[Aliswife]

I find myself sitting here at 3:00a.m looking , reading and replying to posts. I am up again in the early morning wondering what to do.

I am almost three mo. post op and still amazed at the physical changes in my body. What I still cannot get a grasp on is all the emotional and mental changes that are happening.

For the first time in my life I am trying to focus on me, on what I want. How do u know what to do? I am such an all or nothing gal. I want to just stop life and think about what it is that I want. I have been so caught up in everyone and everything that I have not allowed myself anytime for me.

What and who will I be a year from now? Do I want to work full time, part time or stay at home? I have always been so sure of my path before. Why am I questioning everything I do now? I think I stayed so numb with food before the surgery that I did not have to focus on me. Now that the numbness has worn off I am foced to face all the issues that made me self medicate with food in the first place.

I feel very secure in my marriage and my relationship with my kids but that is all I am sure of these days. I have found that I am mad at myself for allowing my life to control me and my time. Why did I think that was necessary? How do I back up and regroup my new life and impliment necessary changes according to what the new me needs to feel good?

What I would like to see or know is what you all have gone through on an emotional level since yor sureries? What has changed for you? How did you all deal with all the life changes that came about due to lack of medication (food)? What are some things you all implimented into your life that have helped you progress as a person?

Do you all think this is normal to evaluate every decision you have ever made as you are loosing weight and not self medicating?

Just wanting to see the emotional journeys some of you old timmers have gone through and what common thread Doc has seen in all her years of supporting people who have gone through this major life change.

Thanks for sharing!

[Queenofthenile]

Not an old timer so no advice but I can so totally relate to everything you have stated. I was so caught up in pleasing everyone else and numbing myself emotionally and physically with food that I never really realized when do I become selfish and take care of ME? I still struggle with this and I find myself "pushing my limits" so to speak when it comes to old food habits because that is where comfort lyed but I REFUSE to allow food to be my comfort or my control. I didn't have this surgery for no reason. Hope you find the answers you are looking for ((HUGS))

[not quite Barbie]

Originally Posted by Aliswife

Do you all think this is normal to evaluate every decision you have ever made as you are loosing weight and not self medicating?

Oh Heck yeah! That's exactly what we mean when we say this is such a mental journey.

When I went through this evaluation I realized that I started overeating to comfort myself because I was in an unhappy marriage. The overeating became such a habit that I would eat for comfort, boredom, anything. I've had to learn to cope without the food, to face whatever was driving me to the fridge or pantry and deal with it.

A lot of people transfer addictions. So when they can no longer eat, they find something else - some of it for the good, some not so much. I think I transferred to "updating my wardrobe". Thanks to chaning sizes every month I had to do a lot of shopping (at Goodwill! Love that store!!!) and trying on all the clothes in my closet/dresser, tossing out the big ones, hanging up the new. THen doing it again.

After the first year the weight loss slowed down and by the 18 month mark I was pretty much stopped. So then I was faced with another crisis, I no longer needed to keep working on my wardrobe. Now what? I think I even started a thread back then about what to do now. These last 6 months have been about getting used to the new me and learning that the new me is the normal me, who I am now and will be from now on.

LOL, I even went 6 months without cleaning out my closet! Just did last week because of cold weather coming and have 6 bags of clothes in my car to drop at Goodwill on the way home.

[DocSanae]

You know, this is actually exactly why I posted the What is normal thread a while ago.

As you lose weight, even though you know you are the same person, a lot of things will change because your outlook on life changes. This brings about a change in how you relate to many things in life, and also in how other people relate to you due to the issues THEY have which is no fault of yours, but this kind of change is going to make you mighty uncomfortable. So, you find yourself reassessing and rebuilding a lot of what you thought was *normal* in your pre op life, and that is going to be very confusing.

I also think a lot of you are used to doubting yourselves and your decisions, and others around you are used to bowling you over to make you accept their decisions and not accept yours. Because of this, it takes you a while until you can start trusting yourself that the surgery you had will aid you in making your weight loss attempt successful this time. Once you start realizing that it will work this time, you can take another step. You start being assertive about yourself, and start taking yourself *seriously* in all aspects, which is what you need to do, to be able to become happy and stay happy.

Don't forget, unless Mommy is happy and loves herself, she can't love her children in the way they need to be loved, and they won't be able to love themselves in the way they should. So, your *happiness* is your priority.