VGS Pre-Op Anger

I had RNY 7 years ago. My insides are all messed up now. I hate my insides, the strict diet I need to be on, the pain, the food allergies I developed, etc etc.. 

But it feels good to be able to slip into size 8 dress, or size S pants - is that enough for all I have to deal with now? not at all. 

But what was done - it is done. No point crying over that.  Doing my best in the situation. 

this is for the rest of your life.  

Maintenance Is not easy.  Regardless of type of WLS you get. 

Hugs.

I wish I could tell you it gets better- but they operate on our stomach. We need to work on the heads. 

H.a.I.a.B.,

     Thank you for sharing this; honestly, this is one of my greatest fears about the surgery, but I've made my peace with the fact that it could happen to me.  I hope that your situation improves; that's a lot to deal with on a day-in/day-out basis.  May you experience healing!

Re-read Rocky's excellent response.

Feel free to vent, because it does help, but also be aware that some of the things that you are angry about right now are issues that you will need to address post-op if you want to be successful long term.  If you really believe you have a food addiction, post-op counseling is probably a good idea (because if you are this tense about it now, it will likely be worse after surgery when you are so limited in what you can eat).

I absolutely DO think that you will eventually think it was worth everything you had to go through, but whether that happens is somewhat depends in how successful you are with getting the weight off AND keeping it off.  Wparking through some of these issues in counseling can go a long way towards that.

Lora

Hi Lora,

      Thank you for responding.  I've read Rocky's post about five times, and I responded: it was a very thoughtful and informative post.

      Yes, I am venting, and I think that it is healthy; I think a lot of obese patients are taught not to express ourselves when we are young, and that is one of the things that leads to overeating.  As far as counseling, I've been going for a while now (I mentioned it in my first post), and I will continue doing so.

      Between counseling and treating the (massively-terrible) sleep apnea, I've been noticing a trend in the right direction for a while now.

      Thank you for your kind comments, and I welcome anything else you might have to say.

I hope you are in some type of therapy. You seem to have a lot of anger and are not taking responsibility for anything as far as your weight is concerned ("the weight has climbed and climbed no matter what I have done up until this point"). To me, this does not bode well for your long-term success. Weight loss surgery is not magic. Personal responsibility is key.

Hi Laura,

      Thank you for responding and for your concern.  I would agree that I have anger, that is one of the reasons that I named the thread VGS Pre-Op Anger and discussed if for seven paragraphs.    You are right about counseling also; I did mention in my initial post that I have been seeing someone, and I think that I will need to do so for some time.

      As far as personal responsibility goes, I think that it is taking responsibility to voice my emotions and concerns in a forum such as this.  This a great, safe, judgement-free zone to discuss the ups and downs of this journey.  A lack of responsibility would be to sit quietly, make a sandwich or two, and pretend that everything is okay; instead, I have chosen to share my truth.

     Sometimes sharing your truth means you get to celebrate a triumph, or you wallow in a defeat, or you encourage other people to do as you have been able to do.  Sometimes that means that you are angry.  Our society is not always very comfortable with anger; it makes people feel weird, but that doesn't mean that it is not a valid emotion to be expressed.

     I am mad that I am in this place.  Regardless of what has happened in the past and regardless of what is yet to come, I am expressing that this place sucks.  This isn't forever; there is work yet to be done, but at this moment in time, I would really like to be one of those people who doesn't have to do all of these things.  Obviously, that's just not going to happen.  But I'll be as mad as I want to in the meantime, and if you feel uncomfortable being mad, then I encourage you to join me.  When we're doing being mad, we can go be something else.

     Best of Luck from a fellow Texas.  ;)

FluffyTX....oh my.  I am only 22wks post-op and folks on this board all speak of the "honeymoon phase" which I should still be in at this time.  Well, everyday is a struggle of some sort.  IMO it does not matter if it is head or physical hunger...I have to be hyper-vigilant in order not to indulge.  I have no regrets.  I'm just say'in, this is for a lifetime.

Hang out here and listen to the veterans of this board.  Mostly, they all have been through,to some degree, the issues we as pre-op or fresh post-opers are dealing with.  To include anger, weigh gain and the roller coaster of emotional ups and downs that WLS presents.

My font is changing sizes..so am I.  This was not intentional in my post LOL!!

Best of luck and success

Hi Suzanna,

    Thanks for your response.  There's a lot of great wisdom here from the vets.  I'm glad that you're being real about your experience six months after the surgery.  I can already tell that this process is not going to be butterflies and rainbows, and I think that is why I'm experiencing some of the feelings that I am at this time.  At my core, I am a realist, and I know what is coming.

    I wish you lots of luck on your journey as well. 

I felt angry too.

I had my surgery at Christmas time the year before last.  I had completed 9 months of supervised weight loss, taken countless tests, seminars, classes, -- I even sought out counseling on my own.  I liked myself -- but hated being fat.  Being obese had stolen countless moments and activities away from me with my son, caused secondary infertility and two late-"miscarriages", insulin dependent diabetes, the start of high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and the beginnings of neuropathy.  I took more prescription meds than my 96 year old grandmother.  Oh, and speaking of my grandmother, I missed seeing her the final time because I was too ashamed to fly by myself and couldn't afford two seats.  With all these things to be angry about, I felt angry that my pre-op diet -- also liquid and three weeks, fell directly over Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and my damn birthday.  I felt angry that I had to be deprived of food... that my naturally skinny husband and his whole damn skinny family never in their skinny lives had to not eat.  I mean, the fact that they really never ate as much as me in the first place was irrelevant.  It was so unfair.

I know the pre-op diet it to shrink our livers (which, btw, I apparently needed since my liver biopsy done during my RNY showed I already had fatty liver damage that I had no idea of) but really it ended up being a real eye opener about my addiction to food.  There was no doubt that my anger was in direct relationship to being denied my addiction.  I had to start facing the anger that I had at myself for letting it get to the point that I was literally having my insides rearranged.  I had to accept the fact that my weight had affected not just me, but the people I claimed to love the most: my husband and son.  Guess who was picking up all the physical slack due to my weight?  My skinny husband I resented being able to eat.  Guess who got teased by kids at school when his 344 lb mommy picked him up?  My precious son.  Guess who was likely to find me dead in my bed when i didn't wake up one morning...

I felt angry at my insurance for making me jump through hoops.  You're right -- it's bull****  But, I also watch countless people come on here who have no hopes of ever getting this lifesaving surgery because they either do not have insurance or theirs doesn't cover it.  I've also watched multitudes of people fail because they don't use their tool and make the changes necessary to be successful.  What does the insurance company recover then?  Now they've paid for a 25 grand surgery and are STILL paying for all the co-morbidities that aren't fixed.  I am so grateful that my insurance paid for my surgery -- my second chance after my f*** up -- so much so that I wrote a personal letter to the woman who signed my approval.  In some way, I feel she saved my life -- my husband's wife and my son's mother.  I guess it's all about how you choose to look at things.

So please know that I do understand your anger.  I hope you can use it to fuel your success -- 

I wish I could like this comment more than once.