NEVER GIVE UP ON YOURSELF
NEVER GIVE UP ON YOURSELF
What follows is a reminder message to me as much as to anyone else who bothers to read this post. That message is to NEVER GIVE UP ON YOURSELF. Before surgery, I had pretty much given up on myself, convinced that I was doomed to a slow, exhausting, humiliating death from the long-term consequences of my obesity. Since that bleak time I have found both hope and better health as the result of my weight loss surgery. However, I sometimes lose sight of those facts when mental health issues come to the fore and I feel depressed. Support and a new medication regimen have minimized the number and frequency of such occurrences, but I will admit that I have allowed myself to become despondent on several occasions in recent months, ready to wave the white flag and give up on life altogether. Thankfully, there are people in my life willing to provide support when I have fallen on my face, to quell my self-loathing thoughts, and to help me remember to NEVER GIVE UP ON YOURSELF, no matter how badly you are feeling, no matter what perceived failings you might think you have.
I sometimes speak at weight loss surgery information meetings and I try to convey that message of being able to find hope once you have regained a lot of ground on your physical and emotional health by losing a substantial amount of weight and looking at yourself in a different way. Weight loss surgery won’t take away all or even most of the problems in your life, but it can enable you to face those problems more squarely. It does take time, considerable time, to overcome the self-doubt and hurt that can come from having been an obese person in a society obsessed with thinness. I had expected that metamorphosis into being a person more comfortable in my now looser skin to be easier, faster, and unwavering. It is simply not, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, not darkness and the likely prospect of an early death.
This journey can be arduous at times, making you think about quitting, about accepting yet another failure in, what for most had been a series of failures at maintaining long-term weight loss. The thing is that the permanent re-arrangement of your innards is there waiting for you, if your mind wills it, for you to find your path to a healthier weight if you can just remember to NEVER GIVE UP ON YOURSELF. Ever.
RP
Many of us have been so giving of ourselves to others because we don't consider ourselves worthy, while the opposite is more truthful.
Thanks for your post.
By the way I was at my local bike store and thought of you. They had a bike with the "Surly" brand. It was built for biking in the snow with tires about 3' wide for good flotation. It must be a ton of work to pedal, but would be pretty good at handling our currently crappy roads....
