larrenda
As a child and basically through my teens, I was always pretty healthy. I do remember that I started to have body image issues when I was in my early teens even though I was very small. I grew up in a pretty abusive environment and learned from a very young age to 'eat my emotions'. For some reason food has just always made everything better. Well, as I got older I got less and less active (but continued to eat like I always had) until one day I got on the scale and realized I had gained about 60 pounds in a year. It took a little while to gain it, but it really felt like I blinked and I was fat. Since that time I have probably gained and lost the same 30 pounds 10 times or more. Somehow I managed to meet a wonderful man who saw through my issues with food and now he is my wonderful husband. We also have two gorgeous little girls and I want to be an example to them and to my husband. I don't want my girls to feed their emotions and I don't want them to see their mom do it anymore. Overeating is a viscious cycle and has plagued my family for generations and I just want to break the cycle. My children and my husband deserve the best of me. And now I've developed high blood pressure, high cholesterol and I've been told I'm pre-diabetic. These things are what finally pushed me to look into WLS. I was always afraid that WLS was the easy way out and that I'd be judged, but at this stage in my life I don't care anymore. I need to do this for me and for my family. In looking at the posts on this wonderful website, I'm realizing that this is NOT the easy way out, but it will be an awesome tool for me to use to make this a permanent change. No more yo-yoing for me. I deserve to be healthy and I'm planning to make the most of the surgery and the post-op care that my wonderful doctors are offering to me. I'm going to be starting therapy soon to deal with my childhood traumas so I can move on and be really happy for the first time in my life. I don't know how to express the joy that I'm feeling just knowing that there is light at the end of this tunnel! I already feel the burden lifting from and and the windows to the future are starting to become clearer! Praise God for bringing me to this point in my life! His timing is perfect and I know he will continue to bless me on my journey! I hope I can in turn, pay it forward and help others who are struggling with the decision to have WLS.
