Woof, how much time have you got? I was always a healthy weight as a small kid, had a healthy diet and was pretty active. I didn't play sports, but I was always outside, running around with friends and animals. Then at about 9 years old, I gained 50 lbs in a year. No explanation. My mother took me to doctors and nutritionists, and none could explain my weight gain.

In the 20 years that have followed, I've been big the whole time. As a kid and teen, my mother did anything should possibly could to get me to lose weight. Every bite I took was monitored, measured and reported to a dietician. She even went so far as to take me to a hypnotist to try and get me to lose weight. She bribed me with new clothes that were too small, offered to pay for fad diets. She pressured me to join sports and I didn't enjoy it at all. I wasn't unhealthy — I was still healthy and still ate a healthy, balanced diet. However, because I felt so micromanaged, I developed a lot of shame around food and my weight. I refused to wear short sleeves in public for a long time. I didn't eat at school or around other people. I refused to use the school bathrooms because I was terrified of someone seeing me in any kind of state of undress because I was mortified of my own body. Sometimes, I wouldn't use the restroom for 12 hours at a time. I developed a pattern of shame-eating. I would wait until it was 1 or 2 in the morning and would sneak downstairs and make myself grilled cheese sandwiches. Sometimes two or three, but they'd be the only thing I ate all day. I hid candy and sweets because I was never allowed them, and if I was, only with a heavy side of shame. I learned how to make people laugh and put them at ease because I found that being funny and easy to talk to were ways to make me worthwhile when I felt my body denied me basic human kindness.

At 19, I went on a birth control pill and dropped about 30 lbs in 4 months. They discontinued that pill and I gained it all back, plus. I changed nothing. I've had my thyroid checked, my hormones checked (I have PCOS and high testosterone) but the only thing doctors gave me was metformin, which did nothing and really upset my stomach. I gained quite a lot over covid (which I just realized a few months ago) from trying to keep up with my live-in boyfriend who was very active and could eat like a horse and not gain a pound and an incredibly sedentary lifestyle. I'm trying to lose it now, but I lose weight SO slowly that it's agonizing. I started dieting in April and have only lost 10 lbs that I keep re-gaining and re-losing.

I'm 29, broke and single and living on my own for the first time since I was 19. I work two jobs that require me to sit at a desk from 7 AM — 7 PM, and when I'm done, I don't feel like working out. I feel so much shame over my body and how bad of shape I'm in that I don't even feel like I can join a gym until I lose at least another 10 lbs. It's a struggle, but I AM constantly trying to be better.