I Regret My Obesity Caused My Son’s PTSD MY-NICHE Contest Entry

My niche is natural weight loss. The biggest regret of my life is that my obesity caused my son’s PTSD.

You see me at my heaviest here; just before I began to finally lose weight. My son @bxlphabet is smiling, but also worried about me like he always was. I already wrote about how he had to help me climb out of a cave on this trip to San Antonio. But that was the least of it.

I thought I was doing my best for him. I was too sick and fat to do many things for most of his life. I moved to a small town so he would have a safe place to grow up. I worked every hour I could to have money to buy him things and to let him go on trips with other people when I could not. I tried to make a sense of family when we only had each other.

I did everything I could except take care of myself, lose weight, and get healthy.

I was near death and in and out of hospitals continually during my son’s young life. We had no one to help us but teachers or parents of his friends. He would have to go somewhere when his mom disappeared. He would not go home or see me for days, and worry because no one would tell him what was happening.

“Mommy, you would be proud of me. I never cried except when they put me to bed. Then I turned to the wall and cried quietly so no one else would hear.”

What was happening, was that I was on life support in intensive care and he could not visit. The one time did visit me there caused terror enough. He screamed when he saw the wires and tubes all over me and flew into the bed. The nurses tried to get him off me but he was clinging tightly.

What do you think will happen in you collapse in a parking lot and cannot get up for two hours? My tiny son at three years old sat in the parking space with me and promised he could lift me up if I would only let him try.

What do you think will happen when you are taken away by ambulance in the middle of the night and your five year old has to go stay with his kindergarten teacher?

What do you think will happen when your eleven year old finds you screaming in a pool of blood when you fall over one more time? (He thought it was an animal screaming before he turned the corner to find out it was me.)

What do you think will happen when visits to a theme park are spent sitting on benches because your mom cannot got on?

“It’s ok, Mommy. I like this bench.”

Throughout my obese life, I tried hard to have normal times for my son anyway. But it was not normal for him to constantly be living in fear. I see it now as he is so proud and relieved I lost weight. It is always his first thought about me now, and even though he is new to posting on steemit, he has already posted about my weight many times.

A young friend of my son's lost his mother to obesity when he was seventeen. The trauma of that death, funeral, and aftermath threw a whole pack of kids into turmoil, including mine. She had been a second mom to my son and others while not taking care of herself. This woman's death brought home - yet again, what almost happened to me.

And here is the story of another kid I met. The problems his mom was having with her health and obesity were nowhere near as bad as mine, yet still I saw the fear.

We all have excuses for not losing weight.

I was:

• too busy with work
• too broke to afford to try
• too sick to exercise
• too old to ever get healthy
• too involved with raising my son

to ever be able to figure out how to lose weight.

There was a certain point in my life that all I wanted to do was to live to see my son graduate high school. Yet he is now 24 years old and here I am at 58 years old - thin and fit. Once I realized my obesity was caused by excuses, I really did not have trouble losing weight and keeping it off. That makes me feel even worse about what I did to my son.

I am not going to talk about my son’s symptoms of PTSD, or how hard things are for him because of it. I was in denial for years that he had it; and that I had caused it. But here is the moment I realized it - halfway around the world from him, and unable to repair the damage even if I was still close by.

I only I could break free of obesity. No one could do it for me. I had to learn skills and apply them and I do.

Only my son can break free of PTSD. No one can do it for him. He has to learn skills and apply them and he does.

This is why I do the work I do now - to help other parents and their children escape this awful fate and be healthy together.

This is my entry for the MY-NICHE contest by @awolesigideon with the theme of regret. I think this contest was made for me.

I’m grateful I lost half my size and sorry it took me until I was 50 years old to figure it out. Anyone can lose weight if I did. I can help you with simple and natural methods you will enjoy. It’s been over seven years now since I had to worry about my weight. What a relief.