Depression

[Mellyb251 30]

Hi all!

I am in the waiting phase for approval to get the gastric sleeve - I struggle with depression and have since childhood. I have also been obese since childhood. My question is for those who have had depression and are now post surgery - after the initial excitement of weight loss after the surgery, did you find that at your goal weight your depression was gone or lessened? Or that it was the same and not truly linked to the weight?

I asked my therapist/ doctor and it seems like no one is sure or knows any statistics.

Thank you in advance!

[BeagleLover 1,020]

Good question! I've had similar struggles.

[lkleigh 38]

I can't 'exactly' answer your question because I'm far from goal weight. I can tell you that for about the first six weeks after surgery, I was on a high. Now, at twelve weeks, I am leveled out and really struggle in some days. My negative thought train is still in my head and I've had a couple of emotional binge days and I'm struggling to get back on track. I'm starting to realize that I have the same thoughts and feelings, just in a lighter body. I've struggled with depression since my teenage years(when I was a reasonable weight), so I kinda doubt it's going to go away totally.

[LindafromFlorida 1,542]

I come and go. I struggled with depression off and on many years with an abusive 4 year marriage, but today I am 20+years married to the love of my life. Most days I am upbeat and happy, but the depression kicks in. I lost my 30 year old son 8 years ago. I can barely get through November and December. I have taken medication but feel none of it really works except you can overcome it, get your butt moving to Zumba if you are young enough, and smile! Life is what we make it, and we can be depressed fat or thin. Weight loss will not help the depression. Every day I am excited about my new self and my husband. Just know you will be a happier person letting go of the old self. Life is what we make it so get on a happy train and get going! You will not regret having the sleeve I can assure you.

[Savedbygrace22 28]

I too have had depression. It was definitely partly due to my inability to permanently keep the excess wt off. Now I awake and no longer think that "I'm overweight and need to lose wt." I am only almost 8 wks out, but my days don't start out that way, with bad thoughts. I now have thoughts that I must get all Protein and Water in instead of the self defeating ones.

I was never excited about surgery because I have lost 50, 80 lbs with variations in between time and time again but never have I been able to keep it off. I have been morbidly obese since 3rd grade. At least that's the first wt I remember : 136 lbs. So I haven't gotten excited about wt loss yet. Highest wt was 358, now 313, surgery was April 30th 2014. But the good thing is that I no longer am depressed. Post surgery I had about 3 or 4 sad days, but now they are gone. Look at it this way: we had enough depression before surgery; now we can look forward to the brighter days ahead- knowing that we are doing a great thing for our health mentally as well as physically.

[thesuse2000 698]

This is an interesting question. I've suffered from depression a fair amount in my life, but not so much in recent years. I'm sure this is something that varies for different people, but I haven't made any assumptions that losing weight will help me avoid depression. I do think it will help with my overall energy, which is sort of related. I've actually heard that some people can get depressed after surgery because they've lost the ability to use food for comfort.

I plan to continue with therapy and just work through things as they come up. I think this surgery is overall good for my physical and mental health, but not a cure-all. I wish you well!

[InfiniteButterfly 438]

I've suffered with depression my whole life, but then, I've been overweight my whole life. I don't know that losing weight will cure my depression (I suspect not), but I'm going through therapy post-surgery as well to try and counteract the depression. I know I've only had one or two bad depressive episodes since the surgery (I expected at LEAST that, knowing the hormone surges and ebbs)

I certainly hope that I experience less down days and more up days. I think I will, simply because getting out and exercising was always a great way for me to lift myself up out of the dark pit, and now that I have more energy, I have more ability to get up and out, and get some exercise. I don't expect weight loss to be a panacea to cure-all...but weight loss will give me the ability to use other tools to help combat depression.

[Sunnybaby 95]

I suffer from manic depression (bipolar) and have since I was 11. Since surgery I have been feeling positive for the most part. There were a few days where I felt really down and sad but I pulled through it b/c I am more important than feeling negative. The more negative/sad I feel the more counterproductive it is to my journey.

I am 7 weeks out and a long way away from goal. About 7 years ago I had lost 100 pounds (gained it all back quickly) but I remember how happy I was all the time. I didn't feel sad and I felt that my medication was working super effectively. More effectively than when I was obese. I have no idea if this is actually true but that's how I felt.