Hello everyone,
This is my first post about this problem and I'm hoping to get some feedback, perhaps even some suggestions on how to overcome some of the issues I have been living with.
To put you into context, I am a 23 year old gay male who has suffered from long-term negative self-image issues from being overweight during my teenage years.
My highest weight was when I was a teenager. I weighed 320 lbs. Today, I weight 155 - 160 lbs, so I've lost over 160 lbs. Its been about 4 years since the weight loss.
For a while I was on top of the world and so proud of myself! But that didn't last very long...
As you can imagine, after losing all that weight, I now have generalized excess skin all over my body. I underwent an abdominal lipectomy about 5 months ago in order to tighten the skin on my abdomen, and unfortunately I suffered some serious complications that left me with a horrible scar on my abdomen.. Something that I have not yet been able to deal with unfortunately. Regardless, the scar will be revised this summer.
The problem I now face is excess skin pretty much everywhere else, which literally has me paralyzed with fear of being rejected sexually from my partners. It has gotten to the point that I do not even enjoy sex anymore for I spend the entire time obsessing about how my body looks to the person I am with. This will sound crazy, but I literally spend the time trying to move in a certain way or position myself in a way that will minimize the appearance of the loose skin on my body. It is so bad that recently I have been having erectile dysfunction, obviously due to psychological reasons.
I feel so ashamed of my body that I don't know what to do anymore! I don't even remember feeling this bad when I was overweight... The thing is, I am one of the lucky few who have lost this much weight and does not suffer from "hanging" skin. It is simply soft all over and lacks tension. It's hard to explain... I suppose my skin was fortunately elastic enough to recover partially, but my butt, thighs and chest literally disgust me sometimes, and I know that they aren't THAT bad... The worst part of all is that when I was 320 lbs, I dreamt of having the body I now have.. literally dreamt of it! And now I have it, yet it is nowhere near good enough! I also had no idea I would have to deal with excess skin.. It seems horribly unfair and sometimes causes me to be depressed...
I've considered the possibility that I may suffer from body dysmorphic disorder, but have concluded that it is not the case since the problems I note on my body do exist and have a known cause. I simply obsess over them to the point that it prevents me from having a stable relationship and enjoying sexual relations. Obviously, this is due to bad experiences in my past...
The worse thing is that I think I may be suffering from an eating disorder on top of all this...
I have approached a therapist today by email and am waiting for a response, but in the mean time does anybody have any suggestions to help calm this stress ? It would be so nice to hear from someone who is going through something similar...
I just want to note however, that in spite of all my venting on here, I still have a generally happy life with long-term study/career goals, friends, family. Plenty of amazing things are going on in my life, the problem is I can't seem to let go of the negative feelings I have toward myself enough to actually enjoy how lucky I am... Does anybody understand what I'm going though ?
Thanks for listening.
Terry