Hello guys,
i'm new here so i just thought about introducing my self and telling my story. I'm a 22 years old from germany and found this page randomly. I've beeen suffering from gynaecomastia since i was 6 years old. It's genetic because my dad has gyne too and had to suffer from it too in his youth. But his one is not as bad as mine.
It all started with one disease: Asthma - it was diagnosed when i was an infant - so the docs would try to treat me with cortisone and my mum didn't like that. She thought it would be dangerous for me and didn't allow it.
Later in my early childhood i would have to inhale a sodium chloride solution for several years. And during this time my mum would feed me with healthy food, herbs, honey and so on to heal me. You know, she had just one of this types of books according to the motto: "for each disease there grew a herb" and she always was against chemical medication and she was not that educated.
Before this forced-feeding, i was slim, just normal. I was shy but never anxious. And after that "feeding-therapy" i got very fat and according to my parents got healed from asthma.
But exactly at this point everything went wrong in my life:
Because of the habitual nutrition i started to eat more and more and logically gained fat. My mum always used to cook much. So logically more fat means more gynaecomastia. And ever since i was fat i felt strange, very strange. It didn't fit me. I just had fat cheeks and additionally moobs and had to wear ugly clothes because i wouldnt fit in "cool" clothes. I just felt weird as f***. That's where it all started. My journey to misery.
So i got older and puberty hit and in my late childhood years i developed social anxiety because of gynaecomastia. Imagine: i just realized that recently. Before that i thought i had a social anxiety disorder which will and could never be healed. I thought i was cursed, it just felt like that, because i had so much wishes, fantasies, dreams and much more in my mind, which were captivated there. I could not live my self out, most of the time i was sitting at home dreaming about the life, the type of lifestyle i wanted to live, the complete person i was determined to be , imagining what's going out there right now. How much people are having fun while i am messing up my life without any hope if there was a ticket out of hell. It just felt like acid running through my chest area.
I was too anxious to get out of our appartment. It just felt so embarrasing. School was duty so i had to go there. And after school i was at home all day, even at summer. And i hated going to our swimming classes. Always tried to hide my moobs through placing my hands in front of them even at sports when we had to jog/run. So i was completely cramped, always thinking about my moobs. I felt like everybody was staring at me, no one should see my moobs. That got me paranoid man. And so in summer i used to wear vests and later tight undershirts to conceal it.
And over the years, puberty proceeded, and i saw no difference/development in me :
I saw the same insecure fat guy with moobs as in my early childhood, always got fatter, moobs got bigger. While seeing the other guys getting muscles, gettin more and more attractive for the girls, getting the girls, i was a loser. Everybody liked me, but some didn't even take me serious because i was damn insecure. Also having problems with keeping eye contact, letting out my voice. So i started to talk quiet, because i didn't want no attention. Presentations were hell.
And the biggest problem was: At first i knew that the gyne affected me in that way, but after being lonely, getting older and older my mind started to suppress this thoughts, so i started to believe i had a psychological disease.
So later i started to skip school days and later didnt go to school anymore. I went to psychologists, took antidepressants for 2-3 years for nothing.
I always wanted to go boxing or a similar martial arts but was too anxious. Depression led me to overeat and since i had no exercising, sittin at home all day, doin non-productive bull**** (because of bad thoughts and being completely overwhelmed, i had no room in my brain to think bout the good things in life) my weight always was on a constant level or getting worse.
I had so much dreams. My dreams were learning other languages, travelling the world, dancing, rapping, singing, learning the guitar and the piano, making my own music, acting and of course getting with girls. I always knew how women worked, i was kind of precocious in many ways, a bohemian soul, a deep thinker.
Like i mentioned i'm from Germany, it's my mothertongue, and at the age of 16 i got into nineties hip hop. I even can rap just like its my mothertongue. Rap developed my english skills, vocab and articulation. I always was musical since i was a child.
So much wasted talent. I was gifted, and could have had a normal life, even having a chance to have a musical career.
In my recent years i was not only sitting at home. I also had some friends and was rapping in front of them. They told me it was incredible, i was just spitting fire. Because its a very rare thing to see someone from germany rap like a professional afro-american, whose mothertongue isnt even english. But i coulda done more, my english skills arent developed enough for me to write my own lyrics. And depression just thwarted me. I coulda done so much productive stuff, couldve had girlfriends. I was very open minded deep inside.
This remembers me of a girl, who i met whilst being with my friends. I immediately realized that she was attracted to me. And later i got the confirmation from them. They told me that she said i was super-beautiful but wasnt talking any word. I just feel like a robot in social situations. You know i had much potential but it was wasted. And surgery was planned too. My father took me early to a clinic who were specialized in endocrinology.
And i wished that he helped me loosing weight. He had not that much time and my mom didnt understand me. She loved me just the way i was, she herself was overweight. But my dad put pressure on me and made me unsure often, because he saw no results in weight loss. I remember this situation in the clinic, like its in front of my eyes. The doctors said i should loose weight and then surgery would be done for free. Then my father said this, i'll translate in into english "You heard it kid. You now only have to do the work" And in this moment i felt like being left on my own. It was not easy for me, especially for a child to reorganize my nutrition and i couldnt make it. And i was not supported. My dad could have supported me, which is why im pi**ed of at him sometimes. Becaue he knew my suffering and didn't help me. If it was my child, i would have taken any step to help him to get over it. So you see it took my time and made me an unsecure person.
If i would have loosen weight early enough, surgery would have been done early and my life would have proceeded happily. That makes me feel like a loser. Feel like i was not strong enough. But it was so fu**ing hard, so much thoughts, feeling embarassed, not being able to feel well in group of people. If i would have been raised in a secluded area or just been put into a camp, i would have lost weight easily. I even was on a camp, but only for 6 weeks, that was payed by health insurance. But so it was impossible for me to go to a sports club or doings sports outdoors (very strong social anxiety). I just couldnt go through with it because these thoughts would blacken my mind and change my thinking and perspective of life in seconds to 180. I needed support man! But was so insecure of myself that i even couldnt confide in my dad anymore, especially after he started to pressurize me. Please note that i had a very good relationship to my father, but i rarely knew what was going on with me and didnt want to make him feel his son was an anxious loser.
My mother was very uneducated and didnt understand things. Maybe its a psychological disease, becaue her mom suffers from depression and her brother from schizophrenia. It felt like we was growing up and getting more and more intelligent but she stays the same.
And since i was at home all day i saw that everyday. I couldnt even have a real mother-son-conversation with her. That broke my heart, too. I have an older brother and he always bullied me, even shaked my moobs. My manliness suffered even more from that. So i had no contact to people who really understood me, my father got stranger over the time. He wasnt like that before. We had no real social interactions, just like a dysfunctional family with no social life. And that sucks man. My brother found himself friends and dissociated from us. Being at home rarely. And when we went out with the family you could feel that something was strange. It didnt feel normal. Because my mother has less social skills in some terms and my father got strange over the time, too. He even claimed that he gave up his (social) life for me and my brother, so we could educate ourselves and get somewhere. (My brother always took our money. He was very egoistical)
But if thats so why didnt he look out for me ? I could have got somewhere if he would have supported me in the right way.
So that was my story. Now im 22 and i of course have plans. Currently im living with my parents and have no job. But im mostly at home thinking bout my past. I finished a traineeship this summer, that means its easier for me to get a job easily anywhere. I took this step (attending traineeship), because i knew, i had to do something, because i didnt want to end up being unable to find work. So i forced my self to do that and it worked.
My plans are to lose weight, gain muscles and get a job, save money for the surgery and get back to life then. Maybe it's possible to get the surgery for free, as i had this issue since i am a child and showed up to the clinic for endocrinology in my early years or get the costs reduced becaue of psychological affects. Develop my talents, doing combat martial arts, living my self out, doing all the things i dreamed about so long. But before that i have to take some preparations (job, loosing weight, surgery - as the first steps). I want to manage to get many of that, especiallly the part, which brings my self esteem back, done until August next year, because on September the new school year will begin in germany. I have to live highspeed now, need fast results,cants sleep no longer, cant let my anxiety ruin me as i now know from what its caused. I want to go to school and then to university. And im sure that i will get to know people there, get to know people at clubs (martial arts...), through music and so on and get back to life. I have found hope again but my past let me scarred. Because of one thing my life was ruined till now. It wasnt meant to be like that and thinking about it brings me to a somber place. Because it feels so catchable. It was no impossible issue. But no one saved me.
I feel like my parents "made me fat" so they had to think about helping me at loosing weight. I would have done it myself if there wouldnt have been anxiety in the game, which set illusions in my mind later. I always think about that. That they leastwise should have thought about finding a final solution for this. Thats my inner child, which couldnt process this time mentally. It feels terrible when i see people younger than me, especially kids, who are in their early teen, living life out, but im stuck at my house everyday like a loser.
Alright folks - that's it - thank you for your attention if you read this all- i appreciate it
Pls write your comments below if you had similar experiences or just want to share your thoughts -
And for the end - if you want to know how i feel just watch the taxi scene at the movie on the waterfront - even if it doesnt match my situation perfectly