Appearances Deceive

Appearances Deceive

Appearances deceive.  I think I look healthy, I have maintained my weight loss for the past year, I exercise regularly and vigorously, I take my supplements and consume more than enough protein and water as part of a mostly healthy diet, I have resumed going to support group meetings, I speak at my surgeon’s pre-surgery weight loss surgery seminars, I have tried to be supportive of my on-line WLS friends (although of late I think I suck at it), and I see a bariatric psychologist once a month to address my mental health issues.  A friend recently told me that I am a poster boy for weight loss surgery.  That made me smile, but I don’t think I am anywhere near there just yet.  Despite appearances, I feel too unsettled to be anyone’s poster boy.

In recent months I have been working to re-orient my life to fit my particular emotional needs, including those needs that used to shame me, but that I have now accepted as an important part of who I am and need to be to stay healthy.    This re-orienting effort has been tedious, though, rather like moving a truckload of dirt with a teaspoon.  My emotions have been a swirling mess as I have grown impatient with myself at the slow progress I have made thus far.  I have been second-guessing my choices and, at times, questioning the worth of my continuing existence.  I suppose that when you are striving for substantive change, you never know if things will turn out for the better or not, which is a frightening prospect if what you are trying to change from is untenable already.

So, for now I will try to keep my physical health on track and my mental health between the ditches as best I can.  I know I will continue to lean too hard on my friends for awhile, that I won’t always make good food choices, and that I will occasionally wallow in my over-wrought emotions, but I will also carry with me the hope that one day I will find a firmer grasp on the elusive concept of happiness, such that how I appear to others and how I feel on the inside are one and the same.  It is that sense of hope that differentiates me from the larger, unhealthier man I used to be. It is a gift I received from all of you for which I am sincerely and profoundly grateful.

RP