My
entire life I have battled my weight. A chubby kid became a pudgy teenager
became a plump adult and eventually a fat mom. I had such little self-esteem as
a child. The funny thing is – if you look at my childhood picture and teenage picture.
I was not chubby or pudgy at all. I was actually adorable and cute. It was all
my self-esteem. It was in my mind. It
was the way I viewed myself.
It wasn’t one thing in particular that caused my low self-esteem. It a culmination of so many different childhood factors - my parent’s divorce at age 9, my father leaving my sister and I and creating his own new family, my mother leaving me alone a lot as a teenager, wanting attention from cute boys at school and not getting it…..it’s endless. It’s probably the same for all teenage girls from broken homes.
So how did I handle it? I ended up wallowing in my own self-pity and eating. Eating because I was bored, felt bad about myself, and it made me feel better - as I was eating it. Not afterwards. It only made me gain more weight, and end up feeling worse about myself. It was a vicious cycle. I didn’t exercise. I didn’t take care of myself. I turned to food and made my situation worse. I hid behind my unhappiness and hid behind big clothes. Nobody knew what I was suffering with. Nobody knew how dead I felt inside. My husband never said anything to me negatively, but he didn’t say much to be positively either. So nothing can sometimes be just as bad as bad things.
But I thankfully woke up. I woke up before it was too late. Before I ended up with diabetes that hurt my body. Before I died - both inside and outside. I am so grateful that I did. I am blessed.
It wasn’t one thing in particular that caused my low self-esteem. It a culmination of so many different childhood factors - my parent’s divorce at age 9, my father leaving my sister and I and creating his own new family, my mother leaving me alone a lot as a teenager, wanting attention from cute boys at school and not getting it…..it’s endless. It’s probably the same for all teenage girls from broken homes.
So how did I handle it? I ended up wallowing in my own self-pity and eating. Eating because I was bored, felt bad about myself, and it made me feel better - as I was eating it. Not afterwards. It only made me gain more weight, and end up feeling worse about myself. It was a vicious cycle. I didn’t exercise. I didn’t take care of myself. I turned to food and made my situation worse. I hid behind my unhappiness and hid behind big clothes. Nobody knew what I was suffering with. Nobody knew how dead I felt inside. My husband never said anything to me negatively, but he didn’t say much to be positively either. So nothing can sometimes be just as bad as bad things.
But I thankfully woke up. I woke up before it was too late. Before I ended up with diabetes that hurt my body. Before I died - both inside and outside. I am so grateful that I did. I am blessed.
