I keep hearing that Rachel Platten song on the radio, and I know that i need to start working on my inspirational playlist to get me through the next few months, or maybe even years. But each time I hear one of the songs I want to add to my playlist i start to cry, ugh, why am I so emo?

I am pre-op, 4 months in to my 6 month appointments quota for insurance approval. Nutritionist and Psych eval booked. Cardiology work up done, and A-ok, and no sleep study needed. I am genuinely huge. In my eye, I am an exceptionally large woman. I know that most times I am the largest person in a room. I get anxious now when i eat out, what if there are only booths? 

Its so cliché to say that I have been fat my whole life, so I wont say that. Specifically I have been fat since the 3rd grade. I changed schools and was genuinely and cruelly bullied for 4 years. I was molested by a neighbor when I was 7-8 years old, and he liked to remind me of it once and awhile when I played with my friends in the neighborhood, my parents didn't believe me. I had a mental breakdown at 12, and was nearly hospitalized. Instead they opted for drugs and a child Psychiatrist. I tried to live on cucumbers to lose weight, it worked for awhile. When I was 13, I actually looked cute in a bathing suit. That was the last time lol, I ever looked cute in a bathing suit. Home life was terrible. I had a Mother, who was morbidly obese, with severe untreated mental illness (it was very taboo in the 80's, and hard to get treatment for regular people), and a father that was an enabler to her abusiveness. Her depression and food addiction left her ill equipped to be a parent, and my father worked all the time to put food on the table, so he couldn't really step in. I grew up quick, taking as best care of my little sister as I could, working as much as I could (had a job at 14), and trying to be positive. I knew there was a better life for me out there, in the great unknown. I lived in a bustling metropolitan area, where opportunities abounded! So I thought....

I fell in love with Mr. Completely wrong at 18, and messed up college. Got an office job, that eventually evolved in to a position at a bank, where my met my ex husband and baby daddy, who was in the Navy at the time. My insecurity, and low self worth permitted me to overlook major flaws and marry him. We divorced, and I moved back to the East coast, my home. I am now remarried, and in a much healthier relationship. 

I have always been big, but in the last 4 years I have gained upwards of 70 pounds. My mobility is shot. I have fallen twice spraining my ankles, tearing ligaments and tendons, which makes my ankles tender and sore when I walk.  My hips and plantar fascilitis in feet make walking like walking on coals. So pain = sitting, and sitting = weight gain, and you multiply this by my age, and add a few more comorbidities, you die in a chair, connected to an oxygen machine, like my mother. I don't want to die in a chair, after wasting away for years.

My insecurities are like a cancer. It eats away at everything. I know having WLS isn't a panacea for all my life's challenges, but perhaps if I am not largest gal in the room, and I felt like I belonged in this world, somewhere, I could be on a pathway to happiness. I just want to fit. Fit in a chair, fit in clothes from a regular store, omg, i want to fit in a kayak so bad, hee hee. I get stared at, looked up and down, and the worst, simply ignored.  I just know that a picture of my @ss is going to show up as a graphic image on one of those local news segments on morbid obesity, or some video clip of me walking down the street (from shoulders down of course), because I don't have a face, I am not a person anymore in society's eye.

Its not going to be easy, its already not easy, but it's time. I pray for the strength to use this tool the best I can, and heal myself of my hurts and find hope in a new life.....