Yet again I have created a blog, but this time I am more focused on using it for the right reasons and not just a place to rant about being depressed or Pee'd off! (although I should warn you I
will be using it for that too!)
My name is Emma. I'm currently 21 years old and weigh a shocking 360+ lbs...
As you can imagine this makes me a very big girl, and currently a very unhappy girl.
So time for some back story!
I have always been bigger than everyone else - chubby when I was little, and as I got older I got bigger and bigger. I remember when I was about 13 or 14 having to be weighed at the hospital so they could work out how much anaesthetic to give me when I had my tonsils out. At that point I was just over 19 stone! Since then my weight has continued to go up (even though I was embarrassed as hell when they told me that!) and I am currently wobbling just above the 26 stone mark. I haven't got to 27 yet and pray to god that I NEVER see that number.
I was badly bullied in school as you can imagine. I was never physical but the amount of emotional and mental bullying I sometimes think maybe it would have been easier if it had been! At least a punch or a kick are swift and over with quickly, the emotional bullying I suffered with will scar me for the rest of my life I think. It was always whispered comments (that were said just loudly enough that I could hear them but never the teachers it would seem!), sarcastic comments, then there was the obvious "who ate all the pies?" and some kids would pretend to get knocked out of the way when I walked by them. Eventually just the way they'd shout my name was bullying in itself, hearing my full name said out loud now literally brings back bad memories and I can almost hear the horrible way people would say my name to make it a bad thing to be called Emma Barnatt. I almost began to feel sorry for the other people in my year that were called Emma as if I'd made it a sin to be called that name.
I left school with pretty good GCSE results (hard to believe how I managed it considering) and went to a local college to study Law, Business studies, accountancy & english language AS levels. I soon found out that despite being assured things would be different in college they weren't. I was still teased, not quite to the same extent, but it was still there. The comments were still muttered, I was still looked at as if someone had walked me in to the carpet, I was still made to feel as if I didn't deserve to be there or in these awful people's presence.
In January 2007, about a week after I turned 17, I dropped out of college. I told them I'd been diagnosed with an incurable illness and didn't want to waste any more time there. How ridiculous I feel when I think back to that!!! It was technically true, but not life threatening as I'd made out to them so that they'd let me leave!! I had been diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) which pretty much explained why I was so overweight (not completely because obviously I comfort ate etc) I also had excess hair (on both my face and body) funny marks on the insides of my elbows (almost like patches of very dry skin but not quite - unless you've had it or seen someone who has it's hard to explain, they're kind of like brown spots or something like that)
My Mum knew why I'd left really, I couldn't handle being somewhere I didn't legally have to be and taking the crap I was. At the time I just thought I don't have to go through this so why am I? So I left.
Looking back now I shouldn't have. I should have put up with it for that little bit longer so that I could come away with some qualifications, perhaps even gone to Uni, but at the time all I could see was that I could escape it, I could run away, and for the first time I was allowed to give up, there was no one there telling me I had to go to school, there was no niggling in the back of my head saying to me if you give up now you might as well die - believe me I've had that thought so many times. I've had my share of suicidal thoughts in my short life so far let me tell you.
Now through all of this I was "with" a guy. We met online, but had met a few times in person as well as hotel stays/visits etc. Thinking back to it now you couldn't really have called it a relationship, but we did. We loved each other and wanted to be together. He was from Manchester and called Chris.
So... after leaving college and finally feeling like I had a bit more freedom what did I decide to do next? Move to Manchester to be with Chris. Yep I decided I wanted to be with him and if that's what it took that was what I was going to do. I pretty much abandoned everyone who loved me to be with him. By March I had worked up the courage to tell my Mum. She was heart broken, I was selfish, so on the 4th of April 2007 I moved 250+ miles across the country to be with him.
Now I don't want to go into huge detail about all this now because things are a bit raw and painful regarding Chris at the moment... Just put it this way - we were together about 6 and a half years, probably closer to 7 years, we got our own place (a crappy 3 bed house in Partington) we got engaged (!) and were engaged for almost 2 years. Then he dropped the bomb one night that things weren't working out. We'd grown apart, he didn't "want" me anymore (if you get my drift) etc. etc...
So I have now come back home with my tail between my legs and am now starting my life all over again, and trying to do it the right way this time. I will never abandon my friends and family again, and I will never put enough trust in another human being ever again that they have the ability to hurt me the way Chris has. That's a promise.
About a year ago I started to attempt to lose weight on Slimming World (I will refer to this as SW) not very successfully, but I tried. So this blog will be following my weight loss journey, and also the long hard slog at trying to create a life for myself out of the scraps I have left!
I hope you enjoy the ride, and I hope we all make it through together!
xXx
