This was a response to a thread, I had to keep it...

I think it is very interesting that so many of us feel like the real "me/us" is buried beneath the fat. I thought I was the only one who thought that about myself. As I gain and gain more weight, I always find myself looking in the mirror, wondering where I am...somewhere inside the outer shell that makes me not even recognize myself. I look at pictures of myself and wonder where I truly am, too. I feel like I have this filter built in most of the time, to just sort of make it easier to take, easier to look at. But then sometimes a moment comes a long where the filter doesn't work and I see myself for what I truly am, morbidly obese. A stranger holding my healthy, happy body captive. It's like there is this "core" self, the self that I feel is so much worthier of my love than this "outer/extra" self, yet I can't love it because I cannot see it, I just can't get to it. I hate the outer self, and that's probably why it's so hard to change. It's very powerful. My core self has learned to stay quiet and numb itself from emotion, unable to fight for itself. I've focused my energy and thoughts on how to hate the outer self, how to "tolerate" a life with it ruling over my body.