Madam Reverie

You'll be tired for a few weeks and might need some assistance in getting through schoolruns/mealtimes/bedtimes - but this is totally do-able. Go get 'em, tiger

One, singular two year old? Uhuh.. Well, when she has 5 to look after 24/7, she can then comment with authority about what 'feeling overwhelmed' is like?! I can appreciate she's probably trying to give you an opportunity to 'open up' and 'explore' that aspect - but unless you have maids and a nanny and an army of helpers - of course you're going to feel up against it. Statements of the bloody obvious! Sorry, stupid statements like that make me feel militant

This, is a tough one. I had/have the same problem. I, too, am on omeprazole.... I stopped drinking anything other than Water three hours before sleep (same with eating). Drank vinegar, spoonfuls of honey, elevated my pillow by 8 inches at night. Never let myself get too empty, never ate chocolate (it is a trigger for me)... You name it, I've tried it. I hate to say it, but you might have to consider the true elimination diet... and keep things exceptionally plain... I'm sorry you're suffering so badly. It truly is an awful thing to have x

You're right. Do tell me, has this psych got kids herself?!!

Not noticeable?! Your loss is VERY noticeable! Well done you!

That, is a great nsv. Well done, you

I eat... out of boredom... If I'm 'engaged' in something, I eat less. Evenings.... bad.. very bad....

Take a big deep breath. They are instructed to touch raw nerves. You're not alone in finding the interrogation uncomfortable - particularly given the fact you had little or no sleep the night before. This is not a bad thing, you know. It means you're human. Chin up, honey. We're all the same and whether or not you believe it right now - you were probably very cogent and articulate. Hang in there

You're a remarkable woman and you will find your nirvana. Never forget that... Thank you for sharing x

I'd go with the 'I dunno, been feeling off of late.. Plus, I had a milky coffee/tea not long ago... Sorry, I'm fine, just not got much of an appetite...' I share your pain. Its not easy to be scrutinised like that. Tried over the top humour? You could jump up and down like you'd drunk 20 red bull and say 'wooo hooo, I'm flyin' people'.. Although, in hindsight, that might end up with you facing an 'intervention'. Try not to let it get you down and get your dancing shoes ready to side-step your way out of it

You're all wonderful. Truly. Your honesty, vulnerability, resilience, pragmatism and optimism leaves me speechless. What a comfort to know we are all the same. Who'da thunk it, hey? Big love to you all x

I think I do write books.. Every time I get 'on one' when on this website Glad it makes sense to you though x

You are most certainly not alone. We're all here, whenever you need us. Our specific issues may all vary in their nature and presentation - but we most certainly all have them. Sometimes it is a Pandora''s box, but we're all trying to find our way to deal with that. It is excellent you're in counseling for it. As for the feeling 'divorced' from food. I can totally relate to that. It will feel like that for a few weeks, but by week 6, you'll be all good and making happy, healthy and smaller choices. You'll be in charge of your own destiny from this point and we'll all be here to help you along.

It's honest, Butter. I appreciate that greatly.

Ha! Aint that the truth, sista! x

Beautifully put, Lady. Every day is a school day... I don't want to be on a 'diet'. I want everything I used to eat. Just much smaller portions of it. I need to learn that the mountain of food, does not necessarily correspond with the amount of love around the table. I also no longer need to eat it all - for them, or me. Tough nut to crack - that one.

Beautifully put, honey. You definitely got what i said. I'm glad about that, because most of it was a random stream of consciousness! Or is that unconsciousness! Oh sod it. I was having a whinge! The line in the sand- as you so eloquently put it - is a milestone of significant fear for me. Glad I'm not alone in trying to fathom it out before Armageddon hits... and I realise (worst of all fears), that this experience was just a 'sticking plaster' for a festering boil still un-treated... -x-

Shake it, baby x

Nah, you're not honey. We're all in the same boat. Just some people wear their hearts on their sleeve and are seeking more meaning in this 'journey' (and I hate that phrase) than others.... No shame in that. No shame in any of it. x

LOL love it! x

What?! You don't love me every day, LV?!!! As for being here - we all need the humorous; but it has to be tempered with a deeper level of exploration as to how we got into this mess. Surely? If people need 'social' outlets - then start threads which have nothing to do with bariatric surgery and dietry constraints. Hell, I wouldn't mind if threads were entitled 'my kids are driving me bonkers' or 'my husband is as useful as tits on a bore-hog'! It would certainly break the monotony of pseudo relevance to what we've elected to do to ourselves or what people are considering electing to do to themselves. It might also make people seem more 'human', too.... But would this invalidate the purpose of the website? I don't know... I endeavored to touch on the 'emotional' with the 'dirty' little secrets thread as an attempt to furnish people, without condemnation, the ability to say 'hey, I'm human!' As it stood, it was completely misread, undermined and misrepresented by those who don't see further than their own noses and their own self-promulgating/promoting interests. So, I shrug and attempt to move it on... By spreading my own insecurities, weaknesses and vulnerabilities out there, for the world to see, I hope it encourages those to acknowledge why they are actually here. Not just focus on the gram-count that seems to engulf peoples' worlds for the sake of seeing smaller numbers. We are whole human beings. Not calculators. I hope this moves it on....

No thanks required, honey. It was borne out of a need to evaluate where we all came from, why we're all here and how we're going to conquer more than our immediate fat-laden desires. It is also a deft side step from the banality of pseudo 'helpful' statements which are fundamentally originated from individuals' need for self congratulation and reciprocal pats on the back. So you manage to eat 100grms of cottage cheese and fresh air for the day? Yes, marvelous. How about those demons that brought you to this place, you ever-so-slightly-patronising and supercilious individual? Still hiding in the closet - along with those 'extraneous' size 26's you still have left to throw out? Yeaaah.. It's one of 'those' days...

As an aside.. Does anyone know why my 'status' has been, what appears to be 'halved' over the last week? I've gone from 1,300 posts to 600 something?

I SOOOOOOO hear ya, Lauren. I haven't talked to my father in over 16 years. For pretty much the exact same reasons as you... I proffered the analogy to those disgusted in my isolationist actions 'Okay, if you were forced to meet someone sporadically who every time they met you, annihilated every shred of confidence in you, constantly reaffirming that you were 'lesser' than they desired - would you keep talking to them?'... I cut those conversations dead.... With that being said - my mother was and is, an emotional mess... I only 'forgave' her, her 'sins', when I got a bit older. I realised, she was a product of her abusive environment... It took this last weekend for my to realise that with age, my perception of my mother has been tempered with time and affection (I have massively redacted my story for the benefit of this thread). It took for my future husband to state in his broad (and I love it so dearly) southern drawl... 'Either way you look at it.. It was child abuse.. But you rose above it and now they want to use you as a trophy - despite doing nothin' to deserve the reflected glory.'... Sometimes it takes a HUGE dose of objectivity to realise that after all.. you're okay... and you're doing your best... I'm okay. I'm doing my best. I'm just finding the banality of Protein measurements, Water consumption, calorie counting and lofty statements of 'ooh, look at how much I've lost!' but the mere tip of the iceberg as to why I (and we) are here now and why I am struggling to conquer my demons. They're deep and I know where they lurk.... and I don't believe I'm alone. But on the plus side.. (scuse the pun)... I am a size 16.. one size bigger than my blonde-haired, blue eyed, supercilious, lesser educated, millionaire marrying and over-ovary stiumlated sister ;<sad and petty, but true>. I am also, smaller, better educated and better traveled than my millionaire brother. <sad, petty and true>. What are the measurements of success - outside the dropping of physical inches? Happiness without weight and freedom of conditional emotion? Yes, I'll take that.

Okay, I've been forced to do a lot of soul-searching recently. Despite sailing through any pre-operative psychological assessment (in fact I was so convincing and probably 'cause I was self pay I wasn't actually referred for the full tests), there is a nagging truth which keeps tapping me on the shoulder and making me uncomfortably aware of the reasons as to why I found myself in this position. The position whereby I felt bariatric surgery was my only viable option to lose weight and take control of my diet. Or more accurately and for me; my portion size. Although I can intellectualise my way out of a paper bag (as was stated by the psychologist when I finally met them), I had, and have, to be honest as to the reasons I ended up this big. The answer, as painful as it is, was; my mother. My mother is a tough cookie. Born in a depressive era in Ireland, with enumerate siblings. She was poor and although educated, she was curtailed in her life choices and was always shown that 'if you love someone, you feed them'. I assume this was their truth, as to feed a very big family was difficult at this time, and was the only example her poor long-suffering and abused mother could muster under extreme circumstances. It was also the only expected long-term outlook for women of childbearing age. The impact of this, was clearly passed down the genetic line. That in this, the nature/nurture argument for our food weaknesses becomes more pressing. This was exemplified not only in the way my mother behaved generally, but how she administered herself in her marriage and how she behaved with her children. The extent of this dysfunction only became apparent in how skewed my food choices (and more appropriately: portion sizes) were - and how I was born into those food choices - when recently cooking for my mother. She skipped anything resembling a vegetable, ate her body-weight in meat, potatoes and fresh bread (despite my making from scratch; Hummus, Baba Ganoush, Fatttoush and Lamb kebab). She was a wonderful cook herself and we never went without anything (all food groups represented) and it was never out of a packet. However, I got a rude awakening as to how a mothers preferences in showing affection and her deeper psychological state, totally influenced us kids. When pressing me on my weight loss, she conceded that she'd always focussed too much on the carbs ('tis an Irish thing) when we were children and how she'd misrepresented the importance of bread and potatoes in our diet. This was also, and sadly, tempered with how her inability to show affection, manifested itself in the reward system she'd assigned for herself. In that by feeding her offspring, she'd aligned this with the ultimate expression of love.... As much as I love my mother and as much of a wonderful cook she was; I realised that the burden of responsibility for the reason I was so overweight as a child, which then carried on into adulthood, was as much her responsibility as it was mine. I, too, now feed those I love. Not because I have an incapability to show love, but that these deeply engrained examples have become the example I work from. Despite these factors changing - because of the surgery - I can see where these behaviours are hard cycles to break and have left me with a mental quandary over identity and 'healthy' expressions of love and affection. I have no idea as to the extent to how people evaluate the impact of bariatric surgery on their lives. Tactical and strategic analysis is difficult to do when everyone is so enraptured by the immediate gratification gained from losing pounds and having all those non-scale-victories (lest we talk about the 'my cats blacker' self affirming attitudes which occasional pervades this website).... But has it forced you to re-evaluate the causes for your issue? Have you searched your soul and now have a better handle on how you ended up in this position? 'Cause lets face it - most of us can sit in a psychologist's chair for hours at a time, spinning the wheel - but unless you're willing to strip back your insecurities to the bare-bones truth, doesn't it all feel a bit, well, empty? Have we learnt anything other than to count the carbs, count the Protein, measure the Water consumption and count the calories in order to be fitter, tighter, healthier, smaller, more socially acceptable? I truly believe our surgical endeavors absolutely force us to re-evaluate our lives, our succor/comfort systems and our behaviour. Consequently and because of how hard it is (emotionally), do we not sneer with derision at those who proffer 'surgery is the easy option'. Out of the curtailment of our ability to chow down and eat our way to 'happiness'; is there not something more emotional and scarily deep, that we've had to confront every time we look in the mirror? i know I'm not an island unto myself. We were weak. We are, still, weak. Outside of the victories in maintaining a life of low fat, cottage cheese virtuous goodness. There is a deeper significance to combating the external expression of our hurt. What are yours? With utmost respect and affection, Revs x