What do you see when you look in the mirror ?

[Rogofulm 2,440]

I know I look better than before but emotionally, I have yet to find peace because I still secretly fear that this is a just a dream and I will wake up most of my weight back.

Wow, @@erp, you expressed it perfectly! This is why we have to work so hard to get our heads right during the journey towards our goal. Ironically, if we do everything right, the day will come when the compliments fade, the exhilaration of fitting into new sizes diminishes, and our surgery will stop doing some of the heavy lifting. And from then on, comes... the rest of our lives. Just like watching children grow up, we need to try to embrace and Celebrate each success, each time we make the right choice, each scale and non-scale victory, each compliment, each disease we overcome, each ache or pain that goes away, and each milestone we achieve along the way. Every time someone say, "OMG, I didn't recognize you," I'm overjoyed, because that means the new me is coming to life. I hope and pray that you (and so many others) can learn to accept your success, not as a step towards the next failure, but as a well-earned and entirely positive outcome of your WLS decision; and focus your energies on maintaining that success by looking forwards and not backwards. We all deserve it! (Whew, I guess your statement above really moved me!)

[Bandista 7,466]

What a fantastic thread! I am taking out a pen and writing "worthy" on my hand right now. It's a hard thing for me to remember. Worthy and deserving of all good things. I used to write "willing" on my hand from time to time, because I was willing to do whatever it took to heal. Well, for me apparently it took surgery because now I feel like I am truly healing. I never felt like I belonged or that I was welcome. This may have to do with being adopted. When my parents got me there was an intention that finally having a baby would make my mother happy, that all of her problems had to do with her inability to carry a baby to term. Well, I didn't deliver. I was carried in shame by some one who could not deal with having an out of wedlock baby and given to some one who was not able to deal with the real sources of unhappiness in her life. I think that gets into our cells somehow. Meanwhile I am so fortunate to be truly loved. Adored even. But I had trouble accepting it, feeling it, because I could not truly adore myself. Now I'm getting glimpses of that. I sort of look at myself as a character in a book and admire some attribute -- then there is this feeling of, "oh, don't get carried away with yourself." Dammit, I'm ready to be carried away. I'm ready to really get it that I am one wonderful human being. I matter. And I'm welcome.

[Quest4TheNewMe 225]

I'm currently struggling with this... I'm down 31 lbs since surgery and 74 lbs since I began the whole process in July.

I keep getting comments, "You're disappearing!", "Skinny lady", "You're melting." But I don't see it...

I'm finally just under 200 lbs, for the first time in 15 years. I put on my prom dress a few weekends ago and I totally could have worn it.

I need to figure out how to make my brain catch up...

[ProudGrammy 8,322]

What do you see when you look in the mirror ?

@@gowalking

short and sweet.........

i see a person that is soooo happy with life

and who happens to look "cute as a button too"

kathy