Great meeting! Glad I could make it!
 Thanks for pulling us all together~

I hope this might help others. Sorry it is so long.......... There is one person I hope does read this and will see the light at the end of that dark tunnel. And yes I did post this on the main forum.........

I have been reading posts about people loosing their support systems they were so sure were going to be there for them. THis is so sad and hurts at the same time because I have a great support system, be it small it is still there.

I know this sounds really harsh and sick but this is going to be one of the few times I am glad that my mom is gone. She was all about loosing weight the last few years fo her life. When my dad was alive she was the big one in our family. After he died she went on a really awful crash diet that involved vinegar and water several times and day and NOTHING else. She basically starved herself from a size 32 to a size 4. She found a new man and didn't really like me going there to visit because he would always have something to say about how big I was. She would follow suit then when I would go back home she would call and apologize for HIS behavior but never hers. She could not own up to how bad she had hurt me even though I often let her know how bad it hurt for her to say such things to me. The things that were siad are so not worth repeating here but it seems here lately that everytime I look in the mirror I hear many of those things over and over again. It hits the heart and makes me feel less than worthy to be here at all. Yes this sounds boo-hooey but I have been dealing with these mother issues since 1999 (dad died in 1998).

I have went through a divorce, several deaths of people I loved dearly and a few mental issues that are no longer burdeining me because I have learned to deal with them. But the ONE issue I am currently dealing with is this MOM stuff. It is hard to forgive a person when they had put you down so many times that you no longer felt human but felt like something they would have been better off never knowing.

When she was abused by her few boyfriends (yes I said FEW, she liked men ALOT) I was always there to pick up the pieces. But there was that final time I had had enough and had to tell her it was the end of me helping bail her out of every situation she got herself into. I was not going to be the one to do it all for her nor was I going to be the one who broke MY back trying to satisfy her. I had stood up to her and that was one of the things that pushed me even further from her. This was in 2000.

Fast forward to 2003. I had moved to North Carolina and was living my life. I had a job that wasn't fulfilling but it did pay the bills. The hubby (now the ex) was working on and off (when he wasn't quitting or getting himself fired). Mind you I had NOT seen my mother for almost 2 years. I had also not talked to her very much because when I did it was always about her and never did she want to hear about how things were with me, they were always conversations that ended up with me either hanging up or asking to speak to my one sister. I get a phone call out of the blue from one of my sister in laws (I have 4 brother-three are married and one is living with his gf of 15 yrs; I also have two sisters, one married and the other on her fourth divorce) that my mother had cancer and that she wanted to see me. HMMM this was a surprise. Well my hubby (now the ex, cant reiterate that enough) and I packed our little car up for a week's stay and drove the 8 1/2 hour trip to see my mother. Upon arriving she automatically launched into how fat I was and that she was glad she was dying so she would not have to see me destroy myself. BOOM my jaw hit the floor and I told her that her attitude was not needed and that I was doing well enough without her guilt trips, thank you very much. She slammed the door in my face and told me to leave. Which we promptly did (wasted trip IMO!!) Upon getting back to NC, I received another call about 6 months later that she was in a nursing/hospice care home and that my family needed me (call me a glutton for punishment but....) so I transferred my job and packed everything up (this was July of 2003) and moved to a little town in MD called Han**** I was there for a week and went to go see my mother and she seemed happy to see me and we got along throughout the visit BUT upon me having to leave she promptly launched into the weight issue AGAIN. I had had enough and told her that if she could NOT accept me for who I was at that time then I had nothing further to say to her. She said that she was worried I was miserable and that I would die an early age. I told her I appreciated her concern but at the time I was who I was fat or thin.
August 2003 I was on ym way to visit my mother and one of the sister in law's had my visit with my mom stopped and I was forbidden to step foot near the hospice home. I was devestated because I felt I should be there but was not allowed. I was fired from my job because I flew off on the boss the next day. We moved to Garrett County MD and were living our lives best as we could on what we had.
November 2003 (THe 6th to exact)- I was coming back from washing laundry and my neighbor who was a sweetheart informed me that he had a message on his answering machine saying I needed to call my other sister in law (not the ignorant one) and that there was also another message- my mother had died. I collapsed and then flew into a rage that I was the last to know. Well to make matters worse when I called I was told she had died on the FOURTH 9it was the 6th then) and that she was already buried. I asked why I had not been contacted and the response was they did NOT have the time to call me because they were busy calling everyone else. I was beyopnd utterly PISSED at that point. Well my one sister (who is one of my biggest supporters) had not had the number and she was also told the DAY AFTER our mother had died, asked me to come stay with her. I went and stayed at the other sister's to help dissolve my mother's estate. There were so many things that didnt add up at the time and the truth came out that she had not wanted me there and that I was the ONE child that had embarrassed her year after year. There was a letter she had wrote me and to this day I still remember tearing it up in tiny little pieces after reading it. But I still remember everything it said.

Fast forward to 2004(January) I was due in court for a dispute that I had had with my then husband and we both plead no contest and the charges were dropped. We moved back to NC where our marriage fell apart within two weeks. He had found someone else. I was devested to my core, but the one person at that time I could count on to talk to and confide in was actually the someone else he had found. This was even worse. Little did he or I realize she had planned it all along and had won me over in one small moment of weakness. I moved back to MD and began living with my sister April and her family, things did not work out as her husband and I were always fighting. I moved back to NC with a few friends (yes I was hopping from place to place because I was having a really hard time) and I was in the process of working out all the issues I had then. Suffice to say my marriage had failed, my family wanted nothing to do with me (or so I thought) and I was homeless. I decided to call a friend I had made the last time I had lived here and he informed me that another friend was needing someone of the female type to talk to. Him and I started to talk and hit it off (little did I realize at that exact time that I had met this person a few years prior and had disliked him). I started spending time with him and we grew close. I was still married and had tried unsuccessfully to work things out with my then husband, but to no avail. My then husband and I went our seperate ways, but had not divorced yet. I moved in with the man I had been talking and we discussed many things. He had moved me in because the friends were leaving their home to move into a smaller house and there was no room for me- still no job at this time. I was grateful but was still raw from many emotions I had and I was very distrustful of just about everyone. Joe worked his butt off to get me to trust him. I lived here for a little over the three year mark when I decided I was tired of the empty promises from my then hubby to send me divorce papers- I filed myself. I got my divorce in May of 2007 and three days after Joe asked me to marry him. I was floored, btu realized I felt the same way about him (MIND you I had disliked him the first time I had met him several years previous, amazing huh?). We were married that September in a very small ceremony. I was in school and trying to finish my degree (which did not occur until 2009, because I became ill), when I discovered this thing called Weight Loss Surgery. All those years of bouncing up and up then loosing some then back up were dark times for me, I started to see a little pin***** of light at the end of that tunnel. Just this past year 2010 I brooched the subject with Joe and he was really leery at first but then read ALOT of material about it, and he said he would be there for me. I decided to start making calls to ask certain family members what they thought. Over whelming majority were and still are against it, using the line of eat less exercise more- or my favorite " We know you are lazy but that is just being too lazy and taking the easy way out." Like WTF!!!!! Most of them have no idea what I have been through and I do not think I will ever tell them. My sister April jumped on the wagon as soon as I told her what I was considering, she is the ONE person in my whole family that has mostly always been the one to back me in most everything. Her and Joe are my support system.
Fast forward to 2011-February. I fianlly got the gall to bring up the subject with my PCM and she was thrilled, telling me she was right on it.
This journey so far has taught me many things. I am where I need to be right at this time. I have made my decision and although scary as hell, I am coming to terms that I am taking a road that is bumpy and filled with a lot of hidden potential things that could be good or even bad. I have choices to make and many things to do that would have seemed impossible years ago. I have walked,jogged, and ran 4 1/2 miles. I have quit smoking, I am eating healthier. I have gotten rid of a lot of bad influences in my life. Finished my one degree and going after my masters degree. I am scared to death of lossing my best friend (food) but therapy is working wonders. I have been able to say "So Long" to a lot of the bad stuff I used to put into my body. I am working on the addiction and the self sabotage. I have a little ways to go but I am getting there. My surgery will nto happen this month but possibly next month or in August.

I know this sounds mean but I am looking forward to seeing the shocked looks on people's faces when I do this and reach my goals. I am also documenting a day to day journal of this journey, this is one thing that will never be finished until the day when I am old and gray and can't do it anymore. I am 31 years old and tired of living my life behind this person that I know is not me. There is another person screaming and clawing her way out. This is just a shell and the real me is under that layer that I have built up for many years. It is time for this outer layer to go away and stay away.

Sorry this was so long but I just want to let others know that they are not alone, the stories may not be the same but the similarities are there for alot of people. Just know that YOU can do anything you set your mind to. Set goals but do not put a time on them. Goals are meant to be reached when they get reached.

In ending I want to say Thank you to those who stopped to read this.

Anne

Thanks for posting.  Good to see your being so active and things are going so great for you!!

Tamara

Stratos,

I am going through this in my own life- not with the hubby and ONE of my sisters but everyone else. If we could loose it the other way and keep it off we would have done did that.
YOU need to do this for YOU. I would be willing to bet that you put others before you all the time and could give two shoots about yourself in a situation, right?
Well time to stop, it is time to be selfish and let them know it is YOUR decision. They really should quit sabotaging. It could be that they fear they will not have you around IF something were to happen. From what I have read and heard about Dr.Enochs, he is fabulous. You are in capable hands.
Sorry for those out there that are going through this. WE have self-sabotaged ourselves for too long to have other people do it to us too.

I don't have a lot of wisdom to pass your way but I will be thinking of you!!  I can say you will be in the hands of one of the best surgeons around.  I have had "0" problems since my surgery and I give the credit to Dr. Enochs - he is a wonderful surgeon.  All I can say is you have to do what you feel you need to do - I could not lose the weight on my own - and had multiple health issues which have all disappeared now.  I have no regrets and now I am LIVING LIFE, not hiding from life.

Good luck!