People feeling deceived

I am so happy that you have resolved your conflict. Your FB post was perfect and reflective of you.

I haven't revealed anything on FB. We are traveling in Florida now. So I uploaded pics of our travels. I now realize that I revealed a major change in myself as I have reached goal. People have commented on my looks but haven't asked how I made changes.

I feel comfortable telling family and friends in person about WLS. Most already know.

Would love to know more about the reactions you receive. Take care.

Gwenmo - you have been a HUGE inspiration to me.  I read your blog and recipes frequently.  Your posts are always helpful.

I'm glad you posted your FB message, because I know you have struggled with whether or not to tell people.  Good for you!

Aw, thank you!

My dream is of a world where getting surgery for obesity raises no more negative reaction than getting a cast on a broken leg.   I was born in 1948 and grew up before the current obesity epidemic.  During the 1950's and 1960's, an overweight adult or child was pretty rare and was perceived as lazy and a glutton.  People would say they had a thyroid problem which society accepted as the only acceptable reason for being fat.

The first people I knew who had weight loss surgery during the 1970's were largely failures.  They either did not lose their excess weight, lost it and gained it back, or lost it and had to have the surgery reversed because they were so sick.  The surgeon who performed stomach stapling in our town committed suicide because so many lawsuits had been filed against him.  During the 1990's I started to hear about people having RNY and that RNY surgery was working for them.

There was a period when lapband surgeries were accepted and advertised everywhere.  Now the sleeve is the latest advance.  While there is now surgery that works, many people retain their old prejudices that they grew up hearing.  They secretly believe that obese people are lazy and not smart enough to eat properly.  They think that we just need to push ourselves away from the table and take a walk.

It is people like you, GwenMo, who are going to help educate the world.  Whatever caused our bodies to gain weight out of control can be controlled when surgery is given as a tool.  I hope you share the diet and exercise that you are doing to make this tool work for you.  You will inspire others to get the surgery that they need and/or to help their friends and loved ones get surgery when that is the right tool for them.

 

 

 

Just want to say it took a lot of balls to do what you did. I will say most everyone knows that I had surgery. I thought about posting on my Facebook.I think I may wait till I get to my one year anniversary.

Still not sure about it. I had one friend who I did not tell about the surgery and she was pissed at me.But I went back through my phone and checked my texts and I had tried to text her numerous times to tell her.I didn't want to tell over a text. 

You should be proud of yourself. 

Thanks.  And good luck with your own decision!  My advice is that if it starts consuming your every waking thought, you should just go for it - consequences be damned ;)

I always talk about what I'm going through so I never even considered hiding it. It's more now almost 6 years out that I don't necessarily mention it as it seems so long ago and sometimes I just don't want to go into it with people I don't know well.

However, other people who haven't mentioned it have gotten push back later about how they "lied" so, yeah, that's a legitimate concern.

I think there are two issues. One is that we have been told a million times that all we have to do is eat less and move more and we'll lose weight and that hasn't worked for us. So when it works for other people, there is that sense of "what's wrong with ME that I can't get it work for me?" To then find out that someone did more than just "push away from the table and move more" feels like a betrayal.

The other issue is the whole "cheating" thing. For people who think WLS is cheating, this just reinforces that. If it's not cheating, why wouldn't you just say you had it?! (Though to some extent, if they think it's cheating, I don't care what they think because they are morons.)

For me, I make a distinction between what you choose to tell your family and friends and acquaintances and what you say if you decide to get up on the public stage in some way. If you have a blog, if you decide to tell your story for a contest or post it on a Success Stories page, or be features in a magazine, I think you get held to a different standard and you can't be leaving out important details or people will rightly be upset and it can cause drama.

On another group, someone was very upset that she posted her story of losing weight and becoming a running and no longer having all these symptoms of some disease she had but she didn't mention the surgery and someone joined the FB page she posted her story on just to hassle her for not mentioning the WLS and say it wasn't right for her not to mention that. 

Geez. Talk about having no life that you'd run around stalking people on FB and telling other people their story for them. But in a way I have to say "What did she expect to happen?" There was also someone featured in one of those People mag "No surgery, no gimmicks" annual "I lost weight" issues who had bypass and people were buzzing about that -- should I tell? Is it right for her to pretend she didn't have surgery?

In the end, I do think it's wrong to run around telling your story on a public stage and not tell the full, whole story. It's an important piece and when you put yourself in the position of being a role model, of saying "I did it, you can too!" but you leave out "oh and I had 85% of my stomach cut off" so people run out and try to "do what you did" but don't know about that part, well you are lying to them. It's like saying "just do like I did and you'll be a millionaire" without telling them you saved $1000 every month.

However, your friends and relations are not a "public stage" and what you choose to tell them is entirely up to you. You don't owe them any explanation of your life and choices. If you are just posting pictures on your FB and you don't want to go into exactly how many pounds you've lost or how you did it, that's your choice. Or if you want to be vague about how you did it, that's your choice too. You aren't trying to "sell" anything to them so you are free to share only as much as you are comfortable with.

But people who don't share it all should be aware that if they change their mind later or if someone finds out later that they had WLS, they may get their nose out of joint or even just their feelings hurt that you didn't confide in them and this is something you will have to deal with.

So Gwen, it's been a few days. Can you give us an update on the reactions you received from your post? I'm really interested. 

This is on my list of things to do today!

Here you go - http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/VSG/5264626/Facebook-Follo wup/