For like my fifth post this month already, I’ll start off by saying I’ve had a rough past year. I was broken up with by who I thought was the love of my life, became depressed, gained 15 lbs and have a lot of family issues.

Unfortunately, the sole focus of the past 10 months since this began was just losing the weight. I was so proactive and proud of myself, constantly researching diets and working out all the time. My weight kept fluctuating for some reason though, and all the while I kept gaining. It started out with a mere 5 lbs and has made its way up to an additional 10-15 lbs since then.

So, finally, two or three weeks ago I decided to stop dieting and exercising. The exercise became excessive and it made me SO hungry. All I could think about was food or working out or how many calories I had burned. It became an obsession and I was no longer enjoying exercise in the way that I used to. And then I stopped dieting because I knew I couldn’t track everything I ate on an app for the rest of my damn life. I knew restricting food groups and cutting out carbs and all that would only continue to backfire like it had already. I mean, I had been dieting and exercising for 10 months and I hadn’t lost any weight, only gained, so I figured I had to stop since it clearly wasn’t working.

At first, I felt a relief of pressure. But then, I started bingeing. Because I wasn’t restricting myself from bad foods anymore, I was gorging on them. My birthday was on Tuesday and it was difficult to gather a group together on a weeknight, so I happily ordered a pizza and ate cookies and candy by myself at my apartment while I painted. I felt no guilt because it was my birthday, but the next day I woke up ashamed. Yet I found myself that morning, eating 5 cookies standing in my kitchen at 8 am. And then I polished off the rest of ALL the junk food I had bought and the pizza for lunch, too. I thought “I better just get it out of my house so that I can’t do this again. I’ll eat it all ASAP.”

It was so bad to the point where my skin was hurting from sudden water retention, and my face is still puffy. It also sent me into a deep, depressive mode. This whole week I’ve been off, but today I feel horrible. Like I’m truly losing hope and control. Is this a whole “it’s getting worse before it gets better” thing? I just feel so lost for SO many reasons. Everything is a mess.

I feel like I’m a fat, depressed failure. On top of that, I’m just so over my job and I know that plays a huge part in what drains me. Every day I go to work and have too much time on my hands, I’m constantly googling things about depression or binge eating disorder or weight gain or this or that. It’s exhausting. I’ve applied to a few different jobs but I really want something that’s going to put me closer towards the end goal of my career.

There is a job in Miami that I know I could get, and while it wont hurt me, it doesn’t put me closer. It’s a traditional Advertising agency and I want to work client side on a fashion or makeup type brand, something more feminine and stylish. I don’t aspire to work on car commercials and things like that. However, one of my best friends lives in Miami, it would be a change in pace and maybe that job would help a shift in focus so that I can’t be obsessing about my weight and depression anymore? I don’t know.

I don’t know where to start anymore!!! I feel so drained and discouraged and overwhelmed. I can also tell that exercising did help occupy my days and give me more energy and that maybe I need to return to it to help ease my depression symptoms. I’m not sure where to go. I feel like I’m constantly just “experimenting” on what will help and nothing is sticking. I don’t think I need to go on medication because I feel like things are pretty situational, but I’m just beginning to feel so hopeless.

My sister thought that maybe the weight gain and depression was from a thyroid issue, but I already was tested for that. She thinks I should get it tested again because autoimmune issues run in our family and that can be a trigger of hypothyroidism or Hashimotos. I don’t know?!?! I’m so sorry for all the rambling. I’m truly at a loss. Today was one of the first days I felt like I would just be better off dead, because I’ve been trying so many things and nothing has been working for almost a year now. I feel like a failure.