I posted this in the depression forum, but I figured I would post it here too, because it sort of just fit and this is my favorite forum....
A little history. I'm just going to rant here for perspective. It may get long. If no one replies I won't stomp my feet.
I've been dealing with moderate to severe depression for.. well. my whole life? i'm 27 and I remember dealing with thoughts of suicide from the time I was 8 or 9, until..now. I've been on medication after medication, I tried (AND QUIT!) therapy twice. I've ignored it and hoped it would just disappear. One day very recently I woke up and realized I was weighing in at nearly 300 lbs and I was sort of just eating myself into death, sort of a passive suicide attempt. It was sort of a wake up call. I'm now trying to recharge my batteries, so to speak. When I have a negative thought, I try to visually see myself throwing it away and tell myself something positive to counter act it. Usually I feel like i'm lying to myself, but i'm ok with lying to myself for the greater good.
I just don't know how to do it "For life" without meds or therapy.
I KNOW I need therapy. I just don't want to continue it.
For years I've been having reoccurring dream sequences, in the past few years I've gained more and more fragments. I began to touch on it in therapy and when I felt the truth coming, I ran from it. I ran from it and covered it with food. I believe I was sexually abused sometime before the age of 5. I finally came and talked to my grandmother about it about 3 years ago and she broke down and cried and told me that she had been worried about it, due to my behavior as a kindergartener and how my tantrums and withdrawal problems around men (and me refusing to speak for several months and being forced into speech therapy) made her really concerned, but then I seemingly "got over it" and no one in my family pushed it.
Then - My parents divorced when I was 3 and my father remarried a woman who I was very excited to adopt as my new mother. When her relationship was solid (she had a son with my father), I was out the window. She never abused me in his presence. When Daddy was home, it was golden. She called me sweet names, she pet me, she loved me. The minute the door shut, it was another story. I finally grew to fear and count the seconds that he would leave/reappear. She would hit me for looking at her wrong, hit me for forgetting to call her Maam, hit me if my brothers misbehaved, hit me if her daughter pissed her off, whatever. I told myself my whole life that it wasn't abuse, she was "just strict". She also told me I was fat. and spoiled. and that my grandmother hated me. I could go on about this for years. The bottom line is, I started fantasizing about killing myself because it was the only possible escape I could picture. I didn't see a way out. My step sister thwarted one suicide attempt and I begged her and bribed her to keep her from telling my father. It worked. This just set me up for a bad situation. WE were also very poor and never had much food. We were also very religious and couldnt' eat meat, so the pattern was, I would starve (basically) all week, looking forward to my free school lunches, and eating very little else. On weekends with my mother I would eat anything she would give me, which was usually unhealthy, fast, and full of fat. (on another fun side note, my mother was a drug dealer, and never had time for me when I was there, but she at least loved me, and I wans't offended by her lack of attention it got me away from my stepmother on weekends!). I figured out food would comfort me and nothing else would. And I went from being SKINNY (my nickname was skinny minny) to being quite fat. Every barb my stepmother would tell me about being fat, just made me horde food later and binge on it. I finally escaped when I was 13 (my grandmother took me in), but the damage was done.
My grandmother felt remorse and guilt for allowing me to be in a situation where I was abused and emotionally damaged, and so she would never turn me down. I suddenly had any food/drink I wanted, whenever I wanted, as well as new clothes, new cds, anything my heart desired. And I got even fatter. And fatter. And began binging. I won't mention high school, but that could take pages. I will say that it was horrible, and alienated me in ways I am still dealing with. everyday people threw money at me and called me satans whore (i'm fond of wearing black...and i live in the bible belt). I would eat until I was sick when I got home to try to deal with their crap.
By the time I was 17 I realized that I could help things along if I added laxatives and vomitting into the mix. By the time I got married at 19, I was incapable of going to the bathroom on my own, and had an unhealthy (and expensive) addiction to laxatives. I stopped leaving my apartment altogether because I wuold make myself so sick. Eventually it got to the point that I would assume that i was going to be sick, and so I wouldn't leave even if I felt quite good. From the time I was 19, until the time I was 23, I didn't work. I didn't leave my apartment. Ever. (and I got to the skinniest I had ever been, by using laxatives and starving myself).
I decided to get proactive about changing my life, and it took months of baby steps for me to overcome my paralyzing agoraphobia. I mean MONTHS.
And I got a job. And I got on medication. And I got responsible. And I really learned how to take care of myself.
And in the past few years of working at a high stress job, I have overcome all of my agoraphobia, but I still have bad habits. I traded one set of problems for another. I had no time, I had a lot of stress, blah blah blah. I quit therapy, etc. I ignored my problems. When my husband walked out on me, I ignored my problems. When I was having a headache everyday for 5 years, I tried to deal with it, but I just distracted myself. I threw myself into becoming a work aholic and keeping food on the table, and paying bills and buying a house, la la la la, until I woke up a few weeks ago and realized I was 300 lbs. and miserable. And wanting to die more than i've ever wanted to die. and having more and more nightmares/memories about the crap I walked out of therapy about.
So now what.
I'm trying.
But... I'm so tired.