the chicken or the egg
What came first: your head being messed up, or your obesity? I think there are two schools of thought out there on this one, and the strategy to maintaining weight loss depends on which one you favor.
Me, I count myself in the former group. I think my head was messed up first, and then I ate to distract myself/anasthesize myself/console myself/make me feel 'better' by not feeling at all. I believe the fat was a co-morbidity if you will - not the primary disease. I think for me to maintain my WLS success, I have to resolve my head issues. Whi*****lude, primarily, my father's rejection of me when I was very young (in favor of drug use) and my little sister's drug abuse/teenage pregnancy/suicide attempts and alcoholism. Combined, these experiences have helped me become who I am: a controlling, all-knowing, overachieving, overcompensating, willing to take a lot of crap from you (if you'd just stay in my life) manipulative Fraud (oh yes and an even bigger fraud now because I'm still secretly FAT!)- who no one would like if they ever found out these truths.
So I'm working on these things. Now that I am striving to NOT use my "drug" of choice, and not pick up another one, like drinking - I believe it is important for me to resolve the things that messed my head up in the first place. I started seeing a therapist two weeks ago; tomorrow is my third appointment. I am hopeful that he can help me learn what "normal" is - how do "normal" people in a relationship behave? What level of 'giving' is helpful vs. controlling vs. self-destructive... things like that. Oh, and that I'm not responsible for how the world turns out.
So for head-first/body-second people, I think the key to our success long term will be maintaining the life style changes we've made (protein firs****er, excercise, supplements, STRUCTURE, AWARENESS), implementing healthy stress coping mechanisms, and resolving whatever deeper issues drove me(us) to overeat in the first place. That DOESN'T mean that I blame my obesity on my family. What it does mean is that I need to learn how my experiences growing up SKEW the way I see and interact with the world, and learn how I respond internally (eating, drinking, or NOT) and externally (snippy, bossy, or APPROPRIATELY), and change my perceptions, assumptions, responses, and actions.
If you grow up forced to use a cane, you'll limp forever - even when you "know" there's nothing wrong with your leg - unless you acknowledge that you're stunted, and do the work to learn and practice walking "normally" - until a normal gait becomes all you know how to do - until your instinctive response is healthy. Same thing for me, I think, except I'm emotionally, spiritually, socially stunted. Used to be physically, too, but surgery helped fix that. One down, and I've got to do the rest.
The other side of the coin would be that my weight made me depressed. For this scenario I picture a normally thin person to whom something traumatic happens and they become obese - like maybe a car wreck or something else that puts weight on quickly, and then becomes depressed by it, such that it becomes self-sustaining. I think maybe for that person, losing the weight alone could be the 'cure'. There do seem to be a few people out there who have WLS, never look back, and just go off into the wild blue yonder, happy as clams, never thinking about it. So for body-first/head-second, I think the key would be maintaining the life style changes.
But I think this is the exception rather than the rule. I could be biased. And I don't know everything. But this is what I'm thinking.
What do you guys think?
Jen
Have I told you lately how much you rock? You are always so dead on insightful.
I know that I was always a wonderfully normal weight until I started getting molested by a family member at the age of 12 and then the physical abuse started on top of the sexual abuse. To this day, x-rays reveal old fractures that I never knew I had. Combine that with the lavish praise I got from my grandmothers and mother for cleaning my plate and you have a recipe for obesity. I was the good eater in the family. The one thing I consistantly did well was eat. What was the one thing I could control in my crazy, alcoholic family, abusive world? How much I put in my mouth and when.
I really started gaining when I ran away from home at 13 and lived on the streets for 6 months. Leave it to me to be homeless, squating in a fishing hut on Lake Michigan in Green Bay, Wisconsin in the dead of winter and come back home weighing more than I did when I left. Now that's a true fat girl for you. No matter what, I always found food. lol
I think that the whole chicken/egg thing is really a vicious cycle and after a while, it probably doesn't matter where it started, at least not for me. I ate and got fat, I was depressed because I was fat, I ate because I was depressed, I got more depressed because I was fatter.
You are so right when you say that we have to resolve the issues that caused us to overeat in the first place. I do believe that I've done pretty well with the initial issues that contributed to me to overeating in the first place (as do two therapists that I've seen). What I'm left with are bad habits. I'm like Pavlov's dog when it comes to food triggers. Feel stressed? Grab a peanut butter cup. Got some heartache? Have a bag of Lay's. Eating is a conditioned response for me and I've got to figure out how to break the cycle. How do I extinguish this behavior? I'll let you know when I get it figured out. And I WILL get it figured out.
Hugs,
Connie
What do I think? I think every time you post, I am the better for it. Thank you, Jen. You speak volumes to my issues and trying to cope with them. I, too, will begin to see a therapist, first appointment next week. Actually, we approached him for marriage therapy but in our first session together, he thought it very important to take a close look at our individual "stuff" in order to best get to the root of our "couples" stuff. I told him my weight loss has nothing to do with our problems; he said Bull. I like this guy and I am hopeful he can help me figure out how to live my life at a normal size. Ah, forget normal. Let's say, at a healthy weight. I am definitely the head first/body second type and I'm holding on by my fingernails...just can't shake this feeling that I am still encased in fat. It's weird, but when I'm calm and moving through my day without a lot of anxiety, I feel the weight loss, I sense my body is smaller. But when I am feeling anxious, I feel HUGE. Does that make sense??? And the more anxious I feel, the LARGER I become -- I truly feel, sense, believe that I am suddenly 300 lbs. again. Very, very weird. Anyway, thanks so much for this. You have no idea the impact your words have on this single, solitary, struggling woman in Connecticut. Love to you, Reenie
Every once in a while, I wake up and I'm magically teleported back into my pre-op body's head, and it's so ridiculously scary, because I feel so depressed and weighed down and hopeless. It hasn't lasted long, just a day each time, and it hasn't happened often, just two or three times, but -man, the time warp is so real.. I really feel in my head how I used to. I think it serves a higher purpose, to keep me focused on how much improvement I *have* made.
And that WE have all made. We're so DRIVEN. It is precisely because of the fact that we're worried about stalls, and avoiding weight gain, and dealing with our scars, that we don't really need to worry. If that makes sense. It's the ones who go forth blithely, not scratching the surface, thinking that surgery was a cure-all, that wind up with the boomerang.
It's hard work and it's going to be hard work for the rest of our lives, but we can TOTALLY do this - we've invested so much more effort into other people, with or without beneficial results -- if we just focus our energy on ourselves, into taking care of us - we will be tremendous successes. You know that old adage, behind every great (man/woman) there is a great (woman/man)? Well, let's get behind OURSELVES instead of someone else, and BE the great person that we're meant to be.
I am thankful to have our board group. I don't think many months are as fortunate as ours is. It's so good to have you guys. Keep talking, keep posting, ITS WORKING.
Love love love,
Jen
Hey Jen;
A terrific post as always!! I don't know which came first in my case, but I do know for sure that head issues and obesity are intertwined like the strands of my DNA molecules. My biggest hurdles in this weight loss journey are the head issues. I don't know what the answer is, but I plan to keep fighting with the help of you and everyone else here.
Mike
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