Brief Update
Lately there hasn't been much to report; that's the way of this surgery. You have all of the build up leading to the surgery, you have your weight loss milestones, and then... You wait for your 6-month and 1 year follow-ups before disappear into obscurity. That's what "they'll" tell you; DON'T BELIEVE IT.
Make your own milestones to keep yourself on track.
I have learned to measure my success in the little things that often draw a tear from my eye. Things like: my ability to wear and maintain a size 10 for several months now. You lose weight so fast that trying on clothes is largely trial and error until you "discover" your current size. I have found thrift shops to be a MAJOR godsend, more on that on a later post entitled "Between Forever 21 and Suddenly 42."
I've found a few new milestone of which I'm especially proud: my levels of self-confidence skyrocketed in such a way that I didn't even realize it until I found myself dating again, feeling beautiful again, and realizing that I was always beautiful, though I didn't FEEL that way. The levels of self-confidence were inversely proportionate to my weight; as my weight decreased confidence increased, and just as silently as the decrease in confidence when my weight increased.
Have you ever heard, "We accept the love we think we deserve?" Well, that's precisely what happens when we suffer crises of self-confidence. We allow people's treatment of us to change. People that once loved and valued us are allowed to change, just as we are changing. Because we care about them and value their opinion, we accept their input and their, sometimes, harsh delivery. Such was the case with a boy/man I had been seeing since before I gained the bulk of my pre-surgery weight. His treatment became increasingly harsh, he became indifferent towards me, and there is no taking that back. Something that my therapist asked me before the surgery comes to mind now. She asked me, "How would you respond to a man who was attracted to you after surgery, one who has never known you heavy?" I didn't know the answer with certainty, but I told her that I hoped I wouldn't take out the hostility I had inside, because of being treated badly, on someone new. I felt that I'd need to be alone for a while.
Orlando's indifference towards me couldn't have been more of a blessing, and I will admit that I didn't see it that way at the time. Who the hell would? In the past 8 months, I've been freed from a sickeningly hostile work environment filled with coworkers that went out of their way to call and check up on one coworker with cancer, but couldn't be bothered to acknowledge that I had surgery and/or had no idea because I was forced to return to work one week later and pretend not to be in pain; freed from a joke of a relationship with a person that didn't even want me to have the surgery, but couldn't keep his hands off of me once the weight had been lost; freed from my own insecurities and even fears over losing weight, and it has all been incredible!
A brief note on my insecurities: have you ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy? It is basically the notion that we believe a certain outcome will befall us, and we go about unconsciously manufacturing circumstances that will produce the outcome we believe we will see. So, in my case, I believed that I was unworthy of love, that I would never find a spouse. I believed that, in part, because of my bad luck so far in finding a partner. But that has been entirely my own fault! I've been picking these men, and I hadn't ever tried to set my sights higher, because I wasn't where I wanted to be career-wise, emotionally, and yes, physically. I created the circumstances that kept me planted right where I wouldn't ever grow. As soon as I took a step towards the surgery, I started changing my life and it's direction, and now, I can see everything changing for the better.
Bariatric surgery will not change your life magically. It will change you physically, but you have to decide what additional changes are necessary in order to make it worth it, make it count.
I WAS IN A PARADE!