WLS and the unfriend button

It breaks my heart seeing posts over and over again, expressing the hurt and disappointment on the way friends act after WLS.  You may have to mourn, cry, and get mad but you need to let them go!

I was amazed the number of co-workers, friends and family I had to "use" the "unfriend" option.  You are the fat friend that was fun and no threat.  You are a reminder how much better they are and when you start to change?  The ugly comes out.  This doesn't happen with all friends and family but an alarming number for sure!  My saddest story and I have many, was a childhood friend that stuck with me all the way.  She was there when I was teased on the bus for being fat, she was there to cheer me on when I couldn't climb a rope, picked last and hit first in dodge ball.  She was tall, skinny and blonde, I was short, fat and fizzy red head.  Curse if you grew up in the 70's.  

She was the first to criticize my choice, insult me all the way and tell me how horrible I looked while losing weight.  The final straw was after I had lost about 60 pounds and we went out to eat and she ordered me a cheeseburger, fries and shake. We had eaten out before and she knew what I could not eat. She told me she wanted her old "fat" friend back and if I didn't eat it she was gone...   I tried to talk to her but she just didn't want to work with me.  I had to walk away!

Surround yourself with people that support you and live as you want to live.  It's not easy but key to your success!  It's your life

Wow. She gave you a cheeseburger ultimatum. That could be straight out of some kind of after-school special about peer pressure and eating disorders... bizarre....

You're better off without her!

(good luck to her next 'fat friend')

I really consider it a gift that I left the country 4 months after surgery.  I didn't have any day to day friends to lose and OH has always been my support group.  Very few people in my life now knew me as MO.

I can only imagine how hard it is to lose good friends

Wow, I'm sorry that happened to you. I have been getting frustrated more lately with people that I sense are treating me different than they did when I was MO. My reaction has been pretty much to immediately start avoiding them. I prefer to spend time around people who don't focus on my weight, but maybe I have been too quick to write people off. Although I have so much more confidence now, that I just don't feel the need to put up with being treated poorly. When I think about how hard I tried to please other people when I was younger, it makes me sad. No one should feel as though they have to put up with being treated poorly in order to be someone's friend.

I'm sorry about your so-called "friend". Yes, the ugly does come out in people when jealousy rears it's head.

On the other hand, I will say MANY of us become obnoxious when we have lost the weight and talk about it a incessantly. No one really wants to hear it.

Absolutely. It comes in many forms, too. Some people want to evangelize their surgery (though we ourselves would have hated to hear this advice pre-op). Others go all out and try to get lots of extra attention now that, in their minds, they're extra attractive and everybody should love them. And yet others make their journey all about themselves and demand that others make accommodations instead of learning how to handle things themselves.

Wow... just, wow.

That's such a sad and bizarre ending to such a long friendship.

I'm still pre-surgery... I've been thinner before, so I really hope that my oldest and dearest friends don't act in such a crazy way with me... it would break my heart to lose a friendship over something like that.

I had a childhood friend, we were best friends for 30+ years.  Over the years we grew and grew and ended up morbidly obese.  She was the reason I got my Band.  She got hers about 1 year before me and it was a raging success.  She lost all her weight.  She went from 380 to 130lbs!!!  I got my surgery in hopes to follow in her foot steps.  She was super supportive and wonderful.  She was a sort of my band mentor.

Then tragedy struck and she had major issues with her band and had to have emergency surgery to have it removed.  Within a year she gained 100 lbs,  I was very supportive and a shoulder to cry on for her.

Meanwhile, I started doing really really well.  I was losing lots of weight (190lbs total).  She abruptly stopped all contact and refused to talk to me.  I didn't know what I did!!!  My dad died and she still refused to talk to me.  I was heart broken.  It dawned on me she couldn't take my success in the face of her failure!!!

30 years of friendship down the drain...that was about 5 years ago.  I don't even know where she lives anymore or her number.  Even if so I think I am better off.  I have wonderful people in my life now.  

But every once in awhile I can't help but wonder...you know....does she think it was worth it???     

Actually I know exactly what you are going through...I deleted a whole facebook full of "friends" who I thought were there for me...and especially one of these friends who was judging me and hating was one who also had the surgery but was way more out than I was and hadnt lost as much weight...she is still 300+ and I was 344 when I had the surgery and now I am 238 she is so jealous and you know what it's ok I got rid of all of them!!

I have only told 3 of my friends (2 before surgery, and 1 just today). I have a pretty small circle of true friends, but a large circle of "acquaintances", so I'll deal with them when the time comes. I'm hoping they are as nice as I've come to believe they are. Lol