Caitie - thank you for bravely sharing your story. My story is similar to yours. I was sexually abused as a young child and went on my first diet at 5 years old. After I hit puberty, I was a size 12 and was receiving alot of attention and had a couple of incidents. I put on alot of weight after I graduated highschool and was diagnosed with a whole bunch of things. I think the bingeing was a way to protect myself. If I'm bigger, I'm not attractive and safe from advances. It's been years and I'm morbidly obese. Humour is a great tool to use to compensate for the way that I look. Fortunately, my focus is now on finding the right treatment for the trauma, the eating behaviour and finding what it looks like to be kind to myself and stop wallowing the self hatred I have for my body which I find grotesque. I'm now on the path towards recovery which I am hopeful for. It's really hard for people to understand what being big feels like of you haven't experienced it before.