Weight Loss Surgery
Should you tell people what you’re planning?
There is no right or wrong answer on the topic of should or shouldn’t you tell your family and friends if you’re planning to have weight loss surgery.
However, there does seem to be a growing wave of opinion that leans towards ‘strictly on a need to know basis’, and even then, only maybe!
Most of us spend time with family and friends. Most of those family and friends will be aware that a) you are overweight, and b) you are unhappy about the situation and have tried many times to do something about it.
These days, with so many cases of weight loss surgery, of whatever type being in the press and on TV, most people would be vaguely familiar with the concept. You might think then that to hear that a friend or family member wouldn’t be overly shocked to be told that was what you were planning.
I did tell people I was going to have weight loss surgery. Not everyone, but people who, at the time, I trusted.
In my experience, the people included in my ‘friends and family’ group, fell into one of two camps.
There was the camp that were 100% behind me, and were only too happy to help and support me in whatever I felt I had to do to get to where I wanted to be. Then there was the other camp who looked at me horrified.
Initially, I gave them credit for being worried about the outcome. I.e. would I live through it? There is no denying that weight loss surgery is a risky business; so I took their apprehension for worry and concern.
However, the truth was it wasn’t me they were worried about atall. It was themselves.
You see, when I was fat, and before weight loss surgery had even entered my mind, I had fairly low expectations of myself and of other people. Most of my family were fairly hefty also, and consequently, family get-togethers generally focused on meals of one kind or another. We could all sit and eat, knowing that none of us should really be stuffing our faces continually, but we all did it anyway.
We all felt safe and secure, surrounded by other fat people.
When I mentioned weight loss surgery and they realized that one of the fat people was going to become un-fat, they couldn’t cope. I wondered if it was because seeing someone break away from the group highlighted the fact that they weren’t going to be changing, yet deep down they wanted to. They were having to face that for whatever reason, they weren’t able to make the change, although they were desperate to. One of them said ‘Hmmm, weight loss surgery? Have you tried just eating less?’
I nearly fell of my chair.
For thirty years I’d been very overweight, for nearly forty years this person had known me, yet they didn’t know me well enough to think I just might have tried that already!
For most of my life, I’ve been overweight. When my sister entered her teenage years, she started piling on the pounds also. Throughout our adult lives, we were always starting diets and falling off them most spectacularly. Sometimes I would do well, other times she would do better; but all the time, down to me understanding completely the misery I felt at being fat, I always willed her onwards, even when I was stumbling; and I thought that she did the same for me.
On a night out, when I’d lost many stones by that point and was fitting into my tight jeans and generally feeling much more presentable and certainly attracting a lot more male attention, I had a jacket tied round my waist. My eyes didn’t yet quite believe what the mirror was showing them, and I was still a little paranoid about having tops tucked into bottoms.
After a few drinks, the Dutch courage arrived and I went to take off the jacket. My sister looked at me and just gave a little shake of the head, ’No, leave it on.’
Thanks heavens I thought, she can obviously see a muffin top that I can’t, and has saved me from looking like a fat fool poured into a pair of too tight jeans. I went to the bar, relieved.
Waiting to be served, a man I’d never met, stopped as he went past. ‘Why have you got that tied round there?’ Indicating the jacket. ‘It makes your backside look twice the size it is.’
I laughed it off, thinking, ‘oh, ok, I understand now.’ I got my drink and returned to where my sister and her friends were. I said nothing, but made a mental note. Inside, my heart was breaking at all the years of deceit, but I smiled even more on the outside because I knew that I was grabbing my second chance.
All the years I’d believed that she had been genuinely wishing me onwards and upwards, just like I’d been doing for her, came tumbling down. I could then see that it was just about her feeling safe because I was fatter, and that made her look smaller.
So if I was to have weight loss surgery again, would I tell people? I would be very careful of who I told. Some people just can’t cope with feeling left behind. Some people worry that you will change and they won’t know you. The truth is, you will change; but not into someone new, you will find the freedom to be the person you always were but was hidden away under a layer of fat and chocolate, and that’s a good thing.
For me, weight loss surgery has opened my eyes wide. People who I genuinely thought would be a part of my life forever, showed me their true colours and I bid them farewell.
On the other hand, people who didn’t know me atall but have seen my face in the street and have watched it shrinking have come up to me saying how proud they are to have watched a person jump at a chance and run with it. Others have said how they wish they were brave enough to do it; and those are the people that truly understand the sadness that being so overweight can make a person feel.
So, should you tell your nearest and dearest you’re going to have weight loss surgery?
How well do you know them?
How will you cope with their reactions?
Can you cope without them if it comes to that and would it actually make any difference if they knew anyway?
