ENOUGH ALREADY!

Okay, two things have happened recently and I just don't know what to do anymore except move to Syberia where no one knows me! I performed (sang) in a benefit about two weeks ago and some of the introduction patter included, "...she truly is a shadow of her former self..." blah, blah, blah. I didn't know the woman was going to say this to a packed audience in a theatre in northeastern CT. Enough already! Then, a woman came up to me this morning at my office and said, "So, I've been meaning to ask you...what did you weigh LAST year???" (She started here about 6 months ago and obviously someone has told her about my "story") -- I was dumbfounded! How much did you weigh LAST year???? ENOUGH ALREADY! I'm just trying to live my life as a normal person who struggles with doing the right thing every day to stay a a relatively normal weight. I feel like I'm living in a friggin' fish bowl!!! Don't people have other things to concern themselves with than my WEIGHT -- like global warming, the war on "terrerrrrrr" - stuff like that?? Okay, just had to vent. Honestly, I feel like I need to move far away where no one knows me and where I will not breathe a WORD about my surgery!!!!

you know reenie i've been feeling something similar. up until just a few months ago i was the first one to say something about my surgery. but now i just want to blend. i dont' want to talk about it anymore. i'mhappy were i am i feel normal i just want to be who i am right now. i'm not that other person anymore. yes i'm still me but i'm different. no one can say that they are the same after what we have done. i'm different now. i look normal. people think of me as normal. i've started my blending process and i like being "one of them". at work we've had several people leave over the past few years. the new ones *****place them especailly the most recent ones know me as just me who i am right now. then someone will find a picture in our system, make a copy of it and give it to me for my scrap book. when i see the picture at first i dont' recognize me. then i have this far away look on my face. i stare at me and look into that face trying to find who i am now from were i was. it never fails someone new will come up and ask who that is in the picture. when i tell them its me they are so surprised. i still get a kick out of their reactions but i'm not always offering how i lost the weight. its my story now. soemthing i'm proud of dont' get me wrong but i just dont' talk about it to peolple who don't know me or didn't know me back then. they have the mentality of surgery for weight loss is stupid. i dont' feel like fighting that battle anymore. i just want to say years ago i was fat i lost weight now i'm not fat anymore. more on to another subject! usually i'm so busy that i can let it roll right off my back with a O gee got to get the phone! i dont' mind talking to someone who is interested in the surgery that isn't a problem. i will help them with anything i can remember and give them the support that they need. i also like to talk to the ones who had the surgery thats fine too. its great being in contact with someone who has been there done that. just as if i'd met someone who had gone on a vacation to a favorite spot of mine! its those other people...the ones i don't know who dont' know me but are just curious that i dont' feel like going into the story all over again.

i'm trying to blend also-it isn't working

So I'm wondering are there more of us out there who are trying to blend now? It can't be just the three of us wanting to go on in our lives normal/blending. Is this another part of having the surgery like being able to eat things a few years out that we couldn't eat before and not get sick? Losing the hair. Gaining weight. We can now add to that list the wanting to blend. I'm sure that after a while people will forgot what we were before. O but as long as we stay were we are right now! I know someone in my town who had the surgery 5 years ago. She lost her weight and went through all these things that we have gone through. But after 3 years she stopped excersizing. She stopped watching what she ate. She thought she had the tiny pouch and could eat anything! She didn't realize and can't remember when the first time was that she could eat something that din't bother her anymore. It happened and wasn't noted so the brain didn't stop to think I better not eat that anymore! She started to gain. She Thought O its just a pound, two pounds, three pounds. Gee its 10 pounds. Oh no its 20 pounds. She has gained a very good amount of weight. People who saw her after the surgery and all she'd lost then after 3 years had forgotten in a way. They didn't bring it up anymore or introduce her as the woman who was 200 pounds heavier a year ago. But they saw her 5years later with a substantial weight gain. No not the full amount but very substantial and they noted that when she would go to a buffet she filled that plate! They started to stare in her grocery cart. If she was at a restaurant they'd look at her plate. All that hard work. All that pain of surgerys casue she got the TT too! All the joy of having lost and wearing sizes she only dreamed about...gone. They've started to remember now, those people. She had blended and now is living the nightmare that I have of gaining and not being able to blend. People have short memories until something triggers it. People also want us to fail. NO not everyone just the ones who were jealous of our successes. They are out there. You might not even now which ones they are. They could be our strongest supporters until we start to fail. She saw that! I heard it! Because I'm a couple of years behind her when I would meet different people who know us both they would be very sure to let me know that this surgery doens't work. Take a look at her they'd tell me! The same thing is going to happen to YOU! Now I dont' believe that but I know that it could. I'm working very hard at keeping with the program. Excersizing. Reading the postings. Cause all of this helps. I know that there are things there I can now eat that bothered me before. I stay away. Addictions! Food is my addiction. It will continue to be for the rest of my life. I need to know that the pouch can help me as long as I help it. WOW did I go off on a tangent or what??? NO MORE COOKIES!

There is a lot of the time that I do not want to be known as a FFP (formerly fat person). For 2007, I believe my answer will be, "Yes, I used to have a weight problem. I have moved on to focus on other issues this year. We are all works in progress, and I'm realizing that inner issues are much more important than the outer ones. This year I am working on setting appropriate personal boundaries. One of those is closing the door on publicly discussing my weight." Maybe some version of this will work for you... Joy