Does this blog make me look fat?

Funny we see these phrases all the time and get a little chuckle out of them. I know I do. But what I want to talk to you today about is my life as a "Morbidly Obese" Woman. This is not a fun subject to talk about and I'm sure alot of you have someone in your life who is like me. I'm going to explain to you what we (the obese) feel every living moment of every living day. First of all the definition of Morbid ( realating to, or characteristic of disease, morbid condition, abnormally susceptible or characterized by gloomy or unwholesome feelings, grisly, and or gruesom.) Do I look like that to you? am I so grisly and gruesom that you turn away? Some people do do that to us "Fat" people and when they do a little piece of us dies with it. Obesity (a condition characterized by the excessive accumulation and storage of FAT in the body) Boy do I sound pretty now huh? Well let me tell you that I don't and haven't for a very very long time. I'm a really good faker as most of us "fat" people are. We act as though nothing is bothering us, but in reality we are seething with self hate. Anyone who knows me with the exception of a handful of people see me as Happy go lucky, not a care in the world, life it great blah blah blah. Well that is not the case. I struggle everyday with my self hate. I have tried every diet in the book, spent thousands of dollars on programs, starved myself to the point of putting myself in the hospital, if any of you remember when I was in High School and had Mono it was also for an undiagnosed eating disorder too. My parents didn't even know I wasn't eating, I was starving myself because I was not as thin or thinner then everyone else. So I guess I was unhappy with myself even then. But then things changed I got married and had children. As in the case of mine they would be called stair steps, one right after another and with each one I put on more weight. I tried and tried to take it off but as many of you know with having little kids in the house it is difficult to handle the stress. I don't think I over ate, or at least I told myself I did not. You couldn't say I wasn't moving around cause with 4 children you cannot just sit on the couch and eat bon bons! I was active but the weight kept creeping up! I have been to nutritionists, mental health counselors you name it I have tried it! Some might think that it's a mind over matter thing, Oh just stop eating bread, sugar, etc...and it will come off. Not for me. And now at the age of almost 46 I live with a multitude of physical and mental problems. How could this have happened? I don't even remember not being this size! I have been this size since my second child was born, My kids have only known me as fat, squishy etc...Where do I go from here?
Well my first step was figuring out why I ate when I was not hungry. I have learned that I would not open myself up to emotions. If it was an emotion that was going to make me feel unsure of myself well I just had to push it back down inside of me with some food, didn't matter what it was as long as that feeling went away. If I was bored, I know hard to believe, but if I was bored I would eat, if I felt lonely, which I do alot of the time, I would eat. Push those feelings as far down as I could. I didnt' want to deal with them, I didn't want to think about them let alone talk about them. I was supposed to be "Perfect Mom" only I was the Huge Mom! I bet none of you have ever thought about what you are eating in a resturant, wondering if someone is looking at you and saying, wow she really shouldn't be eating that. I don't go to the gym anymore because I was so self concious of walking past everyone and in my head everyone was thinking, "oh here comes that fat girl again". If you haven't lived the life of a fat, chubby, obese person you have to understand we play these scenerios in our heads over and over and over again. It may not even be happening but in our heads it is. So we stay inside and we tell ourselves we will do better today and we try, we don't over eat, we eat healthy we might even eventually buy a new outfit cause we start liking ourselves again. But then we look at ourselves in the mirror or weigh ourselves because we feel like we have been good and it should be showing right? This morning I got on the scale, thinking I did good over the weekend, I didn't over eat, I didn't over drink, I did alot of walking etc... and so I get on the scale and Voila! I have GAINED weight! ever have weight put on your shoulders? try looking at the scale when it tells you that you weigh 255lbs! I tried, I did good, I hurt!
the self esteem plummets, but I'm not going to go down the usual path. I ate my breakfast of bran flakes, I'll have an apple on the way to work, I'll drink my gallons of water. I'll be good I tell myself. My family eats more than I do and yet I can't lose the weight. I have tried to have my insurance company approve the Lap Band for me. Last year I was denied! I'm 255 and I was denied! go on a diet they say, exercise they say. How can you exercise when you can't walk because of the osteoarthritis you have in both knees, and the neuropathy in your arms and legs (by the way some are caused by being over weight but some are not, the knee problems I have had since birth) So I try again with the insurance company, send more letters and wait. The point I was trying to get across is that even though you see a fat person on the outside, sometimes there are more reasons than food that make that person overweight. Don't judge them, talk to them and understand.