Hello Talia, Welcome to our group. You have a long time to think about this, since your surgery is not until next year. But I would advise you to weigh your fears seriously. Pay close attention to why you are afraid and what specifically makes you most afraid. Make a list. Draw a line down the middle of the page and on one side write the pros and on the other side write the cons.
Meditate on these and revisit them frequently over the next few months. Weigh them carefully. Surgery is not something you absolutely have to do, and you may need to study a lot more. You may also need to meet a lot more people who have had successful outcomes, like 99% of the people here.
Go through the old posts and find the ones that date from 2019. You'll find most of those people are still here. You can also glean a lot of information by going back in time from 2018 to 2010 in the archived posts. But responding to those posts will get you nowhere because no one from those days is still here. I am not sure about this but I joined March 6th of this year and I think I might be the oldest old-timer of the currently active bunch. I'm probably wrong about that but when I arrived, it seemed like I was the only one here and then a week later, MamaBearof4 popped up and we got cooking!
Since that time wonderful resourceful intelligent people have joined the group and I think the composition of the group is just awesome. But there are a lot of great informational posts from the old days also, and even though you can't talk to these people anymore, you can benefit from their experiences.
Although we continue to learn and to add to our knowledge base, there is very little that we can do to help people with their strong emotional feelings. We can tell you how successful the surgery is and how safe it is, and how the RYGB surgery has been perfected over the last 40 years and how happy people are who are now having the newer procedure of gastric sleeve. But the fear is inside you. I have a feeling it is something that relates generally to your whole life, not just to this one very big decision.
To deal with those kind of trepidations, I think you would be best served by seeking therapy and addressing fear. I also think it's important for you to have a support group of people who are having the same problems you are having. Maybe go to a couple OA meetings in town and listen to the people who feel very stuck in their obesity.
And consider that your real fear is not the surgery at all. Your reluctance may be coming from an even deeper place inside you. There may be a place that fears change. You are going to lose your best friend if you have this surgery, because there will be no more bingeing and hitting the drive-thrus and watching a movie while eating a gallon of ice cream. You won't have delicious gooey fatty food to look forward to when you need comfort. You're going to be out there on the tightrope all alone and you have to either become good at it or you'll fall, emotionally.
Sometimes it helps to actually embrace every single thing that can go wrong. Read the horror stories about the surgery. We have a great one here.
This is my story about my Gastric Sleeve My name is Courtney; I was 31 years old, mother of 4 when I decided I could no longer live a life at 367 pounds and 5'5". I was happy in my everyday life, but I missed doing things with my kids. I was sick of being the mom that sat in the van at the...
www.americanbariatrics.org
Courtney's story is really not about the surgery as much as it is about the super complicated array of problems she had. It's really doubtful that you have that many problems. If you do, you have a few months to work on fixing them. You also have a few months to change your eating. Give it a try. There is a liquid diet you need to be on before and after surgery and you can try that out anytime. You can also learn to change how you eat. Don't gulp your water down. Don't take big bites of food. Put your fork down between bites. Chew your food until it is nothing but goo or liquid before you swallow it. Use a tiny Fork, spoon, and dish. Become aware of your portion sizes. Eat whatever you want. But if you have a hot fudge sundae, get a tiny scoop of ice cream and just a tablespoon of hot fudge and a tiny squirt of whipped cream. Eat it slowly, savor it and it will be just as satisfying as if you had eaten four times that much.
You are heading for a change. Change is the engine of fear. There are Actuarial tables that insurance companies use that list the most stressful things that can happen to people that affect their health. Every single one of them involves change. Death of a spouse, divorce, Home Remodeling, buying a house, moving to a new town, Etc. Don't underestimate the power of change to cause fear in your life.
