Sheribear68

This plus infinity.

Reminds me of a convo I’d overheard back in my college days between 2 frat boys.
They were being disgusting talking about women that had been to a party recently and one of them was giving the other one a hard time about being with the “fat” chick.
He literally said “ she was so fat that she probably weighed over 125 pounds”.

Now at this time I was 20 years old, 5’7”, and was rocking a size 6 and carrying 135 pounds and hearing this made me want to hide before they realized I was sitting on a bench on the other side of the hedge.

I was 135 pounds and felt “shamed” because of this convo between 2 pea-brained, immature idiots.

It’s soooooo wrong of me, but I really hope those guys are severely obese and bald and have ED.

Well crap! Sorry to hear this and please keep us posted.
I’ll be thinking about you tonite gabybab

Loving this thread and the responses!

Okay so this is kinda getting personal, but I’m gonna share here because I’m thinking there are others here with me that might have this issue.

As part of this procedure, my insurance company set me up with a therapist that I have phone calls with for 45 mins every other week.
I’ve been with her now since November and she is a 32 year bypass veteran.

When I hit my “stall” in week 3 and the scale didn’t move for almost 2 weeks, she didn’t tell me I was being silly in worrying, and didn’t make me feel selfish for complaining that I’d lost almost 2 pounds daily and then stopped cold. She also didn’t berate me for not believing in the science behind the procedure.

What she did instead was to empathize with my feelings that I was going to be the only person who “failed” bariatric surgery while follwing all instructions to a tee.
She understood what kind of psychological damage my body has done to me by never wanting to lose weight easily and by giving me breast cancer at the age of 40. She understood my feelings of distrust during years of infertility and repeated miscarriages in my 20’s and how when I finally did have that second baby, that my body rewarded me with gestational diabetes and 80 pounds that I carried around ( lots of yo-yo dieting in the intervening 22 years) to this day. 

Her response was “ you’re afraid of being judged negatively because your body has repeatedly shown itself to be untrustworthy and because it ‘betrays’ you all of the time. Who in your position wouldn’t have these fears, my dear?”

Well that was pretty profound because after thinking hard about it, the hard truth is I really can’t trust my body to “ do the right thing” so when a mini stall happens, or I don’t lose what I think I should those feelings of “ omg, here we go yet again” creep back like some kind of PTSD.

None of us should ever need to apologize for those feelings because they are REAL and we’ve all been scarred at one point or another or else we wouldn’t be here.

I will continue to have optimism and follow instructions to the best of my ability, but I will also continue to keep looking over my shoulder and keep an eye out for future betrayals like a jilted lover does with the one who keeps cheating on her over and over and over again

This is a great outlook to have.
Today I stopped into a new consignment store that is about to open and I basically just walked in and announced that I’d had bariatric surgery last month and joked that I’ll be doing a lot of trade/buy/resale with them.
These 2 girls combined probably weigh what I do currently, but I didn’t feel any shame in telling them that I’ve got a lot of size 20/22 clothes that fall off of me and my current size 18’s aren’t going to get me through April.
They were super excited to hear that I’ll be dropping off my old clothes because they said their biggest complaint is they don’t have enough plus-size clothing to resale because people never bring that stuff in. Then we talked for a moment about how hard it is to have any kind of fun looking for clothes as a plus size and how exciting it will be to move down the sizes until I find my goal weight.
During the convo I wasn’t at all self-conscious talking to two skinny young girls about negative body image and how difficult it is as a plus size to shop.
I can’t wait until they get enough inventory to open up and start getting some affordable things that will fit my ever-shrinking body

This is a great outlook to have.
Today I stopped into a new consignment store that is about to open and I basically just walked in and announced that I’d had bariatric surgery last month and joked that I’ll be doing a lot of trade/buy/resale with them.
These 2 girls combined probably weigh what I do currently, but I didn’t feel any shame in telling them that I’ve got a lot of size 20/22 clothes that fall off of me and my current size 18’s aren’t going to get me through April.
They were super excited to hear that I’ll be dropping off my old clothes because they said their biggest complaint is they don’t have enough plus-size clothing to resale because people never bring that stuff in. Then we talked for a moment about how hard it is to have any kind of fun looking for clothes as a plus size and how exciting it will be to move down the sizes until I find my goal weight.
During the convo I wasn’t at all self-conscious talking to two skinny young girls about negative body image and how difficult it is as a plus size to shop.
I can’t wait until they get enough inventory to open up and start getting some affordable things that will fit my ever-shrinking body

Omg. That’s so much worse than my nephews wedding weekend and there were parts of those 2 days where I thought I was gonna slap the next person who offered me food or an adult beverage.
I know how extremely difficult it was to navigate two days.... you have my utmost respect for doing it an entire week!

Oh and I’m willing to bet that the food you had didn’t hurt you too much. For some reason the losses absolutely suck on weeks 3 and 4 so please don’t mentally beat yourself up for anything

Yes, I told my husband I was a cheap date now because I order so little food. 😀

Okay so whatever you guys do, DO NOT drink mag citrate liquid.
It could cause a lot of pain and suffering.

I do a scoop of Miralax every other day in my Water and things don’t get too bad.
I’ve had severe Constipation a few times, but if I do the miralax every day it’s too much.
The thought of using a stimulant laxative is just flat-out scary to me.

Still trying to find that balance.

I’m in both camps and it will be situational.

First, I kinda had to tell my coworkers because of so many reasons, most center around the fact that we work in such a fast-paced closed environment that it would flat out be impossible to explain change in eating and drinking habits.
Also, I knew I would need their support and help for the self-care I would need moving forward.
Im a chain-retail pharmacist and we typically work 10-14 hour shifts with zero breaks for either food or bathroom and are going 100mph the whole time we are there. They needed to know that for at least a few months I was gonna need to tone that back a bit.
To have something like WLS and not tell them would be unfathomable because now I actually HAVE to try to eat and drink with some kind of regularity. In the past, we would all purposely dehydrate ourselves so we could get through a whole day without having to go to the bathroom.
That had to change.

Second, as a health care professional, it’s going to be difficult to flat out lie to my patients once they start asking questions. I mean, don’t I owe it to people to try to get on the path to better health by explaining the pros and cons of WLS?
Now that’s not to say that every jerk that comes through deserves to know: only those who could benefit from the knowledge or who I’ve built a relationship with throughout the years.
Besides, you never know when someone I’m helping could be either contemplating WLS or maybe just had WLS and if there is ANY chance I can help them with anything, it’s my professional duty to help.
I’m also a cancer survivor and I make sure that every patient I come across that has been newly diagnosed knows I’ve “been there, done that” and that I’m available to answer any questions or concerns that they have.
Surely I will need to carry that over to WLS and counsel people if I get the chance.

Now I do have many casual friends that have zero business knowing my business and if any of those people start to say something to me, I’m gonna tell them that I’m doing IF.
LOL, technically that’s what WLS surgery naturally does to you anyway so it’s not technically a lie.

I’m in both camps and it will be situational.

First, I kinda had to tell my coworkers because of so many reasons, most center around the fact that we work in such a fast-paced closed environment that it would flat out be impossible to explain change in eating and drinking habits.
Also, I knew I would need their support and help for the self-care I would need moving forward.
Im a chain-retail pharmacist and we typically work 10-14 hour shifts with zero breaks for either food or bathroom and are going 100mph the whole time we are there. They needed to know that for at least a few months I was gonna need to tone that back a bit.
To have something like WLS and not tell them would be unfathomable because now I actually HAVE to try to eat and drink with some kind of regularity. In the past, we would all purposely dehydrate ourselves so we could get through a whole day without having to go to the bathroom.
That had to change.

Second, as a health care professional, it’s going to be difficult to flat out lie to my patients once they start asking questions. I mean, don’t I owe it to people to try to get on the path to better health by explaining the pros and cons of WLS?
Now that’s not to say that every jerk that comes through deserves to know: only those who could benefit from the knowledge or who I’ve built a relationship with throughout the years.
Besides, you never know when someone I’m helping could be either contemplating WLS or maybe just had WLS and if there is ANY chance I can help them with anything, it’s my professional duty to help.
I’m also a cancer survivor and I make sure that every patient I come across that has been newly diagnosed knows I’ve “been there, done that” and that I’m available to answer any questions or concerns that they have.
Surely I will need to carry that over to WLS and counsel people if I get the chance.

Now I do have many casual friends that have zero business knowing my business and if any of those people start to say something to me, I’m gonna tell them that I’m doing IF.
LOL, technically that’s what WLS surgery naturally does to you anyway so it’s not technically a lie.

I’m in both camps and it will be situational.

First, I kinda had to tell my coworkers because of so many reasons, most center around the fact that we work in such a fast-paced closed environment that it would flat out be impossible to explain change in eating and drinking habits.
Also, I knew I would need their support and help for the self-care I would need moving forward.
Im a chain-retail pharmacist and we typically work 10-14 hour shifts with zero breaks for either food or bathroom and are going 100mph the whole time we are there. They needed to know that for at least a few months I was gonna need to tone that back a bit.
To have something like WLS and not tell them would be unfathomable because now I actually HAVE to try to eat and drink with some kind of regularity. In the past, we would all purposely dehydrate ourselves so we could get through a whole day without having to go to the bathroom.
That had to change.

Second, as a health care professional, it’s going to be difficult to flat out lie to my patients once they start asking questions. I mean, don’t I owe it to people to try to get on the path to better health by explaining the pros and cons of WLS?
Now that’s not to say that every jerk that comes through deserves to know: only those who could benefit from the knowledge or who I’ve built a relationship with throughout the years.
Besides, you never know when someone I’m helping could be either contemplating WLS or maybe just had WLS and if there is ANY chance I can help them with anything, it’s my professional duty to help.
I’m also a cancer survivor and I make sure that every patient I come across that has been newly diagnosed knows I’ve “been there, done that” and that I’m available to answer any questions or concerns that they have.
Surely I will need to carry that over to WLS and counsel people if I get the chance.

Now I do have many casual friends that have zero business knowing my business and if any of those people start to say something to me, I’m gonna tell them that I’m doing IF.
LOL, technically that’s what WLS surgery naturally does to you anyway so it’s not technically a lie.

I’m in both camps and it will be situational.

First, I kinda had to tell my coworkers because of so many reasons, most center around the fact that we work in such a fast-paced closed environment that it would flat out be impossible to explain change in eating and drinking habits.
Also, I knew I would need their support and help for the self-care I would need moving forward.
Im a chain-retail pharmacist and we typically work 10-14 hour shifts with zero breaks for either food or bathroom and are going 100mph the whole time we are there. They needed to know that for at least a few months I was gonna need to tone that back a bit.
To have something like WLS and not tell them would be unfathomable because now I actually HAVE to try to eat and drink with some kind of regularity. In the past, we would all purposely dehydrate ourselves so we could get through a whole day without having to go to the bathroom.
That had to change.

Second, as a health care professional, it’s going to be difficult to flat out lie to my patients once they start asking questions. I mean, don’t I owe it to people to try to get on the path to better health by explaining the pros and cons of WLS?
Now that’s not to say that every jerk that comes through deserves to know: only those who could benefit from the knowledge or who I’ve built a relationship with throughout the years.
Besides, you never know when someone I’m helping could be either contemplating WLS or maybe just had WLS and if there is ANY chance I can help them with anything, it’s my professional duty to help.
I’m also a cancer survivor and I make sure that every patient I come across that has been newly diagnosed knows I’ve “been there, done that” and that I’m available to answer any questions or concerns that they have.
Surely I will need to carry that over to WLS and counsel people if I get the chance.

Now I do have many casual friends that have zero business knowing my business and if any of those people start to say something to me, I’m gonna tell them that I’m doing IF.
LOL, technically that’s what WLS surgery naturally does to you anyway so it’s not technically a lie.

And THANK YOU for being brave enough to start this thread in the first place.
It’s been wonderful to vent and lend support and know that others are going through the exact same thing.

I started keeping a personal journal a few days after surgery because I don’t want to forget what every step of this process feels like

Yes! I can relate to the stomach gurgling with what I think are hunger pains.
It’s so weird feeling maybe-but-not-for-sure hunger, but my first meal of the day starts it going.
Today at work all day I was looking forward to corn beef and cabbage when I got home and it reminded me just how much we as a society tie up holidays and food and celebrations and good feelings all into one package.

Well I did get my corned beef (2 ounces measured) with some spicy mustard on the side and about 3-4 bites worth of cabbage and I made sure to pace myself and not eat quickly.
I have to admit that it only took about 10-12 minutes to eat it so I made myself put my plate in the dishwasher to avoid getting seconds.
I can relate to the whole going out and ordering dinner and making it an event.
What is helping me push through those feelings of “missing out” is I’m calculating what we would’ve spent in all that eating out and saving the money towards new clothes and for a vacation.
In addition to expensive eating habits, me and hubs loooooved our wine and spirits. It was nothing for us to spend $100/week at the liquor store alone and now we aren’t.
So far I’ve got $300 in an account to buy some clothes with and we’ve saved $250 toward a vacation at the end of the year.
Thinking about how much fun it will be to save that money truly does take the sting out of feeling deprived.

Yes! I can relate to the stomach gurgling with what I think are hunger pains.
It’s so weird feeling maybe-but-not-for-sure hunger, but my first meal of the day starts it going.
Today at work all day I was looking forward to corn beef and cabbage when I got home and it reminded me just how much we as a society tie up holidays and food and celebrations and good feelings all into one package.

Well I did get my corned beef (2 ounces measured) with some spicy mustard on the side and about 3-4 bites worth of cabbage and I made sure to pace myself and not eat quickly.
I have to admit that it only took about 10-12 minutes to eat it so I made myself put my plate in the dishwasher to avoid getting seconds.
I can relate to the whole going out and ordering dinner and making it an event.
What is helping me push through those feelings of “missing out” is I’m calculating what we would’ve spent in all that eating out and saving the money towards new clothes and for a vacation.
In addition to expensive eating habits, me and hubs loooooved our wine and spirits. It was nothing for us to spend $100/week at the liquor store alone and now we aren’t.
So far I’ve got $300 in an account to buy some clothes with and we’ve saved $250 toward a vacation at the end of the year.
Thinking about how much fun it will be to save that money truly does take the sting out of feeling deprived.

Loving this thread and the responses!

Okay so this is kinda getting personal, but I’m gonna share here because I’m thinking there are others here with me that might have this issue.

As part of this procedure, my insurance company set me up with a therapist that I have phone calls with for 45 mins every other week.
I’ve been with her now since November and she is a 32 year bypass veteran.

When I hit my “stall” in week 3 and the scale didn’t move for almost 2 weeks, she didn’t tell me I was being silly in worrying, and didn’t make me feel selfish for complaining that I’d lost almost 2 pounds daily and then stopped cold. She also didn’t berate me for not believing in the science behind the procedure.

What she did instead was to empathize with my feelings that I was going to be the only person who “failed” bariatric surgery while follwing all instructions to a tee.
She understood what kind of psychological damage my body has done to me by never wanting to lose weight easily and by giving me breast cancer at the age of 40. She understood my feelings of distrust during years of infertility and repeated miscarriages in my 20’s and how when I finally did have that second baby, that my body rewarded me with gestational diabetes and 80 pounds that I carried around ( lots of yo-yo dieting in the intervening 22 years) to this day. 

Her response was “ you’re afraid of being judged negatively because your body has repeatedly shown itself to be untrustworthy and because it ‘betrays’ you all of the time. Who in your position wouldn’t have these fears, my dear?”

Well that was pretty profound because after thinking hard about it, the hard truth is I really can’t trust my body to “ do the right thing” so when a mini stall happens, or I don’t lose what I think I should those feelings of “ omg, here we go yet again” creep back like some kind of PTSD.

None of us should ever need to apologize for those feelings because they are REAL and we’ve all been scarred at one point or another or else we wouldn’t be here.

I will continue to have optimism and follow instructions to the best of my ability, but I will also continue to keep looking over my shoulder and keep an eye out for future betrayals like a jilted lover does with the one who keeps cheating on her over and over and over again

And THANK YOU for being brave enough to start this thread in the first place.
It’s been wonderful to vent and lend support and know that others are going through the exact same thing.

I started keeping a personal journal a few days after surgery because I don’t want to forget what every step of this process feels like

Okay so I hit a stall on on day 12 after losing 23 pounds and once it lasted 3 days I decided that I CANNOT be a slave to the scale.
It hasn’t been long enough since surgery for me to feel like I can handle the mental roller coaster the scale provides.
So this is what I worked out I was gonna do: Find a pair of pants that you are close to fitting in, but that don’t fit yet.
Try them on every day until you CAN fit in them.
Then and only then do you weigh yourself.
I had my husband hide the scale and promise not to tell me where it was until I can fit into those pants.
I haven’t weighed myself in 3 mornings now and I feel better about it.

Loving this thread and the responses!

Okay so this is kinda getting personal, but I’m gonna share here because I’m thinking there are others here with me that might have this issue.

As part of this procedure, my insurance company set me up with a therapist that I have phone calls with for 45 mins every other week.
I’ve been with her now since November and she is a 32 year bypass veteran.

When I hit my “stall” in week 3 and the scale didn’t move for almost 2 weeks, she didn’t tell me I was being silly in worrying, and didn’t make me feel selfish for complaining that I’d lost almost 2 pounds daily and then stopped cold. She also didn’t berate me for not believing in the science behind the procedure.

What she did instead was to empathize with my feelings that I was going to be the only person who “failed” bariatric surgery while follwing all instructions to a tee.
She understood what kind of psychological damage my body has done to me by never wanting to lose weight easily and by giving me breast cancer at the age of 40. She understood my feelings of distrust during years of infertility and repeated miscarriages in my 20’s and how when I finally did have that second baby, that my body rewarded me with gestational diabetes and 80 pounds that I carried around ( lots of yo-yo dieting in the intervening 22 years) to this day. 

Her response was “ you’re afraid of being judged negatively because your body has repeatedly shown itself to be untrustworthy and because it ‘betrays’ you all of the time. Who in your position wouldn’t have these fears, my dear?”

Well that was pretty profound because after thinking hard about it, the hard truth is I really can’t trust my body to “ do the right thing” so when a mini stall happens, or I don’t lose what I think I should those feelings of “ omg, here we go yet again” creep back like some kind of PTSD.

None of us should ever need to apologize for those feelings because they are REAL and we’ve all been scarred at one point or another or else we wouldn’t be here.

I will continue to have optimism and follow instructions to the best of my ability, but I will also continue to keep looking over my shoulder and keep an eye out for future betrayals like a jilted lover does with the one who keeps cheating on her over and over and over again

Loving this thread and the responses!

Okay so this is kinda getting personal, but I’m gonna share here because I’m thinking there are others here with me that might have this issue.

As part of this procedure, my insurance company set me up with a therapist that I have phone calls with for 45 mins every other week.
I’ve been with her now since November and she is a 32 year bypass veteran.

When I hit my “stall” in week 3 and the scale didn’t move for almost 2 weeks, she didn’t tell me I was being silly in worrying, and didn’t make me feel selfish for complaining that I’d lost almost 2 pounds daily and then stopped cold. She also didn’t berate me for not believing in the science behind the procedure.

What she did instead was to empathize with my feelings that I was going to be the only person who “failed” bariatric surgery while follwing all instructions to a tee.
She understood what kind of psychological damage my body has done to me by never wanting to lose weight easily and by giving me breast cancer at the age of 40. She understood my feelings of distrust during years of infertility and repeated miscarriages in my 20’s and how when I finally did have that second baby, that my body rewarded me with gestational diabetes and 80 pounds that I carried around ( lots of yo-yo dieting in the intervening 22 years) to this day. 

Her response was “ you’re afraid of being judged negatively because your body has repeatedly shown itself to be untrustworthy and because it ‘betrays’ you all of the time. Who in your position wouldn’t have these fears, my dear?”

Well that was pretty profound because after thinking hard about it, the hard truth is I really can’t trust my body to “ do the right thing” so when a mini stall happens, or I don’t lose what I think I should those feelings of “ omg, here we go yet again” creep back like some kind of PTSD.

None of us should ever need to apologize for those feelings because they are REAL and we’ve all been scarred at one point or another or else we wouldn’t be here.

I will continue to have optimism and follow instructions to the best of my ability, but I will also continue to keep looking over my shoulder and keep an eye out for future betrayals like a jilted lover does with the one who keeps cheating on her over and over and over again

Loving this thread and the responses!

Okay so this is kinda getting personal, but I’m gonna share here because I’m thinking there are others here with me that might have this issue.

As part of this procedure, my insurance company set me up with a therapist that I have phone calls with for 45 mins every other week.
I’ve been with her now since November and she is a 32 year bypass veteran.

When I hit my “stall” in week 3 and the scale didn’t move for almost 2 weeks, she didn’t tell me I was being silly in worrying, and didn’t make me feel selfish for complaining that I’d lost almost 2 pounds daily and then stopped cold. She also didn’t berate me for not believing in the science behind the procedure.

What she did instead was to empathize with my feelings that I was going to be the only person who “failed” bariatric surgery while follwing all instructions to a tee.
She understood what kind of psychological damage my body has done to me by never wanting to lose weight easily and by giving me breast cancer at the age of 40. She understood my feelings of distrust during years of infertility and repeated miscarriages in my 20’s and how when I finally did have that second baby, that my body rewarded me with gestational diabetes and 80 pounds that I carried around ( lots of yo-yo dieting in the intervening 22 years) to this day. 

Her response was “ you’re afraid of being judged negatively because your body has repeatedly shown itself to be untrustworthy and because it ‘betrays’ you all of the time. Who in your position wouldn’t have these fears, my dear?”

Well that was pretty profound because after thinking hard about it, the hard truth is I really can’t trust my body to “ do the right thing” so when a mini stall happens, or I don’t lose what I think I should those feelings of “ omg, here we go yet again” creep back like some kind of PTSD.

None of us should ever need to apologize for those feelings because they are REAL and we’ve all been scarred at one point or another or else we wouldn’t be here.

I will continue to have optimism and follow instructions to the best of my ability, but I will also continue to keep looking over my shoulder and keep an eye out for future betrayals like a jilted lover does with the one who keeps cheating on her over and over and over again

Okay so I hit a stall on on day 12 after losing 23 pounds and once it lasted 3 days I decided that I CANNOT be a slave to the scale.
It hasn’t been long enough since surgery for me to feel like I can handle the mental roller coaster the scale provides.
So this is what I worked out I was gonna do: Find a pair of pants that you are close to fitting in, but that don’t fit yet.
Try them on every day until you CAN fit in them.
Then and only then do you weigh yourself.
I had my husband hide the scale and promise not to tell me where it was until I can fit into those pants.
I haven’t weighed myself in 3 mornings now and I feel better about it.

Yes Dana. You truly hit the nail on the head by saying we need a safe place to post our thoughts and fears.
Yes, I realize that my body will eventually get on board and continue to do what the science behind these surgeries will “force” it to do, but any stoppage in progress is absolutely scary as hell.
Knowing that many of us feel this same way and being able to empathize and relate to those feelings is so very empowering.
For starters, we know that WE ARE NOT ALONE. Just that in and of itself helps so much.

And CaribeRidge..... you are absolutely right on Water.
There have been many days that I’ve drank over 80 ounces and not lost a single ounce, but I’ve never experienced a loss while drinking under 64.
Water is definitely key and makes the whole process run better.

Loving this thread and the responses!

Okay so this is kinda getting personal, but I’m gonna share here because I’m thinking there are others here with me that might have this issue.

As part of this procedure, my insurance company set me up with a therapist that I have phone calls with for 45 mins every other week.
I’ve been with her now since November and she is a 32 year bypass veteran.

When I hit my “stall” in week 3 and the scale didn’t move for almost 2 weeks, she didn’t tell me I was being silly in worrying, and didn’t make me feel selfish for complaining that I’d lost almost 2 pounds daily and then stopped cold. She also didn’t berate me for not believing in the science behind the procedure.

What she did instead was to empathize with my feelings that I was going to be the only person who “failed” bariatric surgery while follwing all instructions to a tee.
She understood what kind of psychological damage my body has done to me by never wanting to lose weight easily and by giving me breast cancer at the age of 40. She understood my feelings of distrust during years of infertility and repeated miscarriages in my 20’s and how when I finally did have that second baby, that my body rewarded me with gestational diabetes and 80 pounds that I carried around ( lots of yo-yo dieting in the intervening 22 years) to this day. 

Her response was “ you’re afraid of being judged negatively because your body has repeatedly shown itself to be untrustworthy and because it ‘betrays’ you all of the time. Who in your position wouldn’t have these fears, my dear?”

Well that was pretty profound because after thinking hard about it, the hard truth is I really can’t trust my body to “ do the right thing” so when a mini stall happens, or I don’t lose what I think I should those feelings of “ omg, here we go yet again” creep back like some kind of PTSD.

None of us should ever need to apologize for those feelings because they are REAL and we’ve all been scarred at one point or another or else we wouldn’t be here.

I will continue to have optimism and follow instructions to the best of my ability, but I will also continue to keep looking over my shoulder and keep an eye out for future betrayals like a jilted lover does with the one who keeps cheating on her over and over and over again

That’s amazing!
Lol, just started calculating when I’ll be back in onederland.
Probably 2 more months. Fingers crossed