Where it all started to go wrong

I suppose i always felt like i was over-weight, even as a child, but looking back i now know i never was but i somehow got that idea in my head. I am one of six kids, i was number 4, looking back at photos as kids growing up, i didnt look in the slightest bit different weight-wise to the rest of the family but yet i was always made to feel like i was. Dont know why this was, i think my mother always passed little comments, she probably didnt realise what she was doing, after all she had six kids in six years and struggled to cope and suffered a minor breakdown and depression, i think i always got the brunt of her frustrations and unhappyness. I remember there were knicknames given to each sibling by one of my brothers, i can remember some of them, but funny enough i cant remember my own! (i think i have blanked it out because i think it was fatty or fatso) On the whole though, i look back and think i had a great, fun childhood, never a dull moment in a big family! (or is that me trying to blank things out again?) I left school in 1979 aged 16 - 5ft 7" and weighing 11stone 2pds - not exactly over weight by any guidelines. I then went on to lose a bit of weight away from the confines of school and stabilised at 10stone 3 pds for the next few years.

I remember never feeling like i fitted in anywhere, could never quite find where i belonged and never knew where i wanted to be. I remember my 21st birthday being completely overshadowed by my sisters big white wedding which was planned for 4 days later. I was so jealous, she looked so lovely, slim, beautiful getting married to a man who adored her - why couldnt i be like her?

In my desperation to find something for me, i got involved with an older man who i thought would look after me and give me the attention and love that i was clearly craving. We starting seeing each other and within a few months i was pregnant - was it deliberate? yes. I was happy to be having a baby, i would have someone to look after and love who would love me and need me. As soon as my beautiful daughter was born i was back to 10 stone without even trying, in fact i hovered between 9stone 10 and 10stone 2 for the next 2 years or so. My baby's dad was not quite so enthusiastic about anything that was going on around him, he felt he had been trapped (which he was, although we still lived in separate houses) his input was minimum but i thought if i waited he would eventually come round to the idea of having a new family in his life. Quite why i wanted him in my life i have no idea, he didnt offer me stability or love or much support of any kind, but none the less i was not going to give up until i won him over. Eventually he did agree that maybe we should give it a go, and we bought a house together, a lovely 3 bed semi in a sought after area, huge garden, lovely neighbours. I thought this is it, i have finally got what i wanted, i finally felt like i belonged somewhere and to top it all i became pregnant with my 2nd daughter, my life was perfect! Then the weight started piling on, 4 stone throughout my pregnancy, but i didnt care, in fact after my baby was born losing weight was the last thing on my mind, insignificant things like that didnt matter to me (or so i thought) Along the way, even thought on the outside my life looked perfect and idyllic, on the inside was a different story. I had found out the man i was living with was an alcoholic and addicted to tranquilisers, i was devestated (he was very clever and deceitful in the way he had covered this up). None the less, i still wanted my ideal life and he had managed to convince me he had given up alcohol and tranquilisers and we decided to get married (we got married on our own, without my family because he 'didnt want any fuss') I went along with it but i was so unhappy inside, happy with my babies but so unhappy with the inadequate, selfish, ignorant man that was now my husband. I pretended, i did a great job at pretending to the outside world that i had it all, but slowly dying inside through lack of love and affection and company from a loving partner, who it turns out had lied all along and was secretly still drinking and taking tranquilisers, it was like living with a zombie, i was living the life of a single parent although we were still together. This was still the 80's and there was still so much stigma attached to being a single parent and i did not want that for my kids and i wanted all my children to be true siblings, from the same dad and with that in mind i decided i wanted another child and as we were not really having a proper kind of relationship any more, i set out to conceive my son and luckily it happened immediately from that one occasion that i planned. I was the happiest i could be, i was massively over-weight and pregnant but the scan told me it was a boy, i knew my life was complete. I had my 3 children that i adored, about 18stone now, but i didnt see that, i just saw my lovely children and it didnt matter. I avoided mirrors, i avoided going out, we didnt have any friends as a couple anyway, he saw to that. I spent the next few years raising my children, getting the best i could out of life for them, private schools, horse-riding lessons, dance lessons, piano lessons, lovely birthday parties, family holidays abroad. I stuck it out for as long as i could untill i could take it no more and finally decided i could no longer live in the same house as such a selfish man. He had taken, taken, taken from being surrounded by a lovely family, but gave nothing back in return, just empty promises of getting help to get off alcohol and tranqulisers. I tried everything to help him, i went to see doctors, arranged clinic appointments privately, arranged for the clinic to send a doctor to our home instead because he said he would do it that way, i tried and exhausted every avenue to get help for him but not once did i see him make any effort or interest in wanting to sort the problem out. I lost count of the number of chances i gave him, lets sort it out or we are over but he never took me seriously so in the end i had to make the decision. I dont regret it, not for a second, no matter how bad things get (and they have) but i have never regretted the day we split up for good. (He is still an alcohol and drinks to this day)

I have a good relationship with my siblings, although due my ex-husband (things i would rather not go into at the moment) i feel that my relationship with my sister has become virtually none existent. This makes me incredibly sad, as we were such good friends for so many years and our children grew up together when they were younger. I dont know if this situation can ever improve, i would love it if it could, but for now i just need to sort out me.

Just reading back now, this is turning into a book not a blog!

I just feel that everything i have wrote so far is relevant and in some way explains how i got so overweight in the first place.

I have been through a bad relationship ending in divorce, bringing up my children on my own, i have lost everything along the way ending up bankrupt, i lost my dad very unexpectedly through not very nice circumstances, i have watched my mums health and mind deteriorating through the very cruel disease Alzheimers.

I am an emotional eater, i eat if im sad, happy, want to celebrate, commiserate, drown my sorrows, in fact i dont need an excuse, i just eat. My eating is out of control, or was. I now want to take control of my life and my weight and after years of trying every diet you can imagine, i have decided on the gastric band which i know will give me back my life.