KellyLessBelly

[font=georgia,serif][b][color=#2F4F4F]My journey has been life-long. I was overweight as a young child, medically obese by around age 7. Should you choose to read on, you will get a glimpse of the factors that contributed to my struggle in comforting myself with food and attempting to render myself unattractive.[/color][/b][/font]

[font=georgia,serif][b][color=#2F4F4F]I had been through the tumultuous divorce of my parents and felt abandoned by my father at age 6. Within a year of my parents' divorce, I was molested by an adult male friend of the family. A few years later, I was molested by an older boy, another family friend. [/color][/b][/font]

[font=georgia,serif][b][color=#2F4F4F]As a teen, searching for love and male attention to fill the hole in my heart, I began a sexual relationship with my boyfriend at 15. I became pregnant within a year and decided to abort my child. I believed the lies of the abortion industry, that it was a painless procedure, that my baby was just a "clump of cells," and went through with the abortion. Immediately afterwards, I [i]knew[/i] I could never go through with, or put myself in that position EVER AGAIN! [/color][/b][/font]

[font=georgia,serif][b][color=#2F4F4F]This is when I really saw my weight balloon, in what I now see was an effort to make myself undesirable by men. If no one was attracted to me, I wouldn't have sex, so I couldn't get pregnant, and would never again face abortion. This is when I graduated to morbid obesity. I had gained around 80 pounds within a year. [/color][/b][/font]

[font=georgia,serif][b][color=#2F4F4F]My family excused the weight gain by comparing me to other family members who were large. It seemed natural to them, that because I was becoming a woman and there was a family history of obesity, the weight gain was unavoidable. No one relized that I was filling an emotional hole with food.[/color][/b][/font] [color=#2f4f4f][font=georgia,serif][b]No one saw the isolating behaviors I was exhibiting. [/b][/font][/color]

[color=#2f4f4f][font=georgia,serif][b]Thirteen years later, at age 29, after having had four children, married and divorced, I had come to know God and started a process of recovery from all of my past hurts. Since then, layer upon layer of pain has been peeled away, and I am truly a new person! [/b][/font][/color]

[color=#2f4f4f][font=georgia,serif][b]I won't say that the weight is the [i]last[/i] thing I need to peel away, but I can say that I am ready to work on this part of me now! I had thought about gastric bypass many times over the years, since 1999, but never with the healing behind me and the mindset I have now. For me, shedding this weight is symbolic of breaking free from the shackles of all the pain that was holding me back.[/b][/font][/color]

[color=#2f4f4f][font=georgia,serif][b]Thank you for taking the time to read my story![/b][/font][/color]