Honey, if your mom hasn’t taken you to the doctor, she needs to do so. There are several conditions that need to be ruled out. First is hypothyroidism. Too little thyroid leads to not only weight gain, but fatigue and depression as well. I was hypothyroid for years before I actually was treated for it.

You need to be checked for anemia. Leads to fatigue, which pushes carb cravings and lack of exercise, as well as, yes, depression. You didn’t mention if you are menstruating yet or not, but anemia is quite common in girls in their first years of puberty.

You should also be checked for insulin resistance. Those who are insulin resistant produce much less energy in their cells than those who are not insulin resistant, even well before they become diabetic. Hence, weight gain, especially around the belly.

If all of these things are negative, then you should still be seen for depression. Depression is an insidious illness (and it is definitely an illness, it’s not just something you can will away), and it needs to be treated. Take it from someone old enough to be your grandmother who suffered from depression for years (and still does on occasion). Don’t ignore depression. You have a wonderful long life ahead of you. Don’t let depression rob you of that. I lost a good portion of the first 30 years of my life to that illness. Don’t let that happen to you!

Just a couple points to add, though:

-You might want to be especially attentive to nutrition. For a period of time some years back, I was desperate, obsessed with my weight, and even suicidal. Through trial and error I discovered that I just needed to supplement my body’s low zinc levels for a while. A daily zinc tablet took me from wanting to die to dying to live. People suffering from body-image disorders and anorexia commonly have low zinc levels.

-If you talk to someone in person about your concerns, try to make it a psychologist, not a psychiatrist (if the UK is like N. America, the latter have powers to prescribe drugs, and you don’t want to get caught in that trap).

-If you feel that your depression may go beyond this one issue and have a biological component, you’re very lucky to be living in the UK where homoeopathic treatment is widely available. A good homoeopath helped me out of a deep episode of clinical depression which hadn’t been very responsive to the ‘gold standard’ herbal remedies for depression.

I think reading Shapely Prose is the best advice I can give, It’s certainly made my opinion of myself much better!

Big, big ditto to what everyone above has said, especially the people who said that if it wasn’t one thing kids get picked on for, it’s something else. I also remember my mum telling me that it will pass and it’s best to ignore the bullies until they grow up – I ignored her because, like all teenagers, I figured that she didn’t have a clue what it was like to be a 13 year old :) Turned out though that she was right…

For me it wasn’t about my weight until I got to college. In high school, it was because I was smart (the best ‘insult’ I ever got was “if you want a square root, root Angela” – fortunately by then I was 16 and was able to laugh at it). Or because I had braces, or because I had a bad knee (I had a habit of randomly falling down a lot!). In all seriousness, kids in school – especially early high school – can be arseholes. Most of them will grow out of it, but it doesn’t make it any easier at the time.

My best suggestion?? Get back at them by getting to know yourself. Kids can be so busy trying to one-up each other that they forget that they too are still growing and changing. Spend some time getting to know yourself. What are your goals? Your dreams? Your interests? Think of something you’ve always wanted to try, and try it. Maybe you want to learn how to draw, or play the guitar. Set a small goal, plan and make it happen, then make a bigger one.

Do some planning for when you come out the other side of 13. Where do you want to be in 5 years? I know at 13 that college and careers seem a long way away, but start thinking and planning now. When you’re old enough get a part time job – not only great for the pocket money, but also for the experience and responsibility. It will give you a whole new circle of people, who will judge you on your attitude to your work and the good job you do, not on your appearance.

What sort of person would you like to be when you’re done growing?? It can be very hard to be caring or compassionate to others when you are also suffering, but some people find that it helps them to do one random act of kindness each day. Perhaps you’d like to feel more independent or capable – maybe look at starting martial arts (I’m obese as well, but as soon as my knee is strong enough I’m going straight back to karate). Think of a quality that someone else has that you admire – maybe they don’t take crap, or maybe they are always smiling, or maybe they never have a bad thing to say about anyone. Then think of a way to try to be like that, a little bit each day.

With the name calling – and from experience this can be very, very hard – but try laughing at them. Seriously. Practice laughing in their faces. Tell them how unoriginal their insult is, or borrow some of Joy Nash’s rebuttals from the latest Fat Rant. Or – and this is harder still – just walk away and ignore them.

Most important of all, never give up. Everyone has good and bad times in their lives, and 13 is almost universally a bad time. I promise you that it will get better – in the meantime, try to stay safe and take care of yourself.

(I want to say “oh, baby” but I don’t know how you feel about strangers calling you pet names!)

I send you e-hugs.

It might help to know that you would probably get called names no matter what. It’s not the fact that you’re fat, it’s the fact that other kids need someone to feel better than. You are not the problem.

I agree with Corrina who says: Please talk to a therapist. Always know that you can change therapists if you don’t like yours. Those are two important things to know: first, seeing a therapist is okay for you to do; it doesn’t mean that you’re weak, or that something is wrong with you. It just means that you need some help in figuring out solutions to your problems. And second, if you go to a therapist and she or he makes you feel worse about yourself, you don’t have to put up with it. Their job is to make you feel more healthy and more powerful, not less, and if they’re not doing their job, you don’t need to give them business. Just because you’re a kid doesn’t mean you have to take crap from people, especially people whose only authority over you is that your parents are paying them.

If you feel bad about sitting at the computer all the time, do other things! Do crafts, write poetry, learn to dance or swim or play the piano or knit. That won’t make you thin, but it will make you healthier and happier, which is the really important thing. They don’t need to be active, exercise-y things, unless that’s what you enjoy doing; just finding things you like to do and/or are good at, things that you want to live for, is important. Also, hobbies of any kind will help you meet people who have things in common with you, and who are interested in YOU, not in what they think you ought to do about your weight.

Online friends count too. If you feel most comfortable talking to people on the internet, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you stay safe and healthy.

I wish I had better words for you. I have a friend who was only a little older than you when she developed an eating disorder; I watched it happen. She’s okay now, but it hurt her so much, far worse than being fat ever could. I don’t want you to go through that too.

I hope you come back to this site, read what everybody has to say, keep reading and remember that it will be okay. You don’t have to be this unhappy all your life.

You are worth being loved. I’m sure your family loves you very much. Look at pictures of yourself smiling as a baby. If you are not that happy now, remember that you once were and your younger self would want you to be happy now. You can harness this happiness. Life is full of ups and downs and getting up out of bed sometimes can take up a lot of energy. Recognize that feeling down is just a part of life. But, man does it HURT. It does.

I think that no matter whether you are 13 or not, you can get blindsided by life. At age 13 or just before 13 is when people start realizing how cruel the world is, yet they are ill-prepared to handle it. No one is perfect and perfect does not exist.

I found that reading Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman to be helpful for me (and it was recommended by a psychologist). I like the book because it has tests, practical steps and is not overly emotional. If anyone can recommend a good book about “self esteem,” I’m all ears.

Looking at the fatshionista site is also liberating.

Also I would try to work on your concerns in baby steps. I’m not sure if home bothers you more or school bothers you more but work on coping with the circumstances that bother you more. You can’t go part-time to school, of course, but maybe you could suggest going to another school? You can’t leave your home but maybe you could sleep over a relative’s house once in awhile? Consider small baby steps to change your routine, your scenery and your activities to see if that alleviates some of your dread.

If there’s anything that you do think YOU’D like to do to better your situation, maybe you can share it with us and we can offer solutions. I think putting pressure on yourself to exercise is not a good idea and many “healthy” people don’t exercise every day and some of them don’t exercise at all.

Oh, and dating guys in high school is much more fulfilling in the fantasy than in the reality–for most highschoolers.

Please talk to a therapist. Always know that you can change therapists if you don’t like yours. It might require you speaking to your parents to get a therapist, I realize.

If you cannot get a therapist, keep posting online and also, go to http://www.suicidehotlines.com/.

I am PROUD of you for commenting on kateharding.net. That shows a lot of strength. You rock and don’t forget that!

Or, if the bully really does not have his/her heart in bullying and is not very good at it and is more or less doing it for show and not because they are truly sadistic. Some of them will give up if they turn out not to have the easy target they thought they had. But like you said, some will just take this as more of a challenge and work harder for a reaction.

Then I had a nervous breakdown at 17, so that sucked. And the suckitude spilled over into 18, which people told me would also suck. And so on, and so forth, until I was 25 years old and woke up and realised,

HEY! PEOPLE ARE STUPID! WHY AM I LISTENING TO STUPID PEOPLE!?

I know I’m not stupid, so I started listening to myself. No, not the voice that says “you’re dumb you’re ugly why don’t you look like other people” because THAT IS NOT YOUR VOICE. That is a lirttle goblin voice that is fed by stupid people. Grab ahold of that little goblin mofo voice and send it through the wood chipper. It may take repeated shreddings. Kill the little goblin voice dead. Because you are so very much stronger than it is.

This is a part of growing up, by the way, learning to support yourself emotionally. You made a very, very, very big step by reaching out to this community.