During high school my dad would always tell me that I was overweight and that I would never have a boyfriend due to the way I looked. After several years of this I started to believe everything he was saying and it made me feel terrible about myself. My father started to restrict the type of food that he would buy and bring to the house. Everything became low fat, no fat, or diet. Nothing was fried, there was very little oil or cheese on anything. This made me feel terrible, and made me constantly crave things that my dad would no longer allow me to have. Due to my cravings I started sneaking food. I would buy snacks and hide them in my room, or wait for my dad to go out and then I'd get in my car and go buy something from McDonalds or Sonic and get back to my house and eat it in the privacy of my room. After these changes my dad made to our diets he noticed I wasn't losing any weight he started putting me down more about eating "crap" when I was at school and whenever I was out with friends. With all of the negative spiels I was getting from my dad I started to restrict what I was eating and often binge eat. I would sometimes purge after because all I could think about is what my dad would say if he found out everything that I ate.
After a while of binging and purging 3 or 4 times a month I told one of my friends how I felt about my dad and she made me feel like it was okay to be who I was. That it was okay to have a cookie and pizza and other foods. She told me that eating is something we need and it should be something we enjoy, not something we should use as a form of punishment. After hearing someone give me positive feedback on how I was living my life, it became easier for me to ignore what my dad was saying about my body. I was finally coming to terms with how I looked and I didn't try to sneak food anymore. I started to become more confident and accept myself for who I was. To this day it still hurts to hear my dad talk about how I could be so much prettier if I went on a diet, but I know that I have people who love me just the way I am and I don't have to change anything about myself and they would still love me the same. I still have body image issues because for half my life my dad was telling me that I wasn't pretty enough or skinny enough, and that eventually sinks in and stays with you. But ultimately all I want is to be at a healthy weight and to maintain that healthy lifestyle and not hat myself because I want a cookie.
