Christina

I was the child of teenage parents, and they had issues. I watched my dad abuse my mom, and I watched her struggle with her self image. I remember my mom yelling at me for having stretch marks when I was 11.⠀
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I also developed early; I was 145lbs, and that wasn't good enough - I was considered super overweight. I started dieting. I grew up around it; I remember my aunt telling her adopted daughter that if she didn't lose weight, she would never find a husband.⠀
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I was always told how fat I was. When you combine that with being sexually abused, a lot of people become hyper promiscuous. I was taught that if I didn't look a certain way, then I had to act or perform a certain way.⠀
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Even after I gave birth, my dad's mom told me, 'You have to lose weight for this baby.' Everything my whole life has been about my body.⠀
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Before I had surgery, I was just sitting on my couch dying from what all the yo-yo dieting had done to my body. After surgery, people treated me differently, gave me attention. But I never could have prepared for what my body would look like.