Hi All!! My name is Ashley!! Tired of being "the bus"

  • Hello! I have been on this site for about two weeks now and already joined a few groups and competitions, but I wanted to formally introduce myself to the entire site. Well my name is Ashley, I'm 23 years old and I live in Minneapolis, MN born and raised. I am currently going to the U of M for a double major in psychology and sociology with a minor in spanish. I plan on going to grad school afterwards and hopefully obtaining a doctorate in psychology. I really love the social sciences but my heart truly lies in the arts. Ever since I can remember I have loved writing, drawing, and designing clothes. I have a secret desire to say screw it to grad school and go to design school to work on fashion design.
    I have always been heavy my entire life and for a very long time it never really affected me. Well i take that back, it has always affected me but for a long time (when I was younger) I wasn't truly bothered by it. I remember getting picked on (I was wearing a yellow tweety bird shirt when I was in elementary school and this older kid came up to me and goes "oh I thought you were the bus"), these comments made me cry of course because I was little and didn't understand why people would pick on me especially without knowing me, but eventually I developed extremely thick skin and any comments that I heard just bounced right off me and I ignored them. This is a good thing i suppose but it also was bad for me because by not acknowledging the comments, i developed this mentality where I always thought I was thinner than I really am. I never thought I was THAT big. I had tried going on diets numerous times and they were all unsuccessful in the end, I would gain the weight back. I was never losing for myself, I was losing for others. My family especially, they are all worried about me and tried scaring me with the whole diabetes issue and other obese health related problems but that never scared me for some reason. My friends never were true enough to me to say hey you should go on a diet, you're getting really big. I've only had one boyfriend my entire life and that was a sham...I always got the whole "oh pretty face" routine and I heard guys say " oh i would date her if she wasn't so fat." Again, I just bounced those comments off and thought hey it's not bad being single! Well, Last year I had a massive panic attack, the first in my life, but since it's symptoms are close a heart attack, that's what I thought I was having. AT 22 years old I thought I was going to die. That's when it hit me that I need to lose weight. Well I lost motivation until I found this site. I am so happy I found 3FC, I have only been on here for 2 weeks but I can already tell that its one big family and everybody here is so supportive. The most important thing: we can all relate to each other, we all have experienced the same trials and tribulations and pain. So sorry for the novel, haha, maybe it is the aspiring writer in me! Thank you already for your support and motivation! I am ready to lose for ME!!
  • Hi there Ashley! Another Minnesota girl here! I'm pretty new still too, but I love this site. I don't post that often, but I do a lot of reading. Enjoy and welcome!!!
  • Welcome Ashley.

    There are good reasons to lose weight, but please remember that cruel remarks from others are never called-for, no matter what. Lose weight because you deserve to give yourself a happy, healthy body. Not to please them.