My History - Feeling guilty!

I am the classic yo-yo slimmer. From childhood (a very, very long time ago) I have been a big girl, most of the time bigger than 'normal'. I was an active child with cycling and swimming but when I started work, and the activity stopped, the weight started creeping on.

There have been times when the weight came off, always through going to a slimming club, and these times were usually connected to wanting to impress a new boyfriend. That is the key, I have never slimmed for myself! I have always slimmed for someone else!!

The other key to success I have recently identified is the link between my emotions and eating for comfort. I suppose I have always known there was a link between how I felt or what had just happened to me and eating. Whenever someone upset me or I was unhappy or I was bored or I needed comfort or..................(any excuse really) I would eat.

I can (could?) eat any amount of chocolate, cheese, biscuits, cakes, crisps, ravioli, mashed potato with cheese and tomato sauce, tomato soup etc that was in the house at any time - as well as my breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

Everybody thinks I am a really happy person with a very happy marriage and 2 lovely children. I have had a super career, for which I have had to work hard to get there, and have 2 lovely homes (England and France). So why did I get to be 26st 2lbs?

Until the beginning of January my health has been declining greatly with arthritis of the knees, breathing difficulties, depression, constant tiredness, unable to sleep. Walking anywhere was a chore, especially as I had fractured a knee a couple of years ago in a fall and I have not fully recovered from that. I virtually crawl upstairs and waddle around all the time. The impact this has on my confidence is huge and I end up thinking that I have to put up with what life throws at me because I have no other options. Don't get me wrong, despite how I might appear to people I am not the super confident, organised and cheerful person everybody else sees.

I have been struggling with making decisions, I have had dark thoughts about the future (would my family be better off without me? Well, yes financially they would). I am fed up to the back teeth with how I feel and how I look.

How did I get here then? The turning point in my life was 1983. I had given birth to a lovely daughter, yet I found it difficult to bond with her because I had her for my mum (who was dying) and I was going to have to go back to work when she was 6 months old just to keep a roof over our heads. My husband loved her from the beginning, she was the first thing he noticed when he came home from work, not me. I was jealous of a baby, but I was also desperately unhappy because I was going to lose my mum and would not be able to stay at home with my baby. Of course, I had not heard of post-natal depression - depression happened to celebrities and rich people with the time to be depressed.

Within 2 months life settled down a bit and sexual relations with my husband resumed (there had never been a problem in that department since the day we met in the 1970's). That was when life threw a googly at me, the first time we resumed our sex life I fell pregnant again. I believed that if you were breast feeding you could not fall pregnant! How stupid!

I was ill from the beginning but I was also sick at heart, I could not possibly keep this baby. There was absolutely no way we could afford it, and I could not cope with 2 babies under a year old and supporting my dad with my dying mother. With a terrible heart I made the decision to seek advice about a termination, so at 6 weeks pregnant I went ahead with the termination with the support of my husband. Life changed after that. After the termination I had to be hospitalised as an emergency as part of the placenta had been left behind and this left me very ill and potentially unable to have further children. I took this as a punishment from God, I had committed (to me) the worst sin of all.

My GP tried to help me cope by telling me I would probably not have survived a pregnancy due to how badly my body reacted to the hormone changes. Pregnancy is the only time I can lose stones without trying! For all 3 pregnancies I was constantly sick from beginning until about 24 weeks and ended up in hospital with severe dehydration. My GP said I had not given my body a chance to recover, and the pregnancy test was weak. Nothing he said helped, I felt I would have been a better person to try with the pregnancy and die or lose the baby naturally, rather than take the action I did.

I have spent a life-time taking my guilt out on me and, and to a large extent my husband and family - 24 years of guilt have led me to being 26st 2lb in January this year. I could not stand for my husband to touch me and, apart from the occasional attempt, we have had a mainly celibate marriage for those 24 years. Sex is not a normal part of our married life, it is a special occasion when we stay at 'posh' hotels. Despite some up and downs during those years, we have grown closer together and are best friends. We are the only two people who will tell one another the truth rather than what they want to hear.

We did have another child 3 years later. This time my body was telling me to have a baby, there was a huge longing which could only be resolved by having a baby. The conception was pained, still riddled with guilt as I was, and again without realising it or being able to put a name on it, I suffered from post natal depression. The only good thing was being able to afford to be at home to bring up both my children - an experience I loved. Don't think it was perfect though.

I was a strict mother and could be very horrible to my children, especially my eldest. I sometimes think I was resentful of her as my life changed so much after having her, and I had her to make my dying mother happy not because I was ready or wanted children. I was even more resentful as my husband doted on her, and 24 years later still does! When I realised I was having a problem holding my temper, especially when I was tired, I got very scared about the damage and hurt I could cause to my children (especially my eldest). That was a wake up call to me and I owned up to my husband about my actions and my fears for the safety of my children when I got mad with them. We worked through that. When I felt myself losing control I would phone him and talk it through, I would also just put the children to bed or take them to a friends house and I would go to bed until I felt able to cope again. Eventually I learned how to recognise the signs of losing control and put coping strategies in place to avoid them or minimise them.

Nowadays there are help lines for new (all) parents to help them cope, but in my day you feared that Social Services would condemn you and take your children away! How long did my period of feeling out of control last, no more than 6 months at most. I had not heard of, or realised, that I might be suffering from post-natal depression. I just thought I was a bad mother. By then my own dearly loved mother had died and I felt bereft and alone. I felt I had nobody to turn to.

I love my children dearly and try very hard not to put my guilt and fears on to them. I also try very hard to accept them warts and all and just support them through whatever life throws at them. As the years of gone on I have grown to love my first child very dearly, and have always loved my second child unconditionally from birth.

The biggest thing to blight my life has been my own guilt and being unable to deal with it. I call it beating myself up, I am very good at that.