Speaking for myself, I identify with the idea that I always felt like a fat person trapped in a skinny body. It's a cliché, I know, but it best explains how I felt - as young as I can remember I wanted to get really fat.
I grew up staying thin and in shape, only because I didn't want to be fat shamed by my parents. When I moved out on my own, after a few years, I decided to try to gain weight on purpose.
Thing was, I wasn't ready for it. There was a lot of body acceptance issues I hadn't thought of before - would I like where the fat would be distributed, having a healthy enough self image to like myself fat, as I found that I had to "deprogram" myself as to the idea that only thin people are attractive. I wound up gaining about 40 lbs and then lost it all, as I felt bad, I wasn't in a good mindset and was feeling depressed.
I stayed thin for about nearly a decade, but during that time, I took the opportunity to mentally prepare myself for the changes that I was going to experience in going through with gaining weight and took the time to honestly question myself if I really wanted to be fat, or if it was something that was meant to be purely a fantasy.
As luck would have it, I came into circumstances that freed up some of the prohibitive things that come along with gaining weight and being really fat. I took a few years to consider it and finally went through with it.
I won't lie, there were and still are days where I'm not happy with how I look, but they became less frequent once I finally decided to let go and let things happen. Even when I was plateauing and couldn't gave more weight for almost a year, I found when I stopped worrying and pressuring myself things became a lot easier and I became less critical of myself.
7 years
