400 lbs of pain: My story

[Allegra Cole 21]

I contemplated having the gastric bypass off and on for about 10 years and ultimately decided against it. The surgery seemed so drastic and back then you really couldn't get solid research on how long a person lived post-op. The interesting thing is the same thing can be said for the gastric sleeve but it did not matter any more. It was time for me to make a change.

My highest weight measured was 402 lbs. I lost about 20 lbs and lingered there for nearly a year until I started preparing for surgery. My weight at surgery on December 2, 2013 was 368 lbs and I am 5'3". Fortunately I was never immobile or using assistive devices but life was/is hard at 300lbs.

There is no great mystery how I got to this weight - I ate my feelings, every pound. I have had a lifetime of traumatic experiences beginning in early childhood too numerous to dwell though probably not unlike some of you. I was abused as a child and starved as a young child. Through my teen years I became a bulimic to try to gain some semblance of control over my life. , To be honest I got the idea of binging and purging from an actress who appeared on TV talking about it and though already thin at the time, I could eat all the food I wanted and just throw it up. I couldn't deal with what was going on in my life any more and food became my way to escape. I finally stopped throwing up in my early 20's after I became pregnant but the binging never stopped.

You would think adult life would relieve the trauma but I found abuse in my relationships too and continued to eat. I won't even pretend that I needed an excuse. Food was my best friend, my source of comfort and I could control when and how often I ate which was all the time. Other traumatic experiences continued to fuel this....emptiness....that no amount of food could seem to fill and for over 14 years I have been over 300+ lbs.

In July 2009, I was a victim of a violent crime. It shattered my world to the point I left my job and became reclusive for a long time. I still haven't returned to work and am on disability. The truth is I believed my weight was my protector from the outside world. I had worn it as a shield, learned to pretend I didn't care what people thought of me, didn't notice the looks, held my head high and I was a leader in the community I worked. I couldn't reconcile what happened to me at my size. It was something that only happened to skinny beautiful people. It is just not something you ever hear about but I guess that was my own disillusion and now everything has changed.

It's been 7 weeks since my surgery and food no longer gives me the comfort that it used to and eating is this chore that I have to do. Initially all the same urges to eat were there but that has passed, Now I lay awake some nights with the aftermath of what food has done to my body and it seems I can't lose weight fast enough. I just want to wake up and it all be gone but I know that is not real either. My current weight is 312 maybe less but I won't be sure for a few days and I realize how close that is to 299. I haven't been 200 anything in 14 years. I think I will cry the first time the scale says anything under 300. That will be a day to celebrate!

Can anyone relate to what I said?

[SuperFab 689]

I just wish I could give you a hug.

[Madelyne Bonthron 128]

I also wish i could hug u. Very soon you will get your weight loss wish. What happen to you is horrible. But you are a fighter and the past will not hold you down.

[Tarheel79 107]

Thank you for sharing your story with us. What a brave and courageous woman you are! To have experienced the profound challenges and hardships that have come your way, and to still have the determination, hope and belief that you can change things is enormously inspiring. You keep doing what you are doing and know you are impacting not only your own life in a. positive way but the lives of everyone you are in contact with. You are amazing!

[LIL RED 62]

Hugs and kisses. Everything will work out in a positive way. Thanks for sharing. We are all here for you.

[sweetjam69 20]

WOW!! You are a very strong woman! Look how much you have over come, Keep doing it! Need to talk I'm here!

[yazzy 105]

BIG HUGSSSS!!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE ON YOUR WAY GIRL,,,,MUCH LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!

[laffypatty 47]

Wishing you hugs and all the best in your next journey of life. I hope some of your pain melts away with the pounds. I've had my share of painful experiences but nothing near as great as you've described. God bless.

[Ballermom 803]

Bless you for sharing. Congrats on your weight loss. Wishing you continued Success.

[Allegra Cole 21]

Thank you all for your love and support. It really means a lot to me.

[CoffeeGrinDR 148]

Thank you for sharing. Yes, I can relate. Your words on filling the emptiness resonate so strongly with me. I understand what it means to grasp for control (of any sort) because of the trauma of childhood where you are trapped in an abusive environment. I also understand what it means to repeat those relationships as an adult.

What I choose to take away from this is one of my own mantras: the choice to live. All these things you have faced, you could have stayed where you are. But you chose to keep going forward. I feel so impatient as well. It's as though I want to just fast forward past the day by day of this and be at my goal weight. That said I think there is some important internal healing to do that no one will ever see. I think this inner healing is what really gets us to our external goals (whatever "weight" that happens to be).

Living belongs to us only one day at a time, you've chosen to live and you are amongst a community of people who are here fighting to live right along side you. I wanted to offer one of my favorite poems for you:

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Wild Geese, Mary Oliver

[greensleeve 457]

I too am a survivor of child hood sexual abuse. I have a history of binge eating and ended up with a husband who was emotionally abusive.

You are very brave for having the surgery and for telling your story.

My heart goes out to you.

Have you gone to therapy at all?

[LindafromFlorida 1,542]

Your story is you, unique and personal, yet everyone's story. God Bless you for reaching out for help and taking this wonderful journey that will lead us all to a better place. One day there will be no childhood sexual abuse. One day. We will all follow your journey because you are in the right place now.

Best wishes, and today really is the first day of your new life. Rejoice. Best of luck!

[Miss Mac 6,262]

Group hug.....There is a very sad common experience among us that goes much deeper than going back for seconds at dinnertime.

1. Child abuse is much more common than we want to believe, even among "good" families who are pillars of the church (whole 'nother story-don't want to go there).

2. Body dismorphia, no thanks to TV, magazines, rude and painful comments from people around us.

3. Bullying and name-calling. I was anorexic in school, but my oldest sister was called "Dinah Dinosaur", my next younger sister was called "Marshmallow McFluff-fluff".

4. Abusive relationships, rape, violent crime, lousy example from parents' bad marriage / divorce.

5. Broken home

6. Disfunctional family

7. Foster care (my parents took in foster children as my siblings got older and moved out. One girl was a 14 year-old prostitute run-a-way who had been raped by male relatives

8. Poverty and poor nutrition Including the Clean Your Plate edict

9. Bad genes and family medical history

10. etc.

It seems like we all have been hurt in ways that have caused a curious disconnect between us and our food. Thank goodness for this amazing surgery that is putting us back in contact with the human machine we were meant to inhabit during our journey on earth.

Allegra, you will make it. You may have to make a few more laps around the track that some of us, but the race is yours to win, because each of us only competes against themselves to beat out old habits and painful memories. Keep going, girl. There have been many who have succeeded before you, and many more who need your example. Hugs.

[greensleeve 457]

I think you are so right. When I first graduated from college I couldn't find a job but I didn't want to move back with my abusive father.

I ended up working part time jobs and was on food stamps. It was humiliating. It changed my relationship with food not knowing if I would be able to feed myself. I bought a lot of junk and empty calories, it was like deep down I thought if I gained weight I could never starve.