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

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

I am proud to think of you both as Bariatric Pals.

I don't know...maybe I need to just drink the Kool-aid and post some before and after pics and say "yeah me! I'm beautiful, skinny and cured!!"

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

I realize that I act like a total git sometimes, but the truth is that we are all right there with you. Did some people have crappy childhoods? Yes. Poor examples? Most totally.

I had my share of smaller issues growing up, but I was looking around at the adults at our wedding this week (more or less a huge family reunion on that side.) The kids still in their 20's look great. To a person we all put on weight in our 30s. It's a constant struggle for almost everyone else. I can think of 4 diabetics. It's scary.

So there is a lot deeper to this, and I guess the message I want to give you is that as special as you are, you're not alone. Not one of us is, if we're honest.

I agree with Rev. Laura, you are more in tune with the meaning of all of this I believe. You are in no way more fucked up than anyone, you are just one of the few that are bringing the darkness into the light. I personally think that's what will make you successful in the long run. Not only that but you are helping others along the way. You admit you don't know it all but you open up the conversation to important issues. That's what I and many others admire about you. Your threads have hundreds of responses from people who have similar issues.

There are times I wonder how any of us can believe getting to some line-in-the-sand goal weight is the end of the journey. That at that point all our troubles will be over and we'll be "real" - a real human. I've been at goal several times and it never solved anything. I was still the same consummately fucked up person I've always been, just momentarily happier with how I looked. I am deathly afraid of arriving at that same point again, on the brink of self-sabotage. I love food. I miss food. I'm really good at hiding what I eat. I see hints of a return to that even now.

I don't know I understand all of what you said, Revs, but it obviously struck a chord. We're all fucked up in our own special way and every family is disfunctional in its own special way. Lucky us for finding food as a cure, eh?

There are times I wonder how any of us can believe getting to some line-in-the-sand goal weight is the end of the journey. That at that point all our troubles will be over and we'll be "real" - a real human. I've been at goal several times and it never solved anything. I was still the same consummately fucked up person I've always been, just momentarily happier with how I looked. I am deathly afraid of arriving at that same point again, on the brink of self-sabotage. I love food. I miss food. I'm really good at hiding what I eat. I see hints of a return to that even now.

I don't know I understand all of what you said, Revs, but it obviously struck a chord. We're all fucked up in our own special way and every family is disfunctional in its own special way. Lucky us for finding food as a cure, eh?

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-

Laura, I also just wanted to say that it's possible your burnout is from caring too much here. You have been a great supporter of so many newbies and I am grateful. But I also know that in the month I have been active there have already been a number of times I see the "same" questions/justifications/issues raised over and over. You have generally been very patient as these things come up again and again. And it is probably frustrating at best to be earnestly making peace with your past and then hearing different people continually come to the forum and not understand what they're undertaking.

I may be overstepping here, but I do hope if you take a break that you come back quickly. You would be greatly missed.

I was always a very healthy and athletic child. I definitely took after my Italian side, short, "solid" and muscular. I was never the skinny teen, with more curves and boobs, but I never got larger than a size 1/2 up until college.

My mom was a terrible cook. We lived on hot dogs, pot pies (Swanson!), Gordon's fish sticks, and spaghetti. Every once in awhile, my mom would make some effort and we would have hamburger helper or tacos but she never enjoyed cooking so it was rare. Add to the fact that she was cheap as the day is long, so if a meal cost more than $0.03 per serving, we weren't eating it.

I'm not fat because my mom fed me with love, I'm fat because my (size 2/4) mom was ALWAYS on diet. She drank TAB by the caseload. She tried smoking for about a week because she heard it would make her skinny. She was always on the cabbage diet, or a cleanse diet, or any other 70s/80s fad diet you can imagine. She never tried to put me on these diets, but she was the queen of denying me food because she was denying herself unless she was on a between diet binge. As far as goodies were concerned, it was feast or famine at my house and believe me, feasts were few and far between.

We didn't have good nutritious food and we didn't have snack food. We ate high carb, processed, full of fat food three times a day (Spam anyone?). Period. That's it. Everything else was forbidden so it made it all the more delightful when I was out at a friend's house or somewhere else I could get by greedy little paws on food. ANY food. And when I could, I ate. And ate. AND ATE. (One day I will tell you about the time I found the Bacos stash in home ec.)

Fortunately, I was a very active teen. I played travel soccer, I was a cheerleader, I swam and was a year round lifeguard and it was only these activities that saved me from blooming like a pig once I could get around by myself. We lived in the middle of no where so there wasn't much for fast food except a McD's, a Taco Johns a a few pizza places in town.

When my parents divorced, I had a bedroom at both houses, but my mom moved to town. I stayed with her most nights but at that point, she stopped cooking and any food she bought, she kept in her room or on "her shelf" in the fridge, and I was not allowed to touch it. By this point I could finally drive, and I ate out all the time. My portions were always big because I knew I wouldn't be eating at home but because we never had food at home, I never really plumped. While my mom never pointedly fat shamed ME, she did constantly make fat comments about herself and others I knew were directed at me in some bizarre passive aggressive way. I matched her diet for diet as far as she knew while eating crap anytime I could to spite her.

Enter college and say hello to fatness! I went to college on a very urban campus. I had a meal ticket and lived within walking distance to several restaurants and even better, A GROCERY STORE!! I never went home for holidays or weekends unless the college was closing, preferring to stay at my dorm/apartment/with a friend. I made it a point to eat every bit of forbidden food that I could afford. I ate it by the bagful, binge after binge. Never did it occur to me to eat anything healthy because we didn't do that at home. I never developed too much of a sweet tooth because when my mom would binge, it was Cookies and ice cream so those foods didn't hold the forbidden appeal that everything else did.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I ate because I finally could. I ate processed shitted because that's all I knew. I ate in HUGE portions because that was my habit. I ate in secret because I knew what I was doing was "against the rules" and wrong.

My sleeve keeps me from doing that for now. FOR NOW. (And yes, that scares me.) I am working really hard to relearn portion size and healthy balance. I cannot deny myself anymore because since college, I've been on deprivation diet after deprivation diet, only driving myself to binge more once I couldn't take it any more.

I have got to convince myself that nothing is forbidden anymore and that I am not on a "diet". I have to teach myself that I can have whatever I want, whenever I want, as long as I make good healthy choices first. I have to teach myself that there will always be more food later and that there is no need to binge now. And I have to teach myself that no one is judging me so there is no need to eat in secret.

This is why I can not and will not say NO NEVER to any food because I know exactly where that will drive me. I've had enough shame instilled in me and I refuse to do it to myself. I purposefully keep candy and Snacks and chips and crap in my house for my kids and they could care less about it. I'm trying hard to break the cycle I learned growing up and my sleeve is helping me maintain control while I heal my mind...

PHEW. I hope all that made sense. I think I just verbally vomited all over myself but I am too tired to go back and read all that shitted to see if I was at all easy to understand.

That was incredibly easy shitted to understand, LSL. What a story!

And I'm going to give this subject more thought, because elaborate food was love in my household growing up…and perhaps also in my current one. Other kids had mac-n-cheese and hot dogs; we had fettucine alfredo and veal marsala. Shopping, preparing, planning…it was all a huge deal. Both of my parents are very good in the kitchen, and so are most of us kids.

Maybe it's a better problem to have, but it's still problematic. Like I said, I need to ponder.

That was incredibly easy shitted to understand, LSL. What a story!

And I'm going to give this subject more thought, because elaborate food was love in my household growing up…and perhaps also in my current one. Other kids had mac-n-cheese and hot dogs; we had fettucine alfredo and veal marsala. Shopping, preparing, planning…it was all a huge deal. Both of my parents are very good in the kitchen, and so are most of us kids.

Maybe it's a better problem to have, but it's still problematic. Like I said, I need to ponder.

No problem is "better" than any other it's just different. Compare me to others who have parents with addictions or no parents or abusive parents and my life was phenomenal. I have a good relationship with my mom and a great one with my dad now and it's ME that I need to fix. I can't forever blame them for my decisions now, I just have to adjust what I learned growing up. I think we all have that in common.

I also think we all have to remember that we will forever be a work in process, because as long as we are aging, we are evolving and we are growing. It's up to us to grow in a healthy manner and fix what we need to fix along the way.

It is interesting though. The common theme that I see is that food is not just fuel to any of us. Regardless of what our parents did or didn't do, said or didn't say, etc, food in some way played a bigger part in our lives than in others'.

My husband once said to me about an ex-girlfriend, "She sometimes would forget to eat! Can you imagine?" And neither of us really could. The older I get and the more involved with my work I get, I see it now, but I have been well and truly conditioned to start worrying about what I'm going to make for dinner by mid-afternoon.

So, in the spirit of solidarity let me say about my parents, "Those bastards!" and then move on.

None of us grew up in a vacuum. I was about to write that I blame only myself, which is, to an extent, true, but damn if I can't point to where I learned that self blame, self hatred.

Fucking catholicism.

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.

Oh sure, clean up my cursing now! I guess fucking is bad but fucked up is ok.

So many kinds of wrong, there!