Dear Anna: you aren’t fooling anyone.

You are not a fitness queen or a confidence queen or inspirational. Nor are you as young as you seem to think you are. You’re a physically and mentally ill middle aged woman who is in complete denial about the fact that you’re in the state you are because your refusal to listen to experts. Because I have lipedema also, and I absolutely DO know when I’ll end up with a bad “flare up”. If I don’t follow the anti inflammatory diet and eat desserts and chips and maybe have an alcoholic drink? I’m gonna swell up and be congested and in pain the next day. If I get lazy and don’t wear my compression pants and sleeves? I’ll pay for it. If I don’t stick with low impact exercise—and don’t make sure do exercise daily—I’ll feel it.

If you continue to ignore the real issues at hand—the clear histrionic personality disorder and other mental health issues—you’ll always struggle to binge eat and struggle to socialize well. If you don’t take your lipedema seriously—you WILL lose your mobility. There’s women in my lipedema groups that regret it with every fiber of their being that they knew what to do 10+ years ago and didn’t, because many of them now must rely on mobility aids. If you don’t get help for your severe obesity—you’re simply going to die. You don’t see anyone your weight live to be 70+.

You can live so much better—but your arrogant, smug, immature words and actions will keep you from ever realizing the state you’re in is all your fault and you’ll just keep paying the consequences.