I'm new here.

I've been learning over the past few years that I have really intense body dysmorphia. My whole life I believed I was overweight. I just thought I was naturally chubby and I never felt or looked as thin as I wanted to be. I've literally been ashamed of my body as long as I can remember. The last 2 years I gained about 20 pounds, combination of me getting older, my meds, and bad habits during the pandemic. Now I see pictures of myself before I gained this weight and I can see how thin I was. My stomach was flat, I had almost no body fat. I have clothes that used to fit me and they look like a child's clothes, I have NO idea how I used to wear them. My jeans from back then are a 28" waist, and that person who wore those size 28" waist jeans was absolutely certain he needed to lose like 15 lbs, which is obviously crazy looking back on it. I didn't have 15 lbs to lose back then, I would have been skeletal.

I've tried to lose weight and it never works. I go on a diet and after being ravenously hungry for weeks on end I give up because the gnawing feeling in my stomach makes me miserable and crazy. The worst part is I never even lost one pound. I was on a severely restrictive diet for a full month and I stayed exactly the same weight as before. It didn't make any sense and I don't know why I can't lose weight.

So I'm starting to realize I just may not have a choice any more, I ruined my metabolism at some point, or something went wrong, and I am just going to continue to be heavy, and maybe even become heavier. I am not happy about it but I don't know what else to do.

But here's where things get confusing. In my brain, I would describe myself as fat, or at least heavy or chubby. I'm 5'5" male and I weigh 145lbs. I lift weights and I have above average toned arms shoulders and chest. My legs are above average too and there's no fat on them, they're solid muscle. I wear size 32 jeans. I see myself in the mirror and I see a fat person. That doesn't make sense to me and I can't escape it. When I weighed 125, I saw a fat person. When I weigh 145 (now) I still see a fat person. None of this makes any sense and I feel like I can't relate to my own body because I don't even know what kind of body I have. I feel like my eyes are actually and honestly seeing things that just don't exist. In photos from when I weighed 125, I can see now that I was a skinny little twink with a flat stomach but at the time I was absolutely certain I had a gut and was really out of shape. That's what I saw when I looked in the mirror and that's what I felt like.

None of this makes any sense and I don't know what to do. The worst part is that I think guys who have bodies like mine are really hot. My upper body isn't huge but it's more developed than the average guy who doesn't work out, and I'm so into guys with nice arms and a little bit of a chubby belly. I really think it's so cute. But not when I'm that person. It's cute for other people and I can't even for a second believe that it's cute for me because I don't see cute I just see fat and ugly.

I know also that I have a lot of other positive qualities in my appearance but it just doesn't matter to me at all. I do this horrible thing where I walk down the street and I identify people who I know are uglier than myself. There are a lot of them and I think about how lucky I am to have a good looking face and a lot of attractive qualities. But it doesn't help. I still FEEL ugly. I got into a huge argument with my friend because I rated myself a 6 and she said I was a 10. It doesn't make any sense to me, like I know that I have a lot of positive qualities but it's like I can't convince myself that they're real or they matter, I just FEEL so ugly and fat.

I look at people like Lizzo and Beth Ditto who are both so beautiful and also fat. They look amazing. but they're beautiful women and I'm not like that, I'm just a fat guy.

I know I need therapy to try and deal with this but it's so expensive and I can't afford it. I don't know what to do. I don't want to hate my body like this any more. I've even tried starving myself and not only does it not work, my stomach hurt for 2 weeks even after I started eating again. I don't know what to do.