My dad...

is my bully. He makes fun of me for being overweight (though he, himself, is overweight).

It started when I was twelve. he was constantly in my face with "you're fat" and "since you're fat no boy will ever like you".
I would mention that I was upset and the first thing he'd tell me was to lose weight. His answer to everything. It's his cure-all. Lose weight and your problems will go away. Sigh.

My mom told me once that his father used to bully my aunt around like that, too. It got so bad for her she started eating in closets. She weighs probably 500-600 pounds now. When I think about myself I think I'm exactly like her. (I don't know how much I weigh but I wear a size 24 jeans).

I don't eat a lot. Most days all I will have is a sandwich or whatever my mom or brother makes for dinner. But I don't get out (being agoraphobic and all). I know I can exercise in the house but being depressed I don't have the energy.

Lately I have been waiting until he leaves to go downstairs and get something. Or I wait until he's gone to bed. He sits on the couch and watches me walk by and I can just hear him thinking "Oh there goes Fat Kalie, eating again!" (His pet name for his sister is Fat Dolly, so if he sees me as his sister I guess Fat Kalie is befitting for me, too).

Just recently I went downstairs...it was probably a little after 9pm and I hadn't eaten all day so I went to the kitchen to get a light snack. My dad hears the fridge door open and he immediately rushes into the kitchen. I told him I was just getting some olives and pickles and is it such a crime? He tells me I'm too fat and I shouldn't be eating. I told him to go screw himself and went upstairs. Ten minutes later he's yelling at me that I need to stop eating and I'm getting soooo fat that he can't even walk past me in a hall. (Two thin people wouldn't have an easy time passing each other in the halls in my house, so I don't know where he gets off).
The next day he acts like nothing happened (guess I should mention he was drunk)...I ignore him and he asks what he did wrong. I told him he knows full well what he did but he sits there stupidly.

I ignore him a lot. He'll say hi to me but I can't bring myself to say hi back. It hurts so bad. That man has made me hate myself. He's made me ashamed of myself. He's made me ashamed to eat. He's made me so ashamed of myself that when I like a guy...instead of feeling giddy and excited over a potential boyfriend I have to feel like crap. I talk myself out of liking them.

I met this great guy on World of Warcraft last October. We talk every day and he tells me I'm gorgeous and he says he loves me. Every day...he never fails to complement me in some way. I love him...but I don't quite trust his love for me...I don't even feel like I'm good enough for someone who lives in another country.

This is getting really long, I know, but there's just so much that that man has said to me over the years and I am just so hurt.
I have his nose and I cannot even look at myself in the mirror without seeing my nose and knowing whose it looks like. I HATE my nose, it's huge and ugly and I cannot even think or believe that I am pretty.

I hate my father. I haven't told him these things...but I don't know if I can...I despise talking to him so much.

All I can ever think about is how fat I am. How ugly I am. And how I'm going to be alone my entire life because I'm not good enough for anyone.

This is my first real post by the way. This has been nagging at me for a couple days, so I thought I'd write it out and get it off my chest.

Also, he saw my cousin (his niece) a few days ago after not seeing for almost a year and the only thing he had to say about her was that she had gained a lot of weight. He actually said "You should see how fat Alena has gotten!" It really pisses me off that he's so fixated on how people look. Makes me hate him even more.

For one, I think you are about one of the bravest people for posting your honest and true feelings :: Not only does that make you a wonderful person, it makes you a strong person and you should never doubt that though I know it's easy to do.

Secondly, your father sounds awful. Horribly awful and I hate that you have to go through that mental abuse because I can fully understand what that does to a person but you must never let that get you down. It isn't you he is upset with, itself himself and deep down you have to remember that. It takes a sick person to hurt their own daughter like that but never allow him to break you, you're too good for it and too good for him.

i know you want to hate him, but the more you hate him the worse he will treat you. normally you ought to get away from someone like that and cut everything off, but since you live with him and cant get away, you really have to suck up your pride and be nice to him despite it all if you want to get treated better. i dont mean treated well, but treated better. act really interested in him and his life at least til you can get out. i had a god awful time with my stepdad too, please try it. im sorry you've had to put up with him

You said he's overweight? He might be insecure and is bullying you to feel better with himself. That's just an assumption though. I am terribly sorry that you have such a failure for a father... Does your mom help you when he attacks you like that?

Hellhound said:

You said he's overweight? He might be insecure and is bullying you to feel better with himself. That's just an assumption though. I am terribly sorry that you have such a failure for a father... Does your mom help you when he attacks you like that?

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Yeah, my mom and both my siblings will come to my rescue and tell him to leave me alone. He will, though kinda reluctantly. It's hard to get him to lay off when he's drunk though.::

By the way, he's on a diet and though he isn't as obese as he used to be, he is still 20 pounds overweight. He prides himself on only eating one real meal a day and thinks he's superior to anyone (namely me) who doesn't. If I tell him I have only eaten a small meal (say, just a sandwich) he'll tell me that's good enough and I should wait until the next day to eat again, despite how hungry I may be. He gets so angry that I am not out exercising but try as I might to tell him of my agoraphobia he just doesn't get it. So I stay upstairs all day and I wait until he leaves and I get what I want and hide upstairs again. I try to not be around him as much as possible...I feel as if my presence angers him.

Krista said:

For one, I think you are about one of the bravest people for posting your honest and true feelings :: Not only does that make you a wonderful person, it makes you a strong person and you should never doubt that though I know it's easy to do.

Secondly, your father sounds awful. Horribly awful and I hate that you have to go through that mental abuse because I can fully understand what that does to a person but you must never let that get you down. It isn't you he is upset with, itself himself and deep down you have to remember that. It takes a sick person to hurt their own daughter like that but never allow him to break you, you're too good for it and too good for him.

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I agree with this!

I wonder if this is his guilt.

Like he sees himself in you and feels a failure because he sees you getting a weight problem and he has had no control to stop it , and sees you going down the same miserable weight gain/loss/gain/loss in your adult life too.

Admittedly his way of expressing this is none too good !!


whatever his reason he is a bully and your are being abused mentally , and its easy for me to say I know ...but ...you cant let a drunk man destroy you this way.

that's terrible.


but I do think that you would probably feel better about yourself if you lost some weight.

dads are supposed to love you no matter what and be able to see that you're beautiful the way you are. of course everyone wants health for their children, but by treating you this way he's worsening your mental health and thereby worsening your physical health. whatever you do, don't look for your dad as a model of the way you should be treated by men. some women do this subconsciously even if they resent their fathers.

SickCycleCarousel said:

Yeah, my mom and both my siblings will come to my rescue and tell him to leave me alone. He will, though kinda reluctantly. It's hard to get him to lay off when he's drunk though.::

By the way, he's on a diet and though he isn't as obese as he used to be, he is still 20 pounds overweight. He prides himself on only eating one real meal a day and thinks he's superior to anyone (namely me) who doesn't. If I tell him I have only eaten a small meal (say, just a sandwich) he'll tell me that's good enough and I should wait until the next day to eat again, despite how hungry I may be. He gets so angry that I am not out exercising but try as I might to tell him of my agoraphobia he just doesn't get it. So I stay upstairs all day and I wait until he leaves and I get what I want and hide upstairs again. I try to not be around him as much as possible...I feel as if my presence angers him.

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It may be that he had some very painful memories or lost opportunities due to his great weight and in some misguided way wants to make sure that through you, he can rectify what happened. Because in some ways it reminds him of his own failure... (I've had some personal painful experience that's very similar to this)

I really can't say I agree with the eating only one meal a day thing... I think that it's not healthy.

This is so sad. I'm sorry to say this but your father is a bad person. If I had a daughter with a weight problem, I would do all I can to help her, I would even exercise with her and plan her meals and everything, but i would never bring her down. He's just making you sad.

SickCycleCarousel said:

He prides himself on only eating one real meal a day and thinks he's superior to anyone (namely me) who doesn't. If I tell him I have only eaten a small meal (say, just a sandwich) he'll tell me that's good enough and I should wait until the next day to eat again, despite how hungry I may be.

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That's not even a good advice from him! It's unhealthy. A person who's trying to lose weight should eat a good breakfast with reasonable portions, some kind of healthy snack like fruits or vegetables for lunch and a healthy dinner with, again, reasonable portions. Doing that will prevent you from gaining additional weight and you might even lose a bit too. But if you wanna lose all of the weight, then you need to exercise on top of eating healthy.

It's not good to hate your father because he's your father and maybe there are things that he does well, but I think you should totally ignore whatever bad things he says to you and just concentrate on yourself and what you can control. Don't let him destroy your confidence. And yeah, I'm sure he's looking at you and is seeing himself and he doesn't want you to go through the same things that he did, but that doesn't give him the right to do anything bad to you.

I had a friend who was really big when he was younger and his father would make fun of him sometimes. He would tell him: "You never do anything right" and stuff like that. Then all of a sudden my friend started training and now he's all muscles and no fat. When his father saw that, he shut up and started training too. So don't let anyone bring you down and that's good for anything in life.

I admire your courage for sharing your story. And I think it's important that you lose your extra weight because you could have health problems later. Your knees could hurt when you're older and stuff like that.

SickCycleCarousel said:

Yeah, my mom and both my siblings will come to my rescue and tell him to leave me alone. He will, though kinda reluctantly. It's hard to get him to lay off when he's drunk though.::

By the way, he's on a diet and though he isn't as obese as he used to be, he is still 20 pounds overweight. He prides himself on only eating one real meal a day and thinks he's superior to anyone (namely me) who doesn't. If I tell him I have only eaten a small meal (say, just a sandwich) he'll tell me that's good enough and I should wait until the next day to eat again, despite how hungry I may be. He gets so angry that I am not out exercising but try as I might to tell him of my agoraphobia he just doesn't get it. So I stay upstairs all day and I wait until he leaves and I get what I want and hide upstairs again. I try to not be around him as much as possible...I feel as if my presence angers him.

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Your father is sick in the head. And please... never EVER listen to his "advice", because eating one meal a days is not healthy. No matter how overweight you are, you have to eat. Eat healthy, but eat. He has problems himself and he doesn't act this way because you have something bad. It's not your fault, it's him the one who has a problem, not you.

Now I am curious... If he is that agressive and he also has alcohol issues, why don't your mom kicks him out of there or something? He's doing nothing more but hurting his own family. Have she thought about that? Or maybe suggest him to change his attitude or else he will get kicked out... I don't know.

@Serafina: I'm 26, I'm not in school..but I'm working on towards seeing a therapist.

@NewType: A part of me will always love him (as much as I don't want to) because he's my dad..maybe hate was too strong of a word, I dislike him immensely.

I know his dad was an alcoholic and was very abusive, both mentally and physically, to his kids. My dad used to used to say he never wanted to be like his father. True he never beat us (he'd pull our hair, or shove us around once in awhile)...but he used his words regularly.

As for my weight issue...I know what I need to do to be healthy. I don't eat a lot of junk foods. I'll have chocolate a few times a week but that's pretty much it. I try to eat salads whenever we have it and I have cut down on my portion sizes considerably. (I've probably dropped ten pounds this year, so far, from that alone).

@Hellhound: My mom relies on him for financial support. He doesn't drink all day, only just before he goes to bed. It's no excuse I know, but he doesn't usually say anything to me or anyone unless he's really pissed off about something. My mom has told him before if he doesn't change his attitude she'll give him the boot, but I know she doesn't have the strength to do so. He has left a few times on his own but he comes back and says he'll change.

it disgusts me how some people treat there kids , it does make you wonder why they had kids in the first place if all there going to do is treat them like that .....

Not eating isn't the answer, it will make you gain weight rather than lose. Your body thinks it is starving and stores more fat.

I hate how everyone assumes people have to gorge to gain. It is a lack of exercise, portion control, frequency of eating and what you eat.

I have PCOS and insulin resistance. My metabolism is way off and I have always been chubby. I eat much less than people around me but haven't seen weight loss until I actually cut carbs and sugar out of the diet as much as possible plus added cardio and got an active job. Everyone's body is different and stress and depression will keep the weight on a person. Your dad should be encouraging you and leading by example. Not bullying you and being a hypocrite.

I commiserate with you because I lived with my mom's slob boyfriend for many years, I wouldn't leave my room much because he was always around and my SA + his moods/comments made me never want to leave it. I eventually left and now live with my brother and a roommate.

I realize you have to bear it until you can get out but I do advise you to get out as soon as you are able as it is a toxic environment. Wish you the best.

yeh i've met a number of mature age parent type people in my time who have either racist traits or this "let's face it, childishly stupid" and immature ability to want to cause attention for insulting others in the unwittiest ways possible because they want to be the alpha male "don't mess with me" type of persona, these are very toxic personalities to be around...

to me its the sign of someone who has terrible people skills and a lack of education...

what you could try is next time he talks about people being fat, let him know how bad it sounds to you and that you feel offended and try to write down your feeling on paper and a response on paper for the next time he says it so you know what to say back to him...