I belong to a social group of women that have all struggled with infertility but of course we branch off into other topics as well. I shared with them that I am considering lap band surgery and so we've been having conversations over the past week and when I was typing a reply here I thought it was kind of blog worthy. So below is my reply to a woman who shared both a positive surgery story and a negative one:
What I think I look forward to most is just NOT being able to eat so much. It's strange but I will enjoy not being able to over eat. I am already working with a therapist for my weight issues and one of my biggest hurdles is trying to figure out why I have to feel full, like verge of puking full, in order to stop eating. I am very "into" texture and sometimes will eat food simply because of that. I have had panic attacks on "diets" because I don't have that full feeling and I just flip out. My mental behavior is not normal and I totally 100% recognize this it's actually why I sought out help in the first place.
(the woman talked about a friend's surgery who experienced depression afterwards so that is the "male" I refer to here) I actually think it's really strange that the male you mentioned didn't realize there would be depression issues afterwards. I think that's one of the things I kind of expect, really, is just to be shocked and shaken up a bit. Maybe not full on "depressed" but really, your totally changing gears. When I think about how I felt the first year living in a foreign country, that's kind of how I expect this to feel for me, should I go through with it. When I moved to Holland I thought... okay, some things are the same but even though they may looks the same, they're actually very, very different. That's how I think I'll feel after a surgery like this. Although I will still need to eat, it's going to end up being very, very different. I didn't go into moving to Holland naive to the fact that it would be difficult, but there was no way to really prepare myself for the problems I really faced. I think surgery is kind of like that. I can prepare myself the best I can, but once its happening to me, it may be a different ball game.
When I read the stories of people who still eat like shit or gain weight or any of that I really just know in my heart that that would not be me. And of course it's easy to say "yeah, well that's what everybody thinks" but again, I just know myself. I'm not taking this decision (which has not been made yet) lightly. I don't enjoy what I'm doing to my body by over eating. I don't enjoy hiding food from people, hiding my eating. I don't enjoy wondering what people say about me behind my back or think of me when I'm in public. I look forward to the day when I simply cannot eat like I do.
The surgery would be both mental and physical stimulation for me. The physical part is obvious but the mental part also plays a big role. I would "know" that I could not eat __________ so I would be okay with that. It's just really hard to explain how my mind works with food.
In the end, I blame my parents and lima beans. LOL
(not really mom and dad)
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