Samantha felt imprisoned in her home and body – with her weight making life unbearable.
The mum-of-three, who is one of Britain’s estimated 50,000 morbidly obese people, admits she is too ashamed to leave the house.
Weighing over 30st, it’s putting a strain not only on her health but also on her relationship as husband Keith feels more like a carer.
Wiping away tears, the 35-year-old explains she gets tired just walking up the stairs and admits she feels like she’s 90.
By hiding herself away, she shields herself from the taunts of others and sometimes doesn’t even want to look at her phone.
“I’ve had some pretty awful things said to me in the past about my weight,” she explains on Channel 4 documentary Shut-ins: Britain’s Fattest People.
“Like a fat monster, or look at the size of her. I’m too ashamed to go anywhere. For anybody to look at me.”
Samantha struggles to get dressed with her 62 inch bust, 57 inch waist and 72 inch hips.
‘”I hate putting clothes on because I just stress,” she confesses.
“When I get dressed clothes get chucked everywhere and I call myself names because I think, ‘what have you done?’.”
Sammy isn’t alone as she has lived in Hartlepool, which is one of Britain’s obesity hot spots, with husband Keith for the last 14 years.
She tells him to go off and find someone else, but Keith is determined to stick by her no matter what happens.
In the grip of an overwhelming addiction to food, Samantha gets a takeaway for lunch when Keith is at work and grazes on high calorie snacks throughout the day.
Donor kebabs are her guilty pleasure and she loves spaghetti bolognese, but her “absolute demons” are bags of crisps.
During the evening, Keith reluctantly waits on hand and foot to take late night orders in bed such as ice cream and chocolate.
“I can’t blame my husband or anybody else because I know I did the damage and I put the food in my mouth. I understand that,” says Samantha.
“I am the world’s biggest critic to myself, I really am.”
The only time that Sammy leaves the house is when mum Julie comes to take her to her house.
She explains that her “happy-go-lucky, chatty and loving” daughter never had issues with food until she moved in with her partner while pregnant aged 17.
When baby Charlotte, who is now 18, was just six-weeks-old the relationship fell apart and Sammy sought comfort in food.
Looking back at old photos of herself, Samantha says that girl has “disappeared”.
“Food became a comfort for me. It became my friend,” she explains. “The more food I could eat, the better I felt.”
Admitting it’s heartbreaking, tearful mum Julie says: “It’s awful to watch my daughter suffering the way she is. It’s an eating disorder.
“Her health is deteriorating in other ways. My biggest fear is having to bury my daughter.”
As well as adult daughter Charlotte, Sammy is mum to school-aged kids Max and Mia, but heartbreakingly claims she can’t be the “best mum” to them.
“I’m not the best mum because I can’t do for my children what I should be doing,” she says.
“It’s just awful they think, ‘My mum’s in bed so we’ll just leave her there.’
“It shouldn’t be that way. They don’t like to see me when I’m struggling or in pain or not feeling very well. But it’s just the norm for them at the minute because it’s how I am.”
Her lack of activity and weight has caused numerous health issues including acid reflux, arthritis and gall stones.
Samantha has to take a lot of medication each day and has idiopathic intercranial hypertension – a little known condition common in obese women which causes severe headaches.
She describes the pain as like a “swarm of bees” in her head and it can leave her bedridden for days, but more worryingly could result in her eventually going blind.
