Friends/family spilled the beans. Getting over bitterness?

I limited my disclosure to my siblings, mother, and three friends. On my first Friday out of hospital, I went to see a movie with one sibling and faced questions from his friends. The next night, I faced questions from my other sibling's friends. And the next day, I faced questions from the family of one of my friends. I dealt with the situations well as they came up. I kept my cool and tried to be gracious, charming, and positive. Afterwards, however, I'm trying to deal with resentment, bitterness, and vindictiveness. I'm just seething on the inside. My worst experience was with my freind's family. I went to a birthday party and couldn't talk about anything but WLS for 3 hours. Everyone was positive and supportive, but being the center of attention over WLS was exactly what I wanted to avoid. I got to talk about it with people I was meeting for the first time that day. After, I got a "Sorry dude. I made a mistake, I apologised, what else can I do?" from the friend when I asked about his thought process in breaking my trust. My gut reaction is to just cut that friend out of my life. As for my siblings, I don't even know where to begin. On the other hand, I know that I shouldn't take extreme actions based on my emotions of the moment. But the best case scenario that I can think of, long term, is that none of these people are going to be inside of my circle of trust. Need some help with the bitterness. Anyone have methods for dealing with the people who let the cat out of the bag?

I try to maintain the attitude that everything eventually comes out. I prefer that if it's about me or something I confided that I'm the one to make that announcement. But we cant cant honestly say that we ourselves have NEVER disclosed things told to us in confidence. Accidents happen, words sometimes are spoken without thinking it through. If your friend is sincere in his appology, I dont see why you'd need to sever the relationship. Other then an uncomfrotable feeling about being the center of attention (and as you lose weight you're going to experience that frequently) it doesnt seem to have been that bad of a situation. You did educate quite a few people about what was going on with you and the choice you made. Those people feel like they know you now... they may even continue to ask how you are doing and progressing. Let some time go by, it doesnt seem to be a situation that needs to be dwelled on. Life is too short for that

Thanks for the perspective. I really appreciate it.

Did you specifically ask the people you confided in not to tell anyone? If you didn't, then I think it's only natural that they would tell others. They're excited for you and proud of you for making such a difficult decision. They want to share your news with others and let everyone know how brave you are! If you did ask them not to tell anyone, then I would still take into account how much they love you and are proud of you, and I would forgive them for betraying your trust. However, I would think twice the next time I need to confide in someone, and consider just how lightly they took your request for confidentiality. And by the way, I'm excited for you and proud of you too! You are brave to have made this decision and I'm guessing that you'll never regret it! Take care!

Definitely asked for confidentiality. I think your words on how to react to that long-term (forgive but be more wary) are terrific. Thanks for your encouragement. Day 19, and no regrets!!!

John, I had forgotten all about this, but wanted to share my own personal experience with this problem. I only told a few people here at work because I didn't really want a lot of questions pre-surgery. I didn't really care who knew, though, because I work in a medical office and people I work with are used to keeping patient confidentiality and they don't tend to ask personal questions. However, I asked my mother not to tell any of her friends or anyone at church because I knew they would be expecting me to come to church looking skinny the next week! Well, the day before my surgery she told one person and asked her for prayer for me. That one person announced it to the entire Sunday School department, then by the end of the service that morning, the whole church knew! After my surgery lots of people at church asked about me and wanted to know how much weight I'd lost. I didn't go to church for quite a while because I wanted to avoid all the questions and what I thought would be nosy stares. When I did start going again, everyone was excited for me and supportive and encouraging, and yes, they wanted to know how many pounds I'd lost. One of my mom's friends still asks me every single time she sees me! I know she means well and doesn't realize that it puts a lot of stress on me to "perform" and that if I feel like sharing, I'll volunteer the information. But I know that they all love me and mean well, so I decided to build a bridge and get over it. Now I relish the positive attention and almost feel insulted if someone doesn't comment on how good I look! lol!!! I know how you're feeling right now. It really is almost a performance anxiety kind of thing. But believe me, once you start dropping enough weight that it's really noticeable, you'll love all the attention and want to run up to everyone you know and announce your weight loss to them! Again, congratulations on beginning your journey back to the land of the living! Sandra