Sad but true - friends that are jealous!

[Jennywren93 0]

I am in the 6 mo "dr diet" period so I am still waiting for my band, but I am not telling ANYONE right now, and maybe not after for a while, about it. My family is very.......judgemental....about my weight, and when I told them I was going on pills for depression they chastised me and I went off them for 3 mo until I almost had a nervous breakdown! Telling them I am getting this surgery would surely get a similar response. Heck! I'm not even telling them I am looking currently for a full time job to go back to work after being a SAHM for 11 yrs. "Well, it's about time! it will be great for you! You will be so much happier" I can hear it now! and as far as surgery, I probably wouldn't lose fast enough, etc.

When I came up with food allergies 7 yrs ago it was such an inconvienience to my mother that we quit having meals over there - or going over there much at all- because "I just don't know how to feed you anymore" and I would prolly get the same thing again with the surgery. From my parents and sis I get the "you are so much prettier when your face is thinner" and just recently I cut my hair short short and my sister told me I needed more hair at my neck to "balance out all....this....." as she pointed to my shoulders, chin and chest. So, no, they are not getting told about my surgery. And as I lose and get near my sister's weight, I can imagine what I will hear..... nope...not gonna listen to them. when i got into the 180's (my lowest in recent years) my dad sure did love and praise me more..... i hate that. I want to be told I am beautiful because I am their daughter, not because I am thinner. I know you know what I mean.

OMG I'm sorry, this got waylaid! lol guess I need to journal some feelings, huh? lol Yeah, i have issues with my family and my weight.:tt2:

[lauralee08 0]

Yeah, i have issues with my family and my weight.

HA! LOL I would venture to say we all do! I finally had to cut off my relationship with my mother, who was always my best friend, because I just couldn't deal with the craziness anymore, and stay sane myself.

Going through this with your family behaving this way is poisonous to your good mental and physical health, and I can speak from experience that you need to let it out, to a doctor if you have no one else. Don't hold all of this inside! I am lucky that I have my husband, who has gone through and understands all of my family issues and we talk a lot, but I still find it worthwhile to seek out a therapist/social worker every now and then, if only to remind me that an outside source thinks I am sane, grounded, and doing the right thing. And if they don't think that, they will talk me through how I should be handling things.

Good luck, and I hope your family someday realizes that you are beautiful no matter what you look like. If they don't, just wait til they get old and wrinkly, then they'll understand! :tt2:

[MarinaBleu 0]

My theory on this is that the more you lose the more it highlights other peoples feelings of failures, they see you succeeding and they start to see things in their life that could use improving, but instead of doing something about it, they pass the negative feelings onto you.

I think the other thing is that people are used to you looking a certain way and need time to adjust to how you look now – people don’t like change, they like you the way you are and know how to behave, when you change, they no long know how to behave. I think all these feelings unfortunately come out as negative behavior against you.

We need to understand that the issues are the other persons to deal with – my question is how do we help them adjust?

[neenz 0]

Sweetie! Your "friend" is obviously intimidated on how pretty you are now, and just the fact that you want to lose more weight.. (congrats by the way) for you, she is afraid that all of the attention will go to you and not her. It seems as if she is trying to get you to feel bad about yourself OR get you to think you are okay with the weight you are currently at... ( You are very pretty... no matter how big or small you are)... It seems as if she thinks she tells you this... you will listen and will not try to lose weight, so she will not be in "competition" with you...

She is what we call a "hater" LOL.... Let her hate.. and you continue to motivate yourself... keep up the great work... you look Fantastic!

EXACTLY :tt2::thumbup::thumbup:

[Brandy~ 2]

My best friend is now ignoring anything that has to do with my surgery or my loss so far. I have come to terms with the fact she must just rather not know. I know she can see the difference so I leave it at that.

I was telling her what I had lost and sent her my before and current pics and such... She would completely ignore them... But when she emailed she would answer everything else that was in the email but never once make a comment about how I was doing or how the pics look.

She is great in every other way and normally supportive. So far I have chose just to keep the surgery and stuff to myself and share with others that know and are supportive. I think in the long term the friendship will deteriorate as I would like to have friends that support me no matter what.

[lauralee08 0]

My theory on this is that the more you lose the more it highlights other peoples feelings of failures

Talk about hitting the nail on the head. That's exactly it. This is why I have one really good, close friend, and the rest aren't worth my time!

[Christina40 0]

I am in the 6 mo "dr diet" period so I am still waiting for my band, but I am not telling ANYONE right now, and maybe not after for a while, about it. My family is very.......judgemental....about my weight, and when I told them I was going on pills for depression they chastised me and I went off them for 3 mo until I almost had a nervous breakdown! Telling them I am getting this surgery would surely get a similar response. Heck! I'm not even telling them I am looking currently for a full time job to go back to work after being a SAHM for 11 yrs. "Well, it's about time! it will be great for you! You will be so much happier" I can hear it now! and as far as surgery, I probably wouldn't lose fast enough, etc.

When I came up with food allergies 7 yrs ago it was such an inconvienience to my mother that we quit having meals over there - or going over there much at all- because "I just don't know how to feed you anymore" and I would prolly get the same thing again with the surgery. From my parents and sis I get the "you are so much prettier when your face is thinner" and just recently I cut my hair short short and my sister told me I needed more hair at my neck to "balance out all....this....." as she pointed to my shoulders, chin and chest. So, no, they are not getting told about my surgery. And as I lose and get near my sister's weight, I can imagine what I will hear..... nope...not gonna listen to them. when i got into the 180's (my lowest in recent years) my dad sure did love and praise me more..... i hate that. I want to be told I am beautiful because I am their daughter, not because I am thinner. I know you know what I mean.

OMG I'm sorry, this got waylaid! lol guess I need to journal some feelings, huh? lol Yeah, i have issues with my family and my weight.:thumbup:

It's all very strange - since I have written this original post - more & more of my girlfriends have gotten strange!

You gotta hear this - I took my car in to the Toyota shop for repair - a friend of mine husband works there - she asked my other girlfriend why was I visiting her husband at work!??? What the heck!? So weird ....I agree with you all - life is too short to be involved with other people's insecurities ..... I am feeling great - I deserve this change in my life and I am working hard to keep it going! Thanks!

[lauralee08 0]

I am feeling great - I deserve this change in my life and I am working hard to keep it going!

Good for you!:thumbup:

[Kellster 1]

One of my oldest friends that I've had for 14 years is starting to be a negative Nancy (sorry for you nice ladies with that name). She is actually bigger than I am and was there when our friend mentioned LB. I decided it was for me, ran with it, and have done a ton of research and gotten the ball rolling for me. My friend is so angry and against the surgery and almost doesn't even want to hear about it. I know she has issues/concerns with money, family support, change, the unknown, and just hasn't tried everything to lose weight like I have so she's not at her rock bottom. I get that. However, she is one of my best friends and I need my friends to understand what I am going through.

My family and friends have all been absolutely supportive except for her. So when telling one of our mutual friends about it, I could feel the resentment and anger coming from my bigger friend and so I called her out and said "You know, I understand you don't want to do this, I totally respect you for that and I'm not trying to convince you otherwise, but I need to talk about it with my friends and have you guys understand what is going on with me and what will be happening to my body, so you are going to hear about this a lot more in the coming months. So please, you don't have to do this yourself, but understand that it's what I have chosen to do." She shut up pretty quick but I can still feel the resentment and anger, and I know it will just increase more and more as I lose weight and look great and she is left as the only big girl in our group of friends.

The extent to which people go to prevent change and ensure their "control" of their own unhappiness in life never fails to surprise me. All I can do is live my life to the best of my abilities, support and love her through her idiosyncrasies, and encourage her to be her very best self - whatever that means to her.

Ok I'm getting off my soap box now. Hugs to all of you ladies with jealous friends.

[Jessiebear 2]

I have been going through this with my step-sister, step-mother & a couple of my Aunts. It's sad. They are really missing out. When I recently went through my band trouble & subsequent weight gain, they all seemed to really "be concerned". Whatever!!!! Thank goodness I can see through it. I have learned to distance myself from those who are negative. Thay just drag me down & I have been down long enough!!

[DivaStyleCoach 89]

Wow Ladies...

I am feeling so blessed right now. I have a very good friend at work who has done the bypass, and her husband is recently bypassed. She has just gotten back on the stick, so to speak, and lost another 15 pounds (her total loss is something over 100). Her hubby has lost nearly 65 by now and is doing very well.

She's been so supportive of my decision to have WLS, and we talked endlessly about both options. I decided on the band, and she's been 100% supportive.

I do have another "friend" (in quotes because she is sometimey) who I KNOW will not be happy about the surgery. She struggles with her weight as well, but since she's 6' 3" tall, it doesn't show as much on her! I just know that when I'm doing well, she's not as happy for me as I think she should be. She's happiest when she's doing 'better' in our internal competition. I don't understand it at all - why would you NOT be happy for a friend that was getting healthier, especially when you KNOW they've been struggling?

I hope I don't have to deal with that...since I don't have a LOT of close friends, I would hate to lose any of them...not everyone earns the title of Friend with me - most people are 'friendly acquaintances' and I leave them where they are.

My 17 year old has a favorite song, part of the lyrics are "You see me...Hi Hater!" Jill Scott also has an awesome song titled "Hate on me Hater" that fits the situation perfectly.

Hang in there ladies! :thumbup: