Originally Posted by kcb0928

That is an amazing story and not very easy to come out with. I know how hard it can be to talk about things such as that. I admire you immensely for being able to be brave and honest enough with yourself and others to tell your story and dig deep within yourself to help others face what you may term a difficult past....
KCB: thank you for your warm and kind words - it is always comforting to be rewarded! Today I can easily, freely talk/write about this, but to reach the present, my ride has been very long and very bumpy!
My father molested my older sister How brave and what courage for you to write these words. Two special people in one sentence! And what tragedy!(she is 13 years older) for 10 years such a long time in a young person's life, it started when she was 6 your poor, poor sister - how desperate. I do not remember if there was anything in the form of sexual abuse done to me if you do want to find out, have you tried hypnotherapy? No doubt the truth, if indeed, will out, triggered by a repressed memorybut there was plenty of mental just as damagingand physicalhard to hide and still subject to being vulnerable. Years later the power of threat!we found out he molested my little brother (he is 6 years younger). He was 5 when he came to me about itwhat difficulty it must have been for him and what a shock for you. What courage for you both, also to be complicitous in secret. Everything went crazy after that. He was taken away b/c my mother wouldn't stay away from my father...she believed him over her childrenwas your Mother in an abusive relationship with your Father herself? She may well have been frightened or threatened..., which being a mother now completely astounds me. I was 11 almost 12 and went down hill, are you surprised??!I first turned to drugs and alcohol just think about the extraordinary recovery from substance abuse alone, not to mention the rest!then my mother died when I was 13, what a very vulnerable age at which to lose a parent, let alone one's Mother, for whatever she stood forshe had just gotten full custody back 3 weeks before she passed, small wonder huh? Must have been in Gods plan.....has that experience given you faith and strength therefrom?

So my sister whom I adore and always have took him and I in to her home with her 2 children and husband. What generosity, responsibility and courage from your sister and her husband. She must have a big heart and deep understanding and lots of loyalty, protection and affection for you and your brother!They have been the parents to me that mine could never be. What a strong woman your sister has had to turn out to be!It has been a long and painful process. Are you surprised?! I guess you could say that I started to turn to food when I could no longer turn to drugs. well, something had to replace the drugs!That was about the age of 15. I wanted something to take the pain away and when my sister went through the drug with-drawl process with me and basically had "tough love" that is another pure proof of the love your sister had then for you!I no longer did drugs...that is until I moved out at 17. so young and still so vulnerable to go solo! That is when I really started to gain the weight. In a year I gained close to 50lbs. however much, it seems a "small" price to pay for all you had been trough!

I got myself straight and stopped doing drugs completely when I turned 19, what remarkable fortitudeI also met my husband around this time. We were married when I turned 21...we got pregnant when I was 23. I went through post par-tum and then found out I am bipolar. Knowing where a problem is what it is and how to cure it is half a battle - the hard slog of recovery and acceptance in a totally different matter too All of the medicine they had me on trying to straighten my moods made me gain 60lbs in 3 months. Hopefully the moods are controlled, the healing in process and thanks to wls a solid road to recovery is leading the way for a new, happy and healthy life for youAnd I was not able to get it off at all no mater what I did. Thank God I am now ok...well most of the time ....

My husband and I will be married 6 years in September and it has been a rocky 6 years. The first few years can be terribly rocky when one marries young.We were so young when we married I sometimes look back and think that we really should have waited longer. We dated 5 months then were married a year later. He has cheated on me and I am in the process of trying to forgive as it happened in December of 2007. So as I have been going through the emotional changes from the surgery I am also going through the emotional roller coaster with my marriage and within myself. You appear to be a born survivor. Very hopefully you can salvage your marriage and strengthen it with time. If not, have the courage and acceptance of setting each other free to pursue new destinies, for the blossoming och each of you. As you have child/ren you'll no doubt have a strong sense of protecting them, inasmuch as you can.

I try to stay positive because I know first hand that life is way too short.....and what I live by is this.....Those who stare at the past have their backs to the future. What a strong attitude

I am keeping my head held high, my smile in place, and my hopes and dreams high. Sorry this was so long, I was just so inspired by the story that I also wanted to share to let people know there is a great and happy life ahead you just have to work for it and see the beauty of things not the bad.....

Originally Posted by fisher1000

I came back to this thread to post my 1000th post because I liked where this thread was taking me. I like introspection...over the years, I feel I've gotten quite good at analyzing me. I've also gotten good at lying to myself about where I fit in this world. What an admission! No doubt many of us behave in the same way!My niche has always been hazy and peripheral, but as days go by now, it's becoming more and more clear, more corporeal, more real.We all seem to need a perimeter, a safe net within which we can freely move. I am glad yours is taking shape.

In this moment, at midnight on March 21st, my mind is in the universe, wandering around trying to reconcile life, transformations, God, relationships, psychology, and tons of other stuff. I'm thinking about the outer reaches of the universe and what may be beyond that. Are there other universes? What is beyond the beyond? Considering the importance of each of these questions, it is really quite remarkable that we find enough time to process these thoughts, if not in one "session", at least through ruminations over time, snatched here and there, probably when things around our daily hustle and bustle have calmed down (midnight?!) Lying in bed and thinking in the dark, before falling asleep...

I wonder about that, and on that large scale, often. It is an attempt at breaking out of my own skin, my inner universe, and moving into a more theoretical space. I want to be outside my box at all times, I want to orbit my box, I want to be enlightened so much that I can never be back inside my box again. I bet you didn't think quite like this before your surgery? The empowerment that come with the surgery, cutting loose from the Mother stomach...

I don't need the safety of my previous life, BECAUSE NOW YOU HAVE IT AND WANT MOREI want to be excited now. in order to PHYSICALLY feel ALIVE I want to do the things that I didn't think I deserved to do, making up for lost time that I didn't feel worthy enough to do. I don't want to just sit around in the waiting room forever...I want to live. I want to live inside this new universe that I think about all the time. I like the freedom, even metaphorically speaking, that space affords. I've been in a box for a long time, I want to be free-floating and stellar. I bet the surgery has improved your breathing and thereby your physical sense of wellbeing

I want to be beyond everything I've known. I want to enjoy my 2nd chance, my reincarnation, my rebirth, my journey into my universe... because you appear happy and safe, even though you have many questions, many of which are in the process of being answered.

-Mike

Originally Posted by MiladyB

Vim, I appreciate this post so much. I feel it is so important to look deep within ourselves and attempt to understand. I find that those who call this "psychology stuff" actually have issues they are worried about confrontingI have always felt that if I could only "understand" I would have the strength to overcome. I often say that "knowledge is power"!This journey of understanding is what healed my inner self enough so that I could love myself enough to take the step of surgery. Agree, me tooI know that I would have never been able to take that step if I never came to the point where I could love myself. the magical point!

I started writing poetry about 10 years ago. I never dreamed that my writings would be my source of healing but they were. My poetry tells my story in ways I could never have told it before. I find it interesting how some people can be creative, find therapy in art forms and others just seize up!

For me, I didn't have a terrible life. I honestly was loved and treasured by both of my parents but there you go, you said it! BUT!my Mother held such feelings of guilt for the birth of my sister who was born with a physical handicap called Turners Syndrome. My mother saw that my sister struggled emotionally and physically in life because of her "difference" and she was always so afraid that I would "out shine" my sister tiger mama protecting her cub. The animal world is full of such stories of either protecting the damaged one or destroying it. In your case, your Mother "protected" your sisterso there was very little outward praise given to me. When I started to put on weight as a child I think it angered my mother. I think she felt that I was born healthy and that the struggles I was having with my weight were things within my control but the struggles my sister had physically were out of my sister's control. From an adult parent's point of view it is easy to understand. A child does not perceive the logic - instead it feels.

My issues with weight put a huge strain between my Mother and myself. same for me!I know she only wanted the best for me but her constant comments about "You would be so beautiful if you only lost weight." or..."Don't you want a boyfriend?"....Don't you ever want to get married and have children?" I called my Mother's praise "backhanded compliments" sweetness and sugar on top with a dagger hidden within!Well as a teenager all I heard in my head was....you are ugly and undesirable. I was not one to have friends in school. I was teased, laughed at and I would come home to comments about how it would be different if I lost the weight. Those comments weren't what I needed as a child...I just needed to be held oh, how I share that feeling!and my Mother just couldn't bring herself to do that. Tiger mama rejectionAs I result I grew up feeling like I was a disappointment to my Mother. and probably the way she perceived youAlmost every thought in my life, every decision was based on "would it make my mother happy?"..and I always felt as if I failed. That's a hard one to shake off!

I know my Mother loves me Do you know or are you trying to convince yourself that your Mother loves you? Is it what you know or is it what you want to feel? - at least the "love" could be defined on your Mother's scale of loveand that she was doing what she thought was best. Thankfully we are more knowledgeable in psychology today than 40 years ago!I know all she wanted was for me to have this wonderful life, without pain or struggle but the more weight I put on, the more she tried to control my life and I turned to food out of anger and to give me something I could control for myself. Your Mother and you could have been my Mother and I!

For all of my life until now, my weight always was an issue that placed a huge chasm between me and my Mother. exactly the same as in my caseShe was there when I needed her, she supported me but I always felt this wall that just didn't go away and the more weight I put on the wider and deeper that chasm became until I almost felt like her supportive words a point in my relationship with my own Mother that I battled with until she diedwere being yelled at me across the Grand Canyon. It had come to a point that she no longer would touch me and what hurt me the most was the day she admitted to me that she just couldn't bring herself to hugging me because my weight made her so uncomfortable. Even though my head told me I was loved....I never felt more unloved. again, exactly the same situation in our home!

I had to come to a point in my life where I allowed that inner child to scream, cry and I needed to allow myself to hold and comfort that child. That is what my poetry has done for me...and once I released all of that pain I was able to forgive and heal. Sometimes I go to a particular hill in Oxfordshire, on the Downs, where nobody can hear me. I scream at the top of my voice, until my lungs can no more. I let of steam and feel infinitely better. I warn my husband that I am going out for a scream! The primevial need to be set free!

Vim, the links on my signature are a blog I've started in regards to the road I have been on to my inner healing. The other is a collection of my poetry. I've always been hesitant to share it because it is so personal. I've never felt that anyone besides myself would understand the words but Jim talked me into blogging and bringing many of my words to light. So I've taken a huge step in faith by letting others read my words. and I for one am thrilled that Jim convinced you to post your poetry and blog. You are such an artist and a comfort to many according to this Forum and given time, to no doubt many more...

It kind of scares me to share some of my words. You know a lot of my poetry actually frightened me. So many of the words are so dark and tormented. I know it is some of the old tapes that still play in my head but I still worry about what people will think of me when they read poetry filled with such blackness. Your reaction is perfectly normal. As you have relatively recently delivered such an intimate part of yourself, one needs reassurance, gratification and recognition as well as acceptance to flourish. You have every reason to feel confidentI have to admit that it makes me feel very vulnerable but over the years I have seen over and over again how within my moments of greatest weakness I find my greatest strength. Who dares wins!

Vim, thank you for nudging my weakness out of me so that I can continue to heal.

Originally Posted by MiladyB

I just wanted to share this with those of you reading this thread. These were words that I gave myself one day as a gift. They were the words I so often longed to hear as a child...and I needed them to heal.

Originally Posted by fisher1000

I just love you, Vim! Thank you Mike! Compliment returned!

If we had been young together, what do you mean "if we had been"?! We ARE YOUNG NOW!we would have been great friends, I know it! I'm not as sure as you are: in those days we were both struggling with our own inner conflicts and preoccupied by that and possibly would not have had the wisdom we have acquired these last few years.I'm glad we're getting to know each other now. I agree wholeheartedly! My then 75 year old grandmother had loads of friends in the 20s and 30s - age matters little when the mind is on the same wavelength - she had experience and the youngsters were on the right track!The words we choose are so important, and I love that we share our words with each other...I couldn't agree more! I find it difficult though to be as eloquent and meaningful verbally! I am better at "condensing" my thoughts into words (far too many of them though! I'm working on that!

Happy Easter!

-Mike

Originally Posted by Persephone

I just wanted to point out that those sweet peppermints were a birthday gift to ME. I should have been allowed to dispose/digest of them as I saw fit. It seems that guilt has followed me all my life. Esp mommy guilt. Not a day passes that I don't feel guilty about something.. It eats me alive. I believe I must find the sorce of that and defeat it.

Originally Posted by Claire-in-Texas

Vim, both you and Mike give me wayyyy tooo much credit. Why do you say that Claire? Don't you deserve to be appreciated and valued? We obviously only know you "in word", but as that is all we have to go by, we have been able to refer to your posts many times to come to this conclusion!

I battle daily, sometimes minute to minute, from the scars of my childhood 60+ years is an amazing strength of impact and destruction and what an iron grip your Mother held over your lifeand right up to the day my mother died in 1994 - and since. I can relate to this as my struggles with my own Mother have lasted over 40 years and she died June 2007 - thankfully they are no longer struggles but "works in progress". I was born late in her life, with a 20 year old sister and a 16 year old brother. When my sister was 23 and I was 3, she (my sister) passed away of Leukemia. My mother got it in her mind that I was her punishment. Sounds like a heavy "religious" upbrining/influence: sin, right and wrong... Transposition through guilt: whenever we have something in our hands, we have to place it elsewhere - we in fact only transpose it elsewhere: from the laundry basket into the washing machine, the keys into the lock...I was sent by G-d as a poor replacement of the young woman He would take. It sounds to me as though your Mother felt guilty about your Sister's death ie. your Mother was not able to prevent it, thus making her a less competent Mother. To exonerate herself from that, she may have taken you as a scapegoat.And I grew up under that cloud - never good enough, never pretty enough, never smart enough, never talented enough, NEVER....... and then you presumably became a damn nuisance and hindrance to her. You "curtailed" her own life, you sat in the way?

My father was a wonderful man, but died when I was 20 (and was sickly throughout my life), and left me with my mother who tortured me emotionally until the day she died (at the age of 94).Resentment for leaving her in the situation of bereft Mother with a difficult child, and then widowed... In those days hard to cope with....

I turned to food at a young age, it was comforting and compelling.

As I said above, it is a constant battle of self talk (negative and positive) to fight the fight for my emotional self, and find the AUTHENTIC ME ( didn't think anyone read that one, Mike, except for you and me). There are times when I think I have found her, when I can touch her, feel her. But then there are times when the AUTHENTIC ME is lost somehow. The "Authentic Me" sounds like my little "Shoulder Friend", the little inner voice that keeps us on the straight and narrow.

There is, of course, a lot to this story, but the above outline gives you a sense of my struggle to surface my AUTHENTIC ME, to get to know her. I am not there yet. Today I am definitely not there. I wish you strength, courage and inspiration on your continued journey. I see you love travelling but this one is without maps and somewhat more tricky, right? I'm sure you'll get there, even if you arrive in the dark, in the rain and when tired but you'll get there!

I am in my third marriage - what does that tell you about the Claire you think you know who always knows the right thing to do....??????? That perhaps the Claire that has made it to the Forum is not the Claire that was married once, twice... Perhaps 3rd time lucky and that luck led you indirectly to wls?

There is a lot of unhappiness within me, scars that will never heal, pain that I feel all the time. and all those are what make you the very compassionate, caring, fun, loving woman that we all turn to for comfort here.I have abandonment issues and am insecure.and your honesty and declaration thereof make you even more "human" even more identifiable with us I never knew what loving a mother was like, and I was relieved when she died. It's painful as I write this, and it's cathartic at the same time.My life started the day my Mother died in June last year.

The joyful Claire is true, though. It's not an act. It's not forced. It's the AUTHENTIC ME that I would be all the time if not for the scars. Survival of the fittest! It will get stronger with time, determination, effort, patience and courage!

What drove me to wls was pain of a different type - excruciating pain in my back (spinal stenosis - degenerative lumbar spine disease). It was either lose weight FAST or be in lala land from pain pills. My quality of life was gone, sometimes we need physical manifestations to take notice and respondmy marriage was therefore not fulfilling for the most part (nor was it for my husband). Now, one year (almost) post op, and I still am battling my demons, but they are in a different form than food - and even more painful without the food that comforted me for soooo many years. have you been able to "transpose" your comfort eating into something else? Something that I am working on now and as yet not finding a reply to!

Everyone has a story to tell.....Vim, thank you for this thread.

Originally Posted by splendifor

Hello all.

Eating for me is complicated. Looking back on my childhood I can see an easy out - my parents were OBSESSED with what I ate and had all kinds of rules about what was "ok" vs. "not-ok" to eat and I REBELLED like crazy. Jacki, sounds like your parents were anxious to be seen to do the right thing, to conform to society to feel normal.My sister and I were adopted by the people I still call my parents when I was almost 5 years old. Adoption alone is a huge subject for ANYONE to overcome, let alone the eating aspec that has led us all onto this Forum. You indeed have/had your work cut out!I became "the bad kid" when a dog becomes "bad" it is seeking attention through a form of behaviour it knows will solicit an immediate responseand they tried all kinds of weird ways to "fix" me. What I know now is that I was a kid that had a low frustration tolerance and would cry/become angry easily, was very fearful and would refuse/have dramatic struggles with trying new things (like riding a bike); are you dyslexic? My son started off with a low tolerance level, only to be found aged 8 to be dyslexic. Once we knew what his "problem" was, we had a course of action to follow to try to help him and thankfully through patience and gathering of information we were all able to conquer his dyslexiaand I didn't talk to people about what was going on with me - ie: thoughts and feelings. So my parents would see all this emotionality and I wouldn't tell them what was going on. (It didn't help that both of them had very low levels of empathy or ability to understand the world from a child's perspective.) Hence your adoptive parents were obviously not the ones you felt you wanted to "confide" in or whom you could entrust your innermost feelings to?One time I had a bicycle accident (largely caused by my dad, but that's too long a story) and was bleeding profusely. My dad and mom rushed me into the car and took me to the hospital - on the way my dad turned back and said, "Don't bleed on the car." He meant well enough but it was a crazy thing to say. THAT is one of my best examples of what I'm talking about. I learned to turn away from feelings because they were messy and inconvenient. The more we cram into the "repression room" the more it becomes a ticking bomb which will burst open one day!

Surprise surprise here I am decades later and I work with families that are in trouble. I realize now that I use food as a way to silence my "needs" and to just plow ahead to the next thing and the next and the next. The other day I had a stressful session with a mother and was driving away and all I wanted to do was to go to a restaurant and be "fed" by someone. i.e. nurtured and loved? I realized that I was tired - physically, emotionally, and socially. I didn't want to go to the office and do paperwork (which was my plan). I wanted sleep, and to read a book and to experience some silence. But that was inconvenient. I realized that the neglect had started the night before because I hadn't gotten enough sleep, and that morning because I hadn't brought any protein shakes with me.. A major achievement I find is being able to source a problem and understand its mechanism! I believe in the restorative, healing powers of sleep! And there was a part of me that was irritated with the idea that it would take time to recoup - time I didn't want to spend taking a walk, getting a nap, eating well rather than fast, taking time to write in my journal about how I was affected by the events of the day... Perhaps you would benefit from a "sleep holiday" i.e.to have a 20 minute nap for a couple of weeks or so, just to gather strenght physically and therefrom emotionally. Even if you are working, I'm sure there is somewhere quiet where you can go, or curl up in your car at lunchbreak.

Right now I see the biggest challenge before me as making a priority of taking better CARE of myself rather than silencing those needs (have you seen my thread "Thinking in First Person"?so I can hurry why the rush? Enjoy what you are doing as you are doing it - you will be rewarded by the sense of achievement for each taskonto the next thing. The part of me that is impatient sees this as inefficient but I think in the long run it will actually be a more durable way to manage myself than I have ever used before.. if I can just get there. You will get there though it may take a little time. You are already on the right path and I wish you continued success.

Vim - love this post, thank you for starting the conversation and now I'm going to go read the other pages!

Jacki