A former patient on TLC’s “My 600-lb Life” is defending her decision to quit the show — while also sharing her GoFundMe page.
It seems Schenee Murry Hopkins wasn’t ready to overcome her struggles with obesity through diet, exercise, and weight loss surgery from renowned bariatric surgeon Dr. Nowzaradan. Schenee was the subject of an April 4 episode, and she explained that she started gaining weight after being molested by a cousin when she was five-years-old.
“All I remember is my mom took me to the doctor because I couldn’t use the bathroom,” she said of the aftermath of that abuse. “It was hurting really bad, and that’s when she found out. Inside, I feel terrible. But I just hid all my feelings. I started sneaking food right after that incident. Food made me feel better. It made me feel happy.”
Two years later, Schenee was 130 pounds. “When I was in elementary [school], my teacher threw away my lunch because I was too fat,” she recalled. “It felt very humiliating and that made me wanna eat more.”
As InTouch reported, by the time she was 11, she was 160 pounds, and by the time she was 15, she’d reached 200 pounds. She also developed flesh-eating bacteria on her legs and underwent emergency surgery, after which she was relegated to bed rest for a year. Then, during her early 20s, she was raped, and that attack made her eat even more.
Schenee would eventually find happiness when she married Freddie.
“I don’t mind helping my wife at all,” he told TLC. “I do it with love.”
But it wasn’t quite a happily ever after ending, as Schenee suffered two miscarriages and developed lymphedema in her legs.
“I feel like I’m drowning in my fat,” she said on the show. “It suffocates me, and I’m very miserable.”
Schenee sought the help of Dr. Nowzaradan and agreed to lose weight in anticipation of surgery. But she missed follow-ups with the doctor, skipped psychotherapy appointments, and reached 712 pounds.
After those setbacks, Dr. Nowzaradan put her on a controlled diet at the hospital, and she dropped down to 621 pounds.
But after that hospital stay, Schenee gained some of that weight back and clashed with Dr. Nowzaradan on multiple occasions. After eight months on the show, she stopped participating in the filming and blocked Dr. Nowzaradan’s phone number.
“She made a choice to reject all the help offered to her and do this all on her own now,” he told TLC.
Just days after her episode aired, Schenee clapped back at her critics on social media and it seems like she has no regrets about dropping out of Dr. Now’s weight loss program.
“What’s good y’all. I’m still in Houston. I don’t know what everybody’s going crazy for but let me tell you this — I don’t [fall] for no man but God. And no, I didn’t eat the pizza,” she said in a now deleted NSFW Facebook video, while her husband told the cameras that he was the one who ate the pizza.
“Oh, and I’m always going to be beautiful. I hope everyone is watching this, yes. Big, beautiful, and bold. I don’t [fall] for no man.”
Shortly after Schenee took to Facebook to set the record straight about #pizzagate, she shared a link to her GoFundMe page to try to raise money for herself.
“I’m raising this money for a great cause. I was dragged to Houston, TX to get humiliated on national TV [and] I have been struggling every [sic] since for everything. I have a lot of hopes [and] dreams [and] one is to get better. I don’t only have weight problems, I have other health problems that’s just overlooked. So I’m team Schenee with a great husband God has blessed us this far.”
As of publication, Schenee raised $75 of her $50,000 goal.
PHOTOS: Facebook, TLC
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