the unbearable fatness of being

[beautiful_alarms 12]

Hi.

I've been lurking for months, but this is my first post. I've come to an abrupt end of my pre-surgical rigamarole, and am just waiting for the bariatric clinic to call me in order to schedule an appointment with my surgeon for the final consultation before scheduling surgery - I wasn't expecting it to be so soon, as I only started the process on April 11th. My insurance - Excellus BCBS - requires a 6 month stretch of supervised weight loss only if they don't feel that your previous attempts at weight loss were serious enough. I guess 25+ years of constant struggle was adequate, because after my 2nd nutritionist follow-up (a group seminar and 2 follow-ups scheduled a month apart are my clinic's required minimum) I was handed my post-surgical diet info and was told to expect a call within a week. Yikes!

Anyway. My name is Amanda, I'll be 38 in a month (sigh) and am 5'7" and currently about 282 (and an increasingly snug size 22.) I'm married and I have a 5 year old daughter and I live in Rochester, NY. I'm an MFA grad student and work (incongruously to the MFA) in inpatient pharmacy compounding services at the big hospital in town. I have been fat since I was about 6 years old. When I was a teenager, I was about 170-180 and thought I was the fattest thing on two legs. I look back at pictures of myself and my heart breaks for all that self-hatred, sadness, and lost time - not only because I realize now that I wasn't fat at all (you wanna see fat, 16 year old Amanda?? I'll show you FAT!! flubflabflub) but also because I realize how much it never mattered to my friends and family. This is stuff I still struggle with, though. I started gaining rapidly around 18, and have more or less hit peak mass. I was abut 245 when I met my husband 11 years ago, 270ish after having my daughter 5 years ago, and was 291 when I was weighed at the beginning of the bariatric surgery process. I've attributed my weight gain over the last decade to the insidious "domestic spread" - both husband and I have gotten fatter in that time. But that doesn't explain away all the years before that.

I have a progressive, hereditary autoimmune connective tissue disease that is treated sort of like cancer - I get infusions at the cancer center every month through a port in my chest and take a low dose of oral chemo at home every week. Women with autoimmune diseases sometimes see a worsening in disease progression after pregnancy, and this was certainly my experience. I've been having to treat my disease aggressively over the past 5 years, and I've recently reached a really stupid cyclical point where the more I weigh, the less effective my treatments are, the more immobile and depressed I become, the more weight I gain, the less effective my treatments are, and so on. This decline in my health and quality of life is what pushed me to reserve a spot in a bariatric seminar in April.

As the reality of surgery looms on the horizon, I've begun to worry about some stuff. Somehow I managed to avoid that certain heartbreak that is endemic to fat kids - I was never bullied for my weight (I was popular in my high school, even as a weird kid with green hair and combat boots,) I have never been (obviously, anyways) discriminated against because of my weight, I've always been lucky in love and never had a problem with finding romantic companionship, and so on. The only person that has ever had a problem with my fatness is me. It's been the thing that I've blamed for every disappointment or unhappiness in my life, even though, intellectually, I know that's total nonsense. I worry about what will occupy my thoughts once the fat is gone. What will it be like to thoughtlessly sit in a chair without anxious thoughts of weight limits and chair-smashing public humiliation? What will it be like to not have to obsessively strategize my wardrobe for maximum chub-concealment? What will it be like to simply take up less space? I feel as though I have never not been fat, and I have no idea what to expect.

So, Hi!

[AvaFern 3,516]

You know what it's like to not constantly be thinking about dieting or what to wear or what you look like? It's freeing. I have spent my entire life feeling like I was too fat for every major thing I wanted to accomplish. I still did accomplish almost all of them but the last 7 years before I had surgery, I had gained and lost weight, where I was at one point 137 and another point 237 as the highest and lows in that time, but ultimately all of my energy went to managing my weight. I never thought about the future or all of the things I could accomplish because in my mind until I was no longer fat, and thus no longer worthless, the only thing I had a right to be doing was losing weight. That has pretty much been my thought process my entire life since I was in kindergarten and a kid poked my stomach and made the Pillsbury Doughboy sound. Like you, I look back on what I look like and I wasn't that fat! I graduated high school in the 120's because I lost about 70 pounds my senior year of high school and I started college at 130-ish. I was always the fat girl in my mind though because to stay that size required constant obsessing about food, exercise, and my weight.

I am now 32, I have been at goal for about 15-16 months, and within a few pounds of goal for a little under 2 years, and for the first time ever, my entire life does not revolve around my weight. I wanted to go to law school when I was younger, but realistically I couldn't afford it so I just forgot about it. It occurred to me last summer that I could actually do that now, and in the span of less than a year I got into a law school with a full scholarship and an MBA program, both of which I start in a month. I would never have even considered those things before I had reached and stayed at goal because, first, why would anyone want to be nice to the fat girl in school, and second, I should be devoting energy to losing weight...if you're not thin, then you're worthless, no matter how smart, educated, or kind of a person you are. That was my thought process my entire life, and I won't lie, if I start gaining weight, it will be my thought process again.

Right now though, I find value in the fact that yes, I wear a size 2 and I feel confident, but also in the fact that there are SO many other things about me that now I feel like matter. I am intelligent, successful, educated, and a good person, and those are things that now I can see as being who I am, rather than just the fat girl worth nothing. Last summer my first serious relationship (serious isn't saying much but it was important to me) that I had after the sleeve and probably one of my most serious ever ended. My boyfriend left me to go live with his family in another state. Before I was at goal my only thought would have been that it didn't work out because I am fat and worthless and he was ashamed of being seen with me. Now though, sure a few body inferiority thoughts have crossed my mind, but I can see the real reasons that it didn't work out and they had nothing to do with what I looked like. That allowed me to not spend any time hating myself and torturing myself with exercise and diet because I wasn't good enough to be loved, which was the first time ever that I was out of a relationship and didn't feel like if I had been thinner or prettier it would have worked out. That's a really nice feeling.

So...when you no longer have all of the fat stuff to think about, you find that you can suddenly be all of the things you never had time for before. When you love yourself, you get to grow and be better and bolder and do all of the things that might not even occur to you right now as being something you want to do. The world may not be your oyster, but it certainly feels like it, and the weight of being able to think of something other than losing weight, of waking up everyday and thinking about living life instead of why you don't deserve to live life until you're thin, and finding that there are SO many things in life that it never occurred to you to care about or try before is a really great feeling.

Three years ago and for the entire 2.5 decades before that I woke up thinking about how I wasn't going to be fat. Today I woke up and thought about how I need to order some things for my business, how I need to clean my house (I didn't say the thoughts would always be exciting) and how HOLY CRAP I get to start law school and my MBA in less than 4 weeks and how far I have come in the few years it took for me to find that the person under the fat was someone who was every bit worth loving- not just by other people, but most importantly, by myself.

Good luck with your sleeve journey. There are points you might wonder if it is worth it...if I can be your voice of Christmas future (less Ebenezer Scrooge), every single second is worth it.

[Armygalbonnie 643]

Hi!!!

I truly enjoyed reading what you said. I can relate to a great part of your story; However, I do believe I have been discriminated against for my weight. But...... my biggest bully is myself. LIfe is going to change with this surgery, but it's going to be a wonderful change. I wish I would have done it when I was 37 . I wish you the best in everything, and I look forward to hearing about the next chapter in your life.

[beautiful_alarms 12]

@@AvaFern Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I don't want to base my self-worth on my weight or body size, but I'm hoping, like you, that I free my thinking from the trap of fat in order to focus on all the positive stuff about me and my life. You're right, too, about thinking about fatness constantly - I do it all day, and have for so long that I've become desensitized to my own obsessive thoughts. Ugh, gross. And congratulations on your law degree and MBA! I'm getting ready to start the second year of grad school, and it's been a life-changer.. so many new opportunities.

@@Armygalbonnie thanks for reminding me that 37 isn't too late for a new beginning. I've been thinking "whyyyy didn't I do this 10+ years ago" even though I know that I would have been doing it for the wrong reasons at that point in my life. But I've got a lot ahead of me, and my daughter is little enough that a happy and healthy and active mom will be the mom that she knows.

[Inner Surfer Girl 12,015]

Hi.

I've been lurking for months, but this is my first post. I've come to an abrupt end of my pre-surgical rigamarole, and am just waiting for the bariatric clinic to call me in order to schedule an appointment with my surgeon for the final consultation before scheduling surgery - I wasn't expecting it to be so soon, as I only started the process on April 11th. My insurance - Excellus BCBS - requires a 6 month stretch of supervised weight loss only if they don't feel that your previous attempts at weight loss were serious enough. I guess 25+ years of constant struggle was adequate, because after my 2nd nutritionist follow-up (a group seminar and 2 follow-ups scheduled a month apart are my clinic's required minimum) I was handed my post-surgical diet info and was told to expect a call within a week. Yikes!

Anyway. My name is Amanda, I'll be 38 in a month (sigh) and am 5'7" and currently about 282 (and an increasingly snug size 22.) I'm married and I have a 5 year old daughter and I live in Rochester, NY. I'm an MFA grad student and work (incongruously to the MFA) in inpatient pharmacy compounding services at the big hospital in town. I have been fat since I was about 6 years old. When I was a teenager, I was about 170-180 and thought I was the fattest thing on two legs. I look back at pictures of myself and my heart breaks for all that self-hatred, sadness, and lost time - not only because I realize now that I wasn't fat at all (you wanna see fat, 16 year old Amanda?? I'll show you FAT!! flubflabflub) but also because I realize how much it never mattered to my friends and family. This is stuff I still struggle with, though. I started gaining rapidly around 18, and have more or less hit peak mass. I was abut 245 when I met my husband 11 years ago, 270ish after having my daughter 5 years ago, and was 291 when I was weighed at the beginning of the bariatric surgery process. I've attributed my weight gain over the last decade to the insidious "domestic spread" - both husband and I have gotten fatter in that time. But that doesn't explain away all the years before that.

I have a progressive, hereditary autoimmune connective tissue disease that is treated sort of like cancer - I get infusions at the cancer center every month through a port in my chest and take a low dose of oral chemo at home every week. Women with autoimmune diseases sometimes see a worsening in disease progression after pregnancy, and this was certainly my experience. I've been having to treat my disease aggressively over the past 5 years, and I've recently reached a really stupid cyclical point where the more I weigh, the less effective my treatments are, the more immobile and depressed I become, the more weight I gain, the less effective my treatments are, and so on. This decline in my health and quality of life is what pushed me to reserve a spot in a bariatric seminar in April.

As the reality of surgery looms on the horizon, I've begun to worry about some stuff. Somehow I managed to avoid that certain heartbreak that is endemic to fat kids - I was never bullied for my weight (I was popular in my high school, even as a weird kid with green hair and combat boots,) I have never been (obviously, anyways) discriminated against because of my weight, I've always been lucky in love and never had a problem with finding romantic companionship, and so on. The only person that has ever had a problem with my fatness is me. It's been the thing that I've blamed for every disappointment or unhappiness in my life, even though, intellectually, I know that's total nonsense. I worry about what will occupy my thoughts once the fat is gone. What will it be like to thoughtlessly sit in a chair without anxious thoughts of weight limits and chair-smashing public humiliation? What will it be like to not have to obsessively strategize my wardrobe for maximum chub-concealment? What will it be like to simply take up less space? I feel as though I have never not been fat, and I have no idea what to expect.

So, Hi!

HI!

And, welcome aboard.

It breaks my heart to hear you talk so badly about yourself.

This is a life-changing surgery/process and I truly hope one thing you gain is some peace within yourself about how awesome you really are.

Keep us posted on how you are doing.

[Inner Surfer Girl 12,015]

By the way, on another note, I was sleeved April 20, 2015. I am currently packing to go away for a week long writers workshop next week. There is no way I could have done that a year ago!

[beautiful_alarms 12]

@@Inner Surfer Girl since my daughter became aware - self-aware, aware of other people's finer emotions, aware of language and its purpose, or whatever - I've done a fair amount of soul-searching on the way I think of myself and refer to myself, and I must say that it's helped rein it in a lot. But it's so ingrained. Gross.

A writer's workshop! I'd love to do something like that. You know, I was thinking about graduation today - it's a year away - and instead of the usual dread in regards to finding a dress and posing for pictures, I realized that, if I continue to work hard, things will be so much different for me in one year's time. And not just in what I wear or how I look, but how I feel about myself and the things I'll be able to participate in without constantly worrying about my body and my abilities.

[becomingmandikaye 262]

I see myself in your post.. I don't have the autoimmune disorder you do, but my name is also Amanda and in high school I was convinced that I was THE FATTEST PERSON IN THE WORLD. I've been considered "fat" since I was in middle school - if not earlier. But now, I look back at the photos, and I see a healthy, beautiful girl who had no idea who she was or how to love herself.

I may have gotten fatter over my life, but at least I got smarter too!