Hello everybody. I have been meaning to join this place for awhile now and finally had the courage to do so. Maybe my story is common or maybe not, I am not sure. This issue started when I was about 13 and had a falling out with all of my friends and ended up spending all my at home watching tv and eating bad foods because I had no friends and nothing to do. I noticed the man boobs and then followed by the love handles. So while I was still able to live a normal high school life and had friends and little issues, I still had to be careful of the shirts I wore and could not dress how I wanted. this has continued throughout my life and I have learned to live with it, but looking back it has severely damaged my quality of life. The self consiousness, the buying shirts I can't wear because of the material not being thick enough, and not being able to go swimming or the beach or do the things everybody else does. A lifetime of low self confidence and worrying what others think and cringing when I look in the mirror. Now that I am getting older, I feel like I can't just ignore this anymore and am thinking about surgery options. But joining this forum is a huge step for me. I am in tears just typing this because I have never been able to even talk about this with anybody and have felt so alone for so many years and decades. I didn't know there were others out there like me. Anyways, that is the basics of my story. thanks for listening
