Thank you for your response, it actually helped me understand this quite a bit. It’s true that my eating habits changed a lot. I usually eat healthy food and I no longer eat huge portions, but I definitely used food as a crutch back then. It was the thing I looked forward to the most after school or work, and every social or solitary event revolved around food. Maybe I simply don’t know what to focus on anymore. I can’t come home to a pint of ice cream every night. I just do other things instead.

I know I’m very dependent on my parents. I’m an only child and I was pretty outgoing and active as a kid. When I was 10 our family moved to another part of the country where we knew nobody, and I suddenly became a lot more introverted and shy. Friendships just happened when I was little, but they take more effort as you get older. I have a few close friends who I still see regularly and care about these days, but my parents are the most important people in my life. Our family of 3 is very tight-knit and loving so maybe I just never prioritized other types of relationships. It scares me so much that one day my parents won’t be around. I don’t want to be alone but I don’t believe I can forge new relationships to replace them. I’m also incredibly worried about how I’ll support myself without the safety-net my parents provide. I’m finishing college right now and I’ll be working in the dental industry. Rationally I know I should have a bright (or financially stable) future ahead, but I still doubt that I can handle adult life without my parents. I honestly feel like I’m still am immature teen.

…I only started having these thoughts after my weight loss. I’m definitely dealing with anxiety. I almost feel selfish for feeling so bad after doing something a lot of people wish they could do.

What would a psychotherapist be able to help with? I think maybe what I’m needing is more people in my life, but I don’t know how to go about that yet. I’m friendly with everyone and I can be very sociable now, but I never know how to invite people to do things together. I also haven’t had a successful long-term romantic relationship so I have no idea how to approach that. I’ll try talking to someone nonetheless.

They have always said that different people mature at different times, and I was never encouraged to move out or distance myself. They want me to be independent and successful but they also make it too easy to be lazy at home. They would take care of things for me in the past. It’s only recently that I’ve started taking care of things on my own. I feel like I’m a bit incompetent when it comes to certain things, like filling/finding certain tax forms or figuring out what goes into applying for student loans. I would usually procrastinate, which lead to my mom taking care of it all. I no longer do this but I still don’t feel secure with my own abilities, like I still have the training wheels on. I can figure everything out on my own need be, but if my parents weren’t around I feel like the stress and uncertainty would be overwhelming. My dad is nearly 70 and my grandfather on his side of the family died of a heart attack at 64. I’m terrified of losing him and I worry about what my mom will do once he’s gone. She’s foreign and doesn’t speak English too well, nor does she have friends in this town, so I picture myself taking care of her later on. Yet this isn’t the life I want for myself. Part of me wishes I could live independently but I worry about them too much to leave, plus I rely on their support too much.

Anita:

I’m not totally sure what caused me to become so unsure of my abilities. My parents and I really care about each other but we definitely had problems in the past. I didn’t didn’t have a lot of close friends while in school and this depressed me, which turned me to food for comfort. The more weight I gained the more my mom would worry. She would often yell, monitor what I ate, or just generally remind me that life is harder while overweight. I ate in hiding most of the time. This is the biggest issue between us, but our relationship is much better now. I created some stronger friendships while in college and at work (not many but enough, I’m a quality over quantity type of person). I found the will to lose weight and get my life together without my mom nagging, and now that I’ve lost weight there’s no tension about food. We get along really well. I honestly feel extremely guilty about making my parents worry so much about me. They were essentially watching me destroy my health for years and couldn’t do anything about it. My mom admits that she was too harsh and went about it the wrong way, and has since apologized, saying she didn’t know how else to express her worry besides with anger. I feel no resentment about it but I do believe it may have had some effect on me. I felt so out of control, depending on food for happiness and feeling guilt for disappointing my parents, that it lead me to hit my dog back then. I still haven’t come to terms with that. I’m interested in talking to a psychotherapist but I’m worried it wont help too much. I had a negative experience with a therapist once a few years ago. She didn’t appear to have any interest in what I was saying, making it extremely hard to open up.

Tannhauser:

I’m so sorry you are going through something like this. I’ve felt suicidal in the past, many times, but I think after all that the one thing I’ve taken away from it is that everyone is constantly evolving. You may feel totally different in just a few months. In just a year or two I’ve become an entirely different person, and I’m struggling to figure out who that is, but it just goes to show things can change. I’m definitely having a very hard time right now and the world feels alien and overwhelming, but I’ve just now realized how fast life can change. Maybe you’re experiencing something a bit like me. I also feel like I’m at a crossroads of some sort. Stay strong.

Tannhauser,

If you don’t mind me asking, what has changed in your life recently? Or if you would rather not discuss it, have YOU changed or did your situation change?

You are grieving for your life as it used to be and I feel that way as well (in a different way, I feel more disconnected from my past than anything). I suffered from severe depression during my mid-teens to early 20s and I often found a strange, sad comfort in the idea that I could one day take my own life if things got bad enough. It was liberating, thinking I had a way out. It gave me the motivation to start over and abandon my old habits, lose weight, and go back to school. Thinking about death like that was probably unhealthy but I’m always learning. This probably wouldn’t work for everyone, but maybe you can find the strength to turn that feeling of loss and grief into the freedom to start over or do something you never had the courage to do before.

Is the experience you’re going through something you feel is internal? Or spiritual and external? I’d like to give more input because I’ve been through years of pain as well. I’m not out of the woods myself, but I can always offer advice.

Anita,

Thank you for your input, I feel like this discussion has honestly helped me look at this from a better perspective.

I think I definitely don’t have enough patience with myself. I’m always seeing something wrong that needs to be improved. I look for flaws. I tend to forget what a huge accomplishment my weight loss was, how much work I put into it. And I did that despite my low self-esteem back then. I should focus on how far I’ve come, not how far I have to go. It’s just so hard to actually do that. I still get caught in thought loops that lead to panic attacks.

I definitely want to put the negative parts of my past (weight, anger from my mom, low self-esteem) behind me, but I feel I need to acknowledge it as well in order to stop feeling so disconnected from my past. I just read something about ‘depersonalization’ and that it can be caused by depression or intense life changes.

I’ll keep all this in mind. I just hope this feeling of not knowing who I am and that the world around me is meaningless and superficial, eventually goes away with time…