Hard Day...

This may sound so crazy to some of you but I think you'll understand.  Today, I tackled my clothes; sorting through what's too big, what will be to big by the season, like winter clothes, what needs to be thrown away, GoodWill, consignment shop. It feels like I'm discarding pieces of myself.  IT'S HARD!  Part of me is saying, "Oh I better keep that...just in case."  Just in case of what?  In case I get to that size again.  I'm sure you can relate to the fact that once you get past certain sizes, the clothes you wear have so much stretch (or they just hang from your shoulders or neck!) that they'll see you through a 40+ lb gain or loss and still fit - so I've had some of these clothes FOREVER!  Like the green skirt and jacket I wore to my dad's funeral five years ago.  I don't want to wear it ever again...but it still breaks my heart to let it go.  My two favorite sweaters that I actually felt good in and I wore one for YEARS and the other for at least 2 or 3 years. I actually cried.  I cried because it's like pieces of me...parts of my identity are being let go.  I kept thinking who am I...who am I becoming?  These are my clothes...these are the clothes I wear..and while I don't love all of my clothes and I would ***** why can't I have pretty clothes...these are still part of me. Don't get me wrong...I've bought some new clothes and they're great.  It's just something about saying this is who I USED to be....and my still-fat brain saying, "If I'm not THAT...what am I?" Thanks for listening....

I totally understand.  While I am still pre-op, I have lost a decent amount of weight and my already stretched out clothes are now floating on me.  Just before logging on to here, I was looking at clothes from some of my old favorites online.  I even put a few items a size smaller than I have now in an online shopping bag but I cannot bring myself to buy them because I cannot convince myself that I am a size smaller and that this size downgrade is going to continue to happen.   I think what you are experiencing is perfectly normal.  I don't pretend to know your situation before WLS, but in order to survive each day you had to have some sense of contentment in your identity.  WLS surgery has provided you with many opportunities to recreate this identity but in the mean time you have to let go of the person you were and that person wore those clothes.  The complexities of WLS continue to intrigue me and I haven't really started the journey yet!   Congratulations on doing the hard work and taking the steps to WLS success!  That is who you are...someone who is working hard and succeeding!!!!

I'm with you there, I went through clothes today too.  I had so much I couldn't part with the last time I gave clothes away, but this time all of it is so big.  I still held on to a few things, hoping I can wear them a few more times, and of course the outfit I wore when I got married.  The ones that really bother me are the ones I was waiting to shrink in to, and missed the window - I have a skirt I've always wanted to wear and 2 months ago when I tried it on it was too tight.  Now it falls off.  I don't think its been worn more than once since I've owned it.  Its sad and hard, you invest a lot of money and time into clothes sometimes, and you get attached to certain things that are hard to let go.  Its a combination of sadness that I am getting rid of a part of me, and also shock at how many things I had and how empty my closet and drawers are now.  I've given away a whole wardrobe over the last few months.  And so expensive.  Plus size clothes are so expensive.  Argh.  I guess all you can hope for is that they go to a good home and maybe get passed on a few times to people who need them. 

Your feelings about the bigger sized clothes are something that I can really relate to.  I too was going through some old clothes, looking for something big and loose that I could wear while I colored my hair today.  I put on a pair of 26/28 stretchy jeans from Walmart that were tight 2 and a half years ago.  They felt like clown pants.  It was then that I started going through other things and it just about broke my heart...not because the clothes were expensive..but because I remember wearing that item...thinking I looked pretty good..and then realizing that I really didn't.  It's also a weird feeling for me to go to my favorite outlet store and having to bypass the big girl department when there were such good deals to be found over on that side of the store.  I can't help thinking Why didn't they have that cute outfit here when I could fit into it???  I think it DOES get easier..but it takes awhile for our brains to catch up to where our bodies are now. Hugs, Ginger