EDIT: Thinking of making this a journal like thread. I've read a few of them already and I like their format. Just kind of keeps everyone in the loop. I just hope I don't come across as conceited
This comes from Beth In Texas' thread of what made you decide to want WLS. I started typing and it just came tumbling out. Long post:
I decided to get WLS almost two years ago. The reason I did it was not because I had any psychical problems, but more of being mentally ill.
I was always overweight my whole life. I was accepted but held at arms' length by my entire family (except my parents) because of my weight. I was always picked on in middle school and it just got worse in high school. So much so, that I had to drop out.
I was house-bound for a year and a half before I got treatment. I went into acting (my true passion still), got my GED, met my ex, went on some anti-depressants and got an office job all by the age of seventeen and a half. Even though I was happy, my weight always became an issue with me. I lost and gained thirty pounds through out seven months and I never could see my positive qualities without thinking that I'm a failure by being overweight. I had a "breakdown" and was hospitalized for a suicide attempt. I was later diagnosed as having Bi-polar with social anxiety disorder (now called social phobia).
After I was released from the hospital, my ex broke up with me after a year and a half, I quit my job and I abandoned acting. I was house-bound again because I tried so many times to diet, only to fail
and because I heard through my ex friends and my family members that they didn't want to associate with me anymore because I was officially nuts. This was during the summer of last year.
I decided that if I wanted my mental illness to calm down, I would need to lose weight. I talk to my PCP about dieting and she suggested the Lapband at the beginning of fall . I looked into it and I said, "Okay". I started the six month diet and went into a bariatric program.
As I realized that there might be an end at the end of the tunnel, I went to college full time to study theater and started to have a sort of normal social life.
During the middle of the semester, I got entirely different meds and I attempted suicide again. I quit school, I got out, got into an IOP program, gained more weight and got stable enough to leave and contemplate my life. I decided that I would need to be focused to not be crazy and try to lose weight...for the hundredth time. I was still on the six month diet and only had two more months to go.
I got a regular therapist that I still see once a week and life was better. I had another psych test done during January this year and I was re diagnosed as having Recurrent Major Depressive Disorder, social phobia and Avoidant Personality Disorder.
I went back to school in spring of this year and decided to pursue a different career option: criminal psychology. I passed my classes with A's and B's and went into summer classes.
As I went into my summer semester, the hospital I originally wanted to go for WLS, to changed management and my case got handed to a not so nice case manager. I dropped them like a hot brick and switched hospitals.
Then I started to look into RNY because I was having doubts about having a device inside me. I also thought too that if I was serious, I would make this thing permanent.
It is now the fall semester, midterms are coming up, I'm the smartest kid in class and I got approved, even though my psych history is a little messed up. I know this surgery won't solve my problems; in fact it might bring up more. However, I can't stay the same weight I am currently and say that I'm happy.
I know that many people will come out of the woodwork saying that I'm still not stable enough, but whatever. I am mentally healthy enough to say, "Screw you!"
