Hi Denise!
Thank you for your words of encouragement and trust me I don't take offense to your suggestion of finding someone to talk to after the surgery. I'm all too aware of all the things that got me diagnosed with "situational depression" in the first place. My weight is just a piece of that puzzle and I know it - and I also know that this tool will not magically fix all the issues I deal with on a daily basis.
I'm the kind of person that feels like they could eat an elephant a bite at a time - ok maybe that's a bad analogy - but what I mean is that yes I want to work on all the issues I have, but this tool will be a great place to start because I seem to have the biggest problem with my self esteem and it's my outter personal image that disturbs me most. I've more or less just become a shell (an overweight one at that) of the happy person I used to be. I've always been taught that you cannot expect to truly love or be loved by others until you can love yourself. I feel that love should be unconditional and right now, well I'm not feeling that love for myself (in body form). Now, I love the person I am inside - granted it's DEEP inside right now and I tend to lose touch more and more with that inner me because of the outter stuff I have to deal with. I just more or less exist when things are stressful, it becomes too much to cope with efficiently.
I have seriously been considering setting up an appointment for my husband and I to see a counselor together. We both have our issues and sometimes our issues feed off each other's and well, need I say it's not pretty?
In the past, I have had a hard time being comfortable with some counselors as they seemed very impersonal and I read that as judgemental (it's a self esteem issue). I am comfortable with the pastor of my parents' church so I will probably see if I can meet with him on a regular or even semi-regular basis (he lives about 45 minutes from me but drives on Wednesdays and Sundays for church services). I just need to talk to him about it as he and I have spoken in depth about things before and he's just so real and 'in touch' that he's very easy to talk to.
Ok wow, I didn't mean to go off on that tangent...Sorry about that