Mental Health

some time during the middle of the year in 2024 i reached my highest weight of 363 lbs. i am a 5'9" male. i was morbidly obese and i could feel the effects of it. i wasn't always this big. in fact, i only started gaining weight around the age of 10. i suffered long-term abuse and one of my coping mechanisms was to eat. my mother only attempted to control my habit but never gave any real effort about it. i was able to eat whatever and whenever. to be fair, she was dealing with the worst of it.

needless to say, my depression developed and it became severe. because of contributing factors of how i was raised, how society sees fat people, and how i started internalizing the hate back to myself, over time those negative thoughts became how i saw myself. i hated my weight, i hated my body. i was ashamed and couldn't find a single thing to be even OK with.

no matter what i did throughout my life it never stuck. i started accepting i was the problem even with the addiction i had to food. i knew that this was likely some sort of disease but i still felt culpable. "there's more i can do," i kept telling myself. blame, blame, blame. "i just don't give a shit enough," i'd say. it made me hate myself even deeper.

then, a classification of diabetes medication referred to as GLP-1s were brought to mainstream attention. most of us heard about them through rumor mill gossip, but the reason they became suddenly popular was due to the fact that these medications were rather effective at treating metabolic disorder and therefore obesity. it had an initial negative connotation as it was treated as a celebrity fad drug and jokes were made about how 5 years from now the negative side effects will impact them all. some people dismissed it, some people praised it. GLP-1s had a mixed reception then. You likely heard of the first big one to be noticed: Ozempic.

eventually, a friend of mine tells me they are starting a newer GLP-1, Zepbound, which is just like Ozempic but targets an additional hormone, making it a dual receptor agonist and more effective at treating metabolic disorder. he ended up losing 60 lbs before it convinced me to try for myself.

i began in November of last year. i was skeptical but very enthusiastic as i did my research and found the science amazing. this isn't some kind of designer drug meant as a temporary fix or a treatment that is worse than the illness. GLP-1s have been around for a while successfully controlling diabetes. doctors realized it was also helping patients lose weight. the mechanics are triggered by hormonal interactions which over time alter your brain and imprint upon you new behavioral traits. the disorder of obesity itself is treated more than at the weight level; it actually treats your brain and stops the impulse to overeat and the reward for consuming unhealthy food and quantities.

and that is what happened to me. i am now 224 lbs today, having lost ~138 in total. i have exerted very little willpower and haven't exercised routinely. if i did both of those things i would no doubt be at a bigger loss, which is fucking insane because 138 is A LOT within a year. i state this because i want you all to understand that this is a genuine treatment for obesity. it changed not only my body but my mind.

i am not the same person i was before i started Zepbound. i have felt this way now for about half the year and it hasn't left me. i'm realizing i may have entered a permanent shift in identity and purpose. i do not despise my body anymore. sure, i need to lose about 50 more lbs, but that's it????? wow i.. i'm really going to do it. this is real. i can accept that this is real now because i am so close. this medication has worked non-stop even during the plateaus.

i can access a deeper level of emotions than i realized i was capable of. everything i felt before was filtered through not only my major depressive disorder but it was additionally being weighed down by literally my own weight. and i couldn't feel that anymore because it became my default. i thought i was expressing my values and my care as fully as i could, because i genuinely felt the passion and believed in how i felt about things and people. having lost all this weight it is like night and day. the depth i can feel things at now feels more aligned with my inner self; the me outside of my disorders.

i am now able to tackle concepts of my depression and anxiety that i simply wasn't ready for before. in fact, i am in a PHP right now and i was here three years ago and exited the program. i didn't complete it. i couldn't. i tried, believe me. i truly wanted it to work. ...so i hated myself for it. again, must be my fault. i'm a bad person.

no. i was and am a sick person. not only do i have mental illness but i have a metabolic disorder. i have a disease. obesity is a disease and you have to stop shaming yourself. it is okay to accept this reality and get help. there is help finally. we have a medication to control your dysfunction. you owe it to yourself to talk to a doctor about a GLP-1 med. i strongly recommend Zepbound but that's me. i say that because it is currently the only dual-receptor agonist on the market.

not a single day goes by i do not consider how happier i feel lately. again, not a fulfilment because i'm not where i want to be, but i can see myself as a fucking person finally. that matters, trust me. it matters. you might not be able to work on your depression because you hate yourself more than you realize even if you admit to hating yourself. i bet you aren't consciously aware of how deep those roots are.

i'm sorry this is so, so long. if this helps anybody seek treatment then it was worth it. feel free to ask any questions btw either here or DM. obese folks who hate themselves: hey, stop it! listen to me! talk to your doctor, i promise.