Tough Times

Since I was younger I have always had a problem with my weight. I have came from a single parent household and not until recently I have realised that my mam has always overcompensated that fact buy using food, for example if I was good I got a treat (sweets etc), if I was  sad I got food to comfort me etc.

I was always a happy child and over the years the weight started to increase. I was always known to be happy and learnt to accept that I was always going to be the 'big girl' of a group. I struggled with my weight in my teens, it seemed to increase each year but still I was a happy go lucky type of person.

In my late teens I balanced collage and working in a office part time, I was constantly running back and forth so although I was big I still had a decent level of fitness even threw in a couple of gym and fitness schedule.

I would say it wasn't until I was 19 that I was serious about losing weight, I was at college, worked part time in a office and worked in a bar on weekends. I started to socialise a bit more and wanted nice new clothes and wanted to look better. I tried diets and was successful and lost around 2-3 stone, I felt good about myself and I was very happy.

Slowly but surely I started to slip back into old habits and stopped dieting completely. The years came with more weight, but I was still happy. In my early 20's I broke my leg twice which had an impact on my weight, but still I was happy(can you see a theme yet? lol).

Three years ago (almost four) I met a man who I thought was my world, the relationship was far from great but I thought I was in love. He made it known that he liked a larger lady so I felt no need to change my size. After a few months he would slowly start to insult me and my size when we argued, my confidence was knocked and I started to comfort eat, I gained a large amount of weight in such a small time. I stopped being sociable because in the back of my mind his comments were in my mind, Do people think I'm disgusting? Will everyone stare at me? I started to cut off ties with fiends, I didn't want to go out. I still went to work but slowly even panicked about going shopping and with the added weight my health was really suffering.

This year on my birthday the relationship completely ended due to issues too personal to say.  I was not in that relationship anymore but those thoughts were still in my mind. I was on a downward spiral, I got to a really low place, a place id never imagine id be in.  When you ask someone how they are I was the 'I'm fine'  girl, all my emotions were held on the inside and too the world I appeared to be 'fine'.

A close friend started to know changes in my and over a few month tried to tell me she thought I needed to see a doctor as she thought I was suffering from depression, I did what I always did and said id be fine.

Inside I was full of hurt, anger and feeling ashamed that I let myself get into this situation. Five weeks ago I decided to make a appointment with the doctor (I very rarely visit doctors) I was nervous and scared but surely the way I was feeling wasn't normal. The visit to the doctor was terrifying for me I wrote all my feelings down as I got teary trying to explain my feelings. I handed the paper to the doctor who went through what I had wrote with me. She then went through a checklist with me where she asked me questions and I had to reply on the scale of how the statements best suited me.

After the discussion she diagnosed me with severe depression. I (very naively) never really understood depression, surely its just something you can pull yourself out of and another word for people to claim to be diagnosed with? The doctor could explained that people who are depressed have a chemical imbalance. The easiest way of explaining it is that the weekend before I went to the doctors I got a flat tyre and I thought life wasn't worth living, dramatic? yes but that was how I felt.

I was prescribed with Fluoxetine (Prozac) and was sceptical about taking it, (I don't even take cold medicine!). The first mistake I did after my doctors appointment was to Google 'Fluoxetine', I read a lot of reviews saying how terrible the side effects were and scared myself into not taking them.

Once I decided to take them the only side effect I suffered from was a bit of drowsiness and sickness in the beginning but now five weeks later I have never looked back! obviously its not magic and my issues are still there but I'm going to be attending counselling to talk through and hopefully help me with my issues in the future.

At the moment I'm in  a good place and I find that blogging helps me, gives me a project/hobby. I know think twice before saying 'I'm fine'.

*I am in no way professional educated to provide medical advice, if you are in a similar situation please speak to your GP.

Thank you for reading.

Tracy xx