naturally hated. He didnt let us out to play (he was a probation officer in his last job, and obviously faced some nasty characters, and he basically treated us like a walking egg shell... it wasnt safe to be playing on the streets, blah blah.) So he kept us inside, buying us video games etc, and suffice to say most of my childhood was spent infront of a computer/TV screen. Mum was the opposite, she let us out to play - my mum has and still is very much supportive of, she lets me do almost as I please - she respects my decisions and just wants me to be happy. Dad was the opposite, he knows best. People have to grow up and make their own mistakes and find their own way, he was just trying to avoid us doing this and determine our lives for us by wrapping us in cotton wool.

He was also relatively overweight, and he used to feed us crap. Pizza, donuts, chips, you name it. He'd always try to justify being overweight, 'the media is full of crap, saying obesity is costing the NHS blah blah, its bloody smokers!' He was CLEARLY in denial about his weight, and still probably is ( I wouldn't know, I gave up on him a couple of years ago and haven't spoke since.) So growing up fat SUCKED. I hated it. We watched a lot of WWF Wrestling as kids, and I used to admire them! I always wanted to grow up to be big and strong and muscley like my favourite wrestling superstars. Even as a fat kid I'd go and pose in the mirror, flexing my chubby little arms hahahah.

As I grew older, the desire to lose weight became greater, and the desire to have freedom became greater, and dads efforst to try and control us became greater. The tension rose. The anger rose. The resent really began to grow.

I started a lot of research into weight loss, I was adamant I wanted to lose weight, Dad told me it was ridicolous, I wasn't overweight, I was fine how I was, you don't need to be thin blah blah.. (I was 230lbs at 14 years old..). I wasn't "bullied" at school per say, kids obviously teased me.. I teased me, I went along with it. Heck I knew me being fat was ridicolous, I didn't want it! So I could understand why people made jokes. I'd of teased me as a kid!!

Eventually I managed to get a stationary bike at my mums house, and dad finally caved and bought a treadmill for the house. I started to count calories as good as I good and started to lose weight. Naturally I wanted to take control of my diet, seeing as thats just as important in body composition - battle 2. Dad always cooked for us, and his whole life was regimented. Same meals, on certain days, same time, etc. Trying to get anything else or ask to make your own was out of the question. Suffice to say, mum let me do as I pleased - so at hers I started controlling my diet. The fact that I was trying to achieve something and my dad was insistent on putting in roadblocks that opposed this just made me more and more mad. I used to resent eating his dinners (QUE the unhealthy relationship with food?!)

He'd always offer food too. We'd eat dinner, then he'd say - ice cream? NO dad, Chocolate bar? NO dad, This, that the other? NO DAD. It used to make me FURIOUS - NO MEANS NO. I grew up ADAMANT that he just wanted us to be fat and miserable. I believe this then also fueled the guilt. If I ate 'bad/junk' food, i'd feel bad. I think it made me feel like he'd won. I'd lost control.

So the weight loss Journey started around 14.. I lost around 4-5 stone over a year or two.. Then I stayed skinnyfat for a while, then at almost 19 I finally joined a gym and started weight training. Put on a lot of size, admittedly dabbled on and off with steroids, other performance related drugs (oops - lessons learnt there too!) but I'm now a bigger guy than I was 6 years ago. However for the last 8 years or so, I've suffered with cycles of binge eating. On and off.

The binges first started at dads. He'd always have junk food in the house. At this point I'd started living at mums, one too many arguments with dad and I couldn't hack the control freak he was anymore. I'd just visit on Sundays.. He used to go out on Sundays to pick my brother up from work in the afternoon, he'd be gone around 30 minutes or so. During that time, I'd binge. 5k + cals in that time frame. Every sunday. He obviously knew I was doing it, because he clearly noticed the food disappearing - but he never said anything. Again, I guess this is where it stemmed from? I didnt want him to know I'd done it, because he'd be winning, he was getting his way, so I did it in secret. But I felt out of control, as you do with binging- and then I'd HATE myself afterwards, and also feel very very physically sick.

Suffice to say my weight has yo yo'd up and down constantly for the last 8 years. My body image is awful. Ive had 6 pack abs, veins, usually as a result of a period of very hard dieting and lots of training, and then a period of bingeing to undo it all. Lose 30lbs over a period of 8-16 weeks, put it all back on in 3-6. Such has been life. I hate being out of shape. I just want to get in shape and stay there, it's who I've always wnted to be physically yet I can't. Sometimes I'll be in a mindframe and food doesnt phase me, there's no urge to binge, I train well and everything is perfect - then out of nowhere, it just hits me. It's almost as if I can't allow myself to be happy. When it looks like I'm getting to where I want to be, something inside says NO NO NO.

Funnily enough my weight always seems to go back up to 230lbs or so, everytime. Which is the magic number I hit at my fattest as a kid. Obviously at 230lbs now I hold much more muscle mass so I'm no where near as fat, but still holding a LOT of bodyfat at that weight. One day I'd love to step on stage in a physique competition and compete ,as that was be the pinnacle for me of fat success. Going from fat kid to stage, but it seems that'll never happen until I fix something inside me.

Suffice to say I've suffered depression over the years, not so much anymore, but a lot from the ages of 16-21. I feel like my lifes been on hold. Going round in circles, not really achieving much.

I was a bright kid, the teachers knew it, my mum knew, heck even as a kid I knew. My family always used to joke about how i'd be the next Bill Gates. Mum was sure I'd be a very successful businessman. So was I. Deep down I still believe I will be, I hope I will be. But right now I'm far from it, not even started by own business once, despite wanting to since a young age. Guess who thought that all my dreams were unrealistic? Oh, dad! Guess who would put any business idea I had down, or just talk over it with his own idea which was much better and ofcourse more realistic? Dad. So on and so forth. I don't really feel like much positive ever came from my dad. He was always a negative person. Clearly he is a scared person, scared of life. I don't think he had bad intentions, he probably thought he was being a good parent and trying to protect us.. but I must admit, I kind of hate him. Which is sad - who wants to hate their own dad?

Although I've been unhappy on and off for years, I think I've supressed my emotions largely - which like I said started from a young age. I've known my self -esteem was no where like it should be (on the outside I'm confident, people wouldn't think I had the feelings I do, but my self esteem sucks largely, and my body image holds me back in many ways too.) But its hit me recently, and I've dived into the emotions, digging to try and finally figure out why I binge, why I don't do the things I want, why I've never started a business, why I feel STUCK.

And I believe it's because I hate my dad, I resent it, and I still do - and even though I don't think about him ever really, or how I feel about him, it's as if sub-conciously to this day he's still controlling me... so somehow I need to forgive him and let this go, to free myself - to move forward into the life I want?

Sorry, that was long - and only the tip of the iceberg too!!! Any suggestions? I've never seen a professional for help, so my first thought is psychotherapy? Also considering hypnotherapy? I'm big into self-developement, self belief, thoughts become things, we are our own creators, we decide to be happy, etc etc - but still - I'm stuck in the cycle. So something deeper needs to happen.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life like this, unhappy, unfulfilled, resentful, bingeing.

My last and only real relationship was also crazy. It's only dawned upon me this week that maybe again, the attraction to her stemmed from the issues with my dad. The girl was beautiful, so that's a natural given. But the relationship was AWFUL, yet in my head I was convinced she was the one? She was controlling as hell, very stubborn, nothing I said could ever be right.... all seems very familiar on reflection. Constant arguments, drama... and suffice to say she brought out a very nasty side of me which I'd never like to see again. I used to say the most disgusting horrid things to her in an argument, so verbally abusive that no one should ever be on the receiving end, no matter how much of what she did was wrong and how much she may have deserved backlash.. and it always reminded me of my dad, and the way he used to talk about my mother. So disgustingly angry.

I don't want to be my dad, I don't want to grow up like him, and I certainly don't want to reflect him in a relationship, or potentially end up being a parent like him one day!! I can't talk to him, because he'd just backlash. It would be a huge argument, he'd be upset, i'd be wrong, ungrateful, he did everything for us and I'm throwing it back at him etc etc. So clearly me and him will never see eye to eye, I realized that years ago, which is why I no longer have any contact.

Even when I binge now, I know its self-destructive, I don't even enjoy the food, but it's as if I just do it to sabotage myself, and I can't seem to stop it.

But somehow I need to let this go, and let myself grow. I hope it will change my life. But how?! HELP!!!

[Fizzyo]

Hi ketobro,

Welcome to PC. Thank you for having the courage to share with us.

I'm sorry to hear so much pain in your post and that you have so much difficulty with how you feel about your Dad, your eating, and how you feel stuck.

Talking treatments sound like a good place to start. Have you seen a doctor though to check there are no physical or hormonal issues which could make you feel even worse?

This is a great place to learn and gain support. I hope to see you on the forums in the future. We're here for each other.

People here have helped me through some dark times and I hope you get as much encouragement from this community as I have.

[ketobro]

Originally Posted by Fizzyo

Hi ketobro,

Welcome to PC. Thank you for having the courage to share with us.

I'm sorry to hear so much pain in your post and that you have so much difficulty with how you feel about your Dad, your eating, and how you feel stuck.

Talking treatments sound like a good place to start. Have you seen a doctor though to check there are no physical or hormonal issues which could make you feel even worse?

This is a great place to learn and gain support. I hope to see you on the forums in the future. We're here for each other.

People here have helped me through some dark times and I hope you get as much encouragement from this community as I have.

Yeah I saw the dotor when I was younger, back when I was actually much more in a phase of depression and had various hormones checked for other reasons too and all was good!

I'm at that stage now where I don't really get depressed, I think I've learnt to understand myself too much, it's now almost just fustration - because things still persist? I just feel totally unfulfilled..

Is it a psychotherapist you think might be best to see? I have no clue on therapy!

[Clara22]

Hi!
Maybe this article can help you
Binge-eating disorder: What's the best treatment?

[Fizzyo]

Originally Posted by ketobro

Yeah I saw the dotor when I was younger, back when I was actually much more in a phase of depression and had various hormones checked for other reasons too and all was good!

I'm at that stage now where I don't really get depressed, I think I've learnt to understand myself too much, it's now almost just fustration - because things still persist? I just feel totally unfulfilled..

Is it a psychotherapist you think might be best to see? I have no clue on therapy!

To my mind it's more important that you connect with the therapist, trust them and feel that what they say is helpful than which model of therapy they use.

You may get a more informed suggestion from FAQ or Ask a therapist forums?

Good luck, caring wishes and hug