Not Taking Pictures and being a memory(kinda long)
For over 30 years, I have wanted to be thin, I wouldn't take pictures because I was to fat. I wouldn't go places, for fear of people noticing how fat I was....I stupidly feared people were ignoring their own meals or activities, to look at only me and say "Wow, she really needs to be eating that" or look how fat she is!
I can't tell you how many invitations to do things that I have turned down. Or dinner invites that I sure wasn't going to. I have taken baths in the dark for so many years, that I honestly have no idea how to change that habit. I still see an ugly body and fat face looking back at me.
I now have pictures of Hawaii and my ex on the beaches. I have pictures of the cruise boat but none that show I was on it. I wasn't in any of them. Every vacation had my children and my ex in the pictures, but not me. I remember tearing up so many pictures. I have family Christmas pictures but none of me with my children or grandchildren.
When I am gone, how will they remember me? Will they remember that I was always hiding from myself in every area of life....It's almost as if I never existed. I was literally tormented by my weight. My children loved me no matter what....I couldn't accept that. I think because I honestly was never accepted by my own mother and husband for being heavy. She let me know at every turn that I was fat and gave me every reason as to the whys....She gave me magazines about why people are fat. She would always say that all I thought about was "food". My ex let me know I was a fat, ugly person. Words that burned into the depths of my being for way to many years to overcome overnight. I will be 58 this weekend, and for over 30 of those years I have been made to feel like a horrible, unaccepted, unloved person, because of my weight. The worst is that I, myself. have it burned into my mind and heart. The outside began to tear down the inside, but I have finally reached the end of this torment.
Now that I am losing my weight. My mental health is beginning to heal. I am not there by any means. I still don't see me in the mirrors. I honestly don't know how to overcome the mental anguish, but I do know it is beginning to heal. I do know my clothes are now loose and that proves to me that I am changing outside and slowly on the inside......I am praying that someday I will see "me" in the mirrors. That was a season of my life and I am moving into a new season with new life in many area's.
What I want to say here is.... don't do as I did and not exist in pictures or activities. Your children will need to have those memories to hang on to someday. It won't matter what you weighed or how you looked to them. Love is blind and the heart loves unconditionally. Don't allow fear to paralize you from being who you were designed to be when God so delicately created you. Be ready to make new memories now.
This sounds awful, but though you are very important to many, you just aren't so important that other people will stop what they are doing to judge only you, for your weight or anything else. They are busy worrying about their own issues.
Yes, there will always be those who will judge you harshly and painfully, but always remember that you are vitally important to your children and those who love you now, not to these other people who feel entitled to judge others. Go ahead and take those pictures, don't tear them up. You are designed by God for a purpose and He knows what that purpose is. Trust that he knew what he did when he created you! If you are on here you have either had WLS or are going to. It will change your life. Be ready to see YOU again. Be ready to begin healing the mind through this too. It will come. Don't look back with regrets, but look forward to your new future. I feel like a butterfly that is leaving my cocoon. I am learning how to use my wings and soar. Good luck to all and God bless each of you in this journey. It only get's better from here!
I can't tell you how many invitations to do things that I have turned down. Or dinner invites that I sure wasn't going to. I have taken baths in the dark for so many years, that I honestly have no idea how to change that habit. I still see an ugly body and fat face looking back at me.
I now have pictures of Hawaii and my ex on the beaches. I have pictures of the cruise boat but none that show I was on it. I wasn't in any of them. Every vacation had my children and my ex in the pictures, but not me. I remember tearing up so many pictures. I have family Christmas pictures but none of me with my children or grandchildren.
When I am gone, how will they remember me? Will they remember that I was always hiding from myself in every area of life....It's almost as if I never existed. I was literally tormented by my weight. My children loved me no matter what....I couldn't accept that. I think because I honestly was never accepted by my own mother and husband for being heavy. She let me know at every turn that I was fat and gave me every reason as to the whys....She gave me magazines about why people are fat. She would always say that all I thought about was "food". My ex let me know I was a fat, ugly person. Words that burned into the depths of my being for way to many years to overcome overnight. I will be 58 this weekend, and for over 30 of those years I have been made to feel like a horrible, unaccepted, unloved person, because of my weight. The worst is that I, myself. have it burned into my mind and heart. The outside began to tear down the inside, but I have finally reached the end of this torment.
Now that I am losing my weight. My mental health is beginning to heal. I am not there by any means. I still don't see me in the mirrors. I honestly don't know how to overcome the mental anguish, but I do know it is beginning to heal. I do know my clothes are now loose and that proves to me that I am changing outside and slowly on the inside......I am praying that someday I will see "me" in the mirrors. That was a season of my life and I am moving into a new season with new life in many area's.
What I want to say here is.... don't do as I did and not exist in pictures or activities. Your children will need to have those memories to hang on to someday. It won't matter what you weighed or how you looked to them. Love is blind and the heart loves unconditionally. Don't allow fear to paralize you from being who you were designed to be when God so delicately created you. Be ready to make new memories now.
This sounds awful, but though you are very important to many, you just aren't so important that other people will stop what they are doing to judge only you, for your weight or anything else. They are busy worrying about their own issues.
Yes, there will always be those who will judge you harshly and painfully, but always remember that you are vitally important to your children and those who love you now, not to these other people who feel entitled to judge others. Go ahead and take those pictures, don't tear them up. You are designed by God for a purpose and He knows what that purpose is. Trust that he knew what he did when he created you! If you are on here you have either had WLS or are going to. It will change your life. Be ready to see YOU again. Be ready to begin healing the mind through this too. It will come. Don't look back with regrets, but look forward to your new future. I feel like a butterfly that is leaving my cocoon. I am learning how to use my wings and soar. Good luck to all and God bless each of you in this journey. It only get's better from here!
What a wonderful honest post Sherrie! I am so glad that you are beginning to see the new you. I know for most of us this has been quite a process. Like we've said over and over....maybe they should operate on our brain when they do our stomach!!! My dear dear sister and her husband and son just had some family pictures done. She has cancer and is very sick. She realized that there were no pictures of her with her son and the newest on of her and her husband was over 20 years ago. She too didn't like what she saw in the mirror. We are so designed by God and created by him. Memories are to be made and cherrished and are what we hold on when those go before us. I'm so glad things are getting better for you and the healing is coming along too. Fly away my friend!!
(((HUGS)))
(((HUGS)))
This is the ride of my life.....what an amazing tool I now have!!!
We will not pass this way again....there is only today......Life is short.....Take time to smell the roses, Treasure your times with loved ones......All those sayings are real life. In cleaning out many pictures lately, I only have a few of my parents and I so wish there were more....I don't want my children or siblings to wish the same thing...., that they wish there were more.......Debbie, what you are saying is exactly what I am saying...Pictures are worth a million words and when we are gone...both the pictures and the memories are all we have to hold dear....Don't wait until you are this weight or that weight to take pictures with your families.....Do it now.
Debbie,I'm so sorry for you and your family and especially for your sister's family. You are in my daily prayers.
Sherry
Debbie,I'm so sorry for you and your family and especially for your sister's family. You are in my daily prayers.
Sherry
Thanks for the post Sherry. You said everything that I and so many people here have felt and have gone through. Last Christmas, Dessie went through our boxes of pics and sorted them out, then made each child their own memory book, from baby pics to recent. They both loved them, but was kind of peeved that she had quite a bit of pics of her, but hardly any of me. She told me there aren't that many pics of me, because I would avoid the camera like the plague. Very true! I hate to see pics of myself, but getting better. I too have a very low self-esteem, and feel so undeserving of anything good. Have always felt that way, and sitll do. I love my mother with all my heart --she really is an awesome woman, but she never could accept my weight. I know she was just worried about me, and was the one who paid for my surgery, but when I was a child, I was always hounded about losing weight. She would regularly give me laxatives to try and get my weight down. She took me to some weird doctor in an old house (I was literally scared to death of this man) and he gave me diet pills. Goes on and on, but I know she didn't know what to do and was grasping at straws. We all have "weirdness" in our closets and alot of get over. We can do this. I thank God for all of you. Have you ever thought how much more difficult this journey would be if we didn't have each other? If we were doing this all by ourselves? At times I take all of you and this site for granted, but truely stop and think if we had never found this site. I am so blessed to have all of you in my life! (Even though I don't deserve it!!!! 
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SOME PEOPLE ARE LIKE SLINKIES - NOT REALLY GOOD FOR ANYTHING BUT THEY BRING A SMILE TO YOUR FACE WHEN PUSHED DOWN THE STAIRS.
If that was here in the city....I think I went to that same wierd doctor in the old house too!! Everyone one line up and he would start yelling suuuuuueeee pigs, come in you fat people and he would give a shot with a dirty needle and diet pills. So many people were lined up for help and he treated eveyone like scum. I was so scared, but I went in with the herd.....
I'm so sorry Michael that you had to go through so much as a young boy. To me, I admire you, that you can still feel a positive feeling towards your mother.....I love mine because I'm supposed to, but that is about it. I do not like anything about her. I have quilt over that. I am the only child that she treats this way.... and she often says that I am just like my father...must be some issues there. Huh? My siblings don't understand it and say I should get over it and accept her.....after all she is 80 and won't change..I can accept that, but I will no longer allow her to harass me about my weight or any other issue and I won't let her talk to me like crap any more.....I'm done with people who think they can go around intimidating others with cruel words and degrading comments. I don't feel I deserve it or should accept it, no matter who it is. Honestly from someone who is supposed to love you, is even worse!
My mother has hounded me over and over....Today she called and after not talking to me in 4 months, the first thing out of her mouth was "how much weight have you lost" I said well I'm kinda in a stall right now but am doing better physically in all areas.....a few min later she brings up my weight again. I changed the subject......then finally she out right asks..."What do you weigh now?" I just said mom, what difference does it make what I weigh? I just told you my blood sugar was down, my blood work was all good and my heart was good....isn't that what matters here??? She yells into the phone....Well, I'm sorry!!! I said it's no big deal, but I am just saying I am feeling better and gettting healthier and that is the most important thing...what I weigh right now is frankly none of your business.....so let's just leave it at that....I have never in my life asked one of my kids or anyone for that matter, what they weigh....Not ever!!!
I was trying to be decent to her but , it was hard to be calm. I wanted to unleash on her for the Birthday card I had just gotten......We have not been on good terms and like I said haven't spoken in 4 months....In the card she wrote this "I have always said that when my little Sherry is nice, she is nice and when she is bad, she is very bad". I was at a loss of words. I have no idea what she meant or why she said that...Obviously, from her words she says it alot.......I guess once again me standing up for myself , after years of her slamming me on my weight and talking to me like crap, makes me a "bad person".....I will never in a million years understand my mother and why she has so much anger towards me....No darn wonder I am trying to heal emotionally...... and more and more, I know why! Not all mothers come from great molds for Mother of the Year thats for sure. I don't blame my mother for my weight issues, they are mine, but I do blame her for making me feel like crap over them....Oh well, I am losing my weight and it is my own joy and my own celebration!
Yes, we all have demons in our closets.....what may seem small to some in their journey, may be huge in anothers journey. I am so thankful for the friends on here that do understand the type of hurts we have lived through with our weight. I love each of you.
Sher
P.S. Michael, we DO deserve great friends! We do deserve to be a part of positive people. We are good people, deserving of the love of others! WE DO!!!
I'm so sorry Michael that you had to go through so much as a young boy. To me, I admire you, that you can still feel a positive feeling towards your mother.....I love mine because I'm supposed to, but that is about it. I do not like anything about her. I have quilt over that. I am the only child that she treats this way.... and she often says that I am just like my father...must be some issues there. Huh? My siblings don't understand it and say I should get over it and accept her.....after all she is 80 and won't change..I can accept that, but I will no longer allow her to harass me about my weight or any other issue and I won't let her talk to me like crap any more.....I'm done with people who think they can go around intimidating others with cruel words and degrading comments. I don't feel I deserve it or should accept it, no matter who it is. Honestly from someone who is supposed to love you, is even worse!
My mother has hounded me over and over....Today she called and after not talking to me in 4 months, the first thing out of her mouth was "how much weight have you lost" I said well I'm kinda in a stall right now but am doing better physically in all areas.....a few min later she brings up my weight again. I changed the subject......then finally she out right asks..."What do you weigh now?" I just said mom, what difference does it make what I weigh? I just told you my blood sugar was down, my blood work was all good and my heart was good....isn't that what matters here??? She yells into the phone....Well, I'm sorry!!! I said it's no big deal, but I am just saying I am feeling better and gettting healthier and that is the most important thing...what I weigh right now is frankly none of your business.....so let's just leave it at that....I have never in my life asked one of my kids or anyone for that matter, what they weigh....Not ever!!!
I was trying to be decent to her but , it was hard to be calm. I wanted to unleash on her for the Birthday card I had just gotten......We have not been on good terms and like I said haven't spoken in 4 months....In the card she wrote this "I have always said that when my little Sherry is nice, she is nice and when she is bad, she is very bad". I was at a loss of words. I have no idea what she meant or why she said that...Obviously, from her words she says it alot.......I guess once again me standing up for myself , after years of her slamming me on my weight and talking to me like crap, makes me a "bad person".....I will never in a million years understand my mother and why she has so much anger towards me....No darn wonder I am trying to heal emotionally...... and more and more, I know why! Not all mothers come from great molds for Mother of the Year thats for sure. I don't blame my mother for my weight issues, they are mine, but I do blame her for making me feel like crap over them....Oh well, I am losing my weight and it is my own joy and my own celebration!
Yes, we all have demons in our closets.....what may seem small to some in their journey, may be huge in anothers journey. I am so thankful for the friends on here that do understand the type of hurts we have lived through with our weight. I love each of you.
Sher
P.S. Michael, we DO deserve great friends! We do deserve to be a part of positive people. We are good people, deserving of the love of others! WE DO!!!
Years ago I was a Minco Bulldog Cheerleader! I loved the rivalry that we had with Tuttle! What a great time that was Of course that was in the 60's!!! My favorite teacher in Minco, moved to Tuttle to teach too. Not many liked him, but he was a gifted teacher and I had great respect for him. My niece in law, is from there too! Tuttle is a great town! Minco still hasn't grown much but I still love my old hometown.
Sherry
Sherry
Ok, so now reading through these posts I realized I am very blesed. I have never had anyone in my life hound me for weight AT ALL. Matter of fact, I have to listen to is "how beautiful" I am. WHICH, I CANNOT stand hearing.
I have one person that downgrades me & my mental is all messed up because of it.... ME... I do it to myself. THIS is a trait about myself that I hope I can change as the rest of me changes. It affects my marriage (he gets sick of hearing it), my relationship with my kids (they get sick of hearing it) & most definately my self esteem, inwhich I have none. Bless those of you that had to deal with the downgrading all your life from those who "love" you.
I have one person that downgrades me & my mental is all messed up because of it.... ME... I do it to myself. THIS is a trait about myself that I hope I can change as the rest of me changes. It affects my marriage (he gets sick of hearing it), my relationship with my kids (they get sick of hearing it) & most definately my self esteem, inwhich I have none. Bless those of you that had to deal with the downgrading all your life from those who "love" you.
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