I am the youngest of 4 girls with 10 years between me and the oldest. I grew up in a family full of abuse. Not the typical abuse one thinks of when an adult says I was abused as a child. My abuser was my older sister who is 6 years older than I. She began abusing me both verbally, mentally and physically when I was about 6 years old. This continued until after I was well into young adulthood. At the age of 23 my Knight in Shinning Armor (aka Hubby) showed up and rescued me. Also during my childhood, my family had problems managing finances. My parents were chronic chain smokers who would rather buy a pack of smokes than feed us. We went many a days on Bean Soup and white bread if we were lucky. I remember being told stealing was wrong, yet we "borrowed" veggies from the neighbor's garden. My abusive sister's favorite things to call me was "thunder theighs", "fat ass", "lard ass" and she always made it a point to make my life as miserable as possible. We lived in a 3 bedroom home. My crazy grandmother lived with us as well. She had a pretty bad Morphine addiction from the 1940-1950's and also had Dementia. I never had any place to go to to get away from the abuse so I dealt with it. Whenever we had food in the house I would eat. I found that eating made me feel content and nutured, something I feel I never got from my parents as they knew the abuse was accuring, it happened in front of them, yet they never did anything to stop it. I figured if they didn't stop it then it must be true afterall at that age you believe anything your parents tell you and the lack of action told me a lot. It made me feel worthless as a person and not worth the effort to make her stop.

Dad passed away in 1996. That's when I took on the role of money maker. My mom was never good in times of crisis. We lost the home we lived in because we couldn't afford to pay the rent anymore. My sister married an abusive, child molesting alcoholic so she always made it a point to live nearby. Of course this gave her the chance to continue to take her frustrations out on me. At one point I worked 3 jobs and went to school full time. I guess it's kind of like survival mode when it was going on as you do what you must to make it. My mom is very much a push over and allowed people (my abusive sister included) to use our long distance and run up huge (2-3,000 phone bills!). At this point in my life, I maintained my weight around 220. and within a couple years I started gaining weight. When I left home to move in with my hubby I weighed approximately 280 pounds. Neither of my parents were overweight. My mom can eat a whole plate of brownies without gaining and ounce. She has a hard time staying at 110 because her weight is always dropping. My dad was in the Army for 32 years and never was over 150lbs and was 5'8". He had Colon Cancer when I was 4-5 years old and after all his colon surgeries he never got back over 100 pounds.

Personally, I think everyone who is overweight has a reason. Mine I believe was hoarding food. Growing up I never knew when or what my next meal might be so I ate well when it was available and the habit began. I also developed the attitude that since my parents never made my sister stop verbally making fun of me that everything she had to say and the fat references HAD to be true!