Where to begin…I will be honest. I don’t know where to begin. So I will just start writing my feelings.
I have officially graduated massage therapy school. That was 7 1/2 months of fast paced learning. Thank the Divine there were no English classes or Microsoft word classes. I don’t understand how I can be a writer, yet my grammer and English are like “my own language” I dont understand how I can make 98% in Algebra and struggle so horribly with computers.
Oh well, I suppose it is just part of what I am put on Earth to overcome.
Massage Therapy school was a real trip. The very first week I was faced with A&P and that was great. I know the body pretty well. I will never forget the day the teacher asked the TWO reasons why we breathe in Oxygen. I raised my hand and said to breathe in Oxygen so we could transform it to nutrients for our bodies. The teacher was happy with that answer and then I gave her the second reason.. So we can breathe out Carbon Dioxide for the trees and plants.
Dead silence in the entire class as the teacher asks… is that the only reason?? And I repy… its the only one I can think of… YES>.. color me a tree hugger… I wear the tag proudly. I think it made quite the impression for my first week of class.
Life is never dull when I am around it’s true. Very quickly in school I am labeled as ADHD… even as child I could not sit still in class. These days I just laugh off the ADHD label and tell them I am Attuned Daily to Higher Dimensions.
School was much harder at the age of 40 PLUS(COUGH, COUGH) … I think I did quite well. Especially trying to live and thrive with my world falling apart so it could fall into place.
Not only had I taken on the intellectual challenge of school, but I had been quite inspired by a book a very dear friend had given me… maybe you read it too… Eat Love Pray… oh there were so many lessons for me in that book… So I suppose a lot of people thought I had lost my mind. With all the things going on in my life I had also started taking some holistic and alternative medicine courses and I even worked with a Shaman. A Shaman you ask.. well yes. Remember the Medicine man in Eat Love Pray? I figured I was willing to do whatever it took to change my direction.
You know I have gotten to a place in my life that I have no regrets. Each place I have been in life has left me with life lessons.. VERY valuable lessons. I suppose if nothing else working with a Shaman helped me to see that. What helped me most through my journey was a good therapist.
You got that right.
Let me begin by telling you, I started going to therapy on JULY5, 2008. I remember it to the day.. It was the first day she was open after Independence day and I was in search of freedom. I did not go to a therapist by choice. No way, being raised up in the country I had a “negative” programming in my mind about therapist. The thought process in the country was you only see a therapist for one of 2 reasons…1. Because you are crazy and 2. Because you are looking for a diagnosis that leads to disability and a check… and I was neither. I was just confused and off path. I call my ending up in therapy “Divine Intervention”… and it was one of the best things I have ever done.
I went in fighting and kicking. Unfortunately I was one of the bariatric patients who transfer addicted. That means I went from using food as a crutch to ——- other crutches. While still in WV my crutch had become exercise. I went to the gym 3 hours a day. Then it became protein drinks, I began to hord them. I had 21 flavors at any given time and more than one jog of several of them. Then it became reconstructive surgery as I had 5 in one year and had the 6th one scheduled for the morning of July 28, 2006. Instead of going for the surgery I packed my bags in the car after my WASband left for work and I drove to Florida to live.
I suppose I was also addicted to his abusive behavior and had found myself done with it. Unfortunately I carried the baggage for years to come. See, I really can’t “blame” everyone else. Part of my healing is stepping up and taking responsibility and owning my part in my life.
When I moved to Florida for awhile my new addiction was shopping. I took $500 and spent it at TJMax one day. I never even took the bag in the apartment, instead the next day after work I took the bag to a different TJMax and traded the merchandise… again bringing to my car $500 worth of merchandise that I never even took inside my home.
I did this on a daily basis, until I became bored with it.. then
I became a Serial Dater. That’s right.. I was addicted to Match.com, Italian People Meet and Plenty of Fish. I had a date with a different man lined up for everyday of the week. I was often disappointed because they would find some reason not to like me, or even worse to like me TOO much and expect to GOOGLE me on the first date. Oh yes that led to them finding my blog and asking me all about the 200 pounds that I had lost. I often got couldn’t you just diet…
sigh
And god forbid they liked me so much they wanted to do the funky chicken dance on the first date.. Geeze you buy a girl a drink or dinner and you think you are entitled to…UMMMM no
After awhile my addiction combined with my loneliness led to a continued state of searching outside myself for love and happiness. Each day after work I would stop at a local Italian restaurant and have an appetizer and a drink. One thing for certain, southern charm will get you plenty of free drinks. So I never had a empty glass.
One night after having too many.. I thought maybe I and the world around me would be better off if I wasn’t in it. I was angry at my best friend, and realized she and I were fighting more than we got along. Again, this is not blame. I had known for awhile we were on different paths, only I kept hanging on. I was actually clinging to hang on to the friendship. I often ask myself now… did I think I my path was right and hers was wrong? Was I so codependent that I did not think I could survive without the friendship? I could not ask the questions back then, because I would numb the feeling with a drink.
Getting intoxicated and numbing your senses and THEN trying to make your point in a public place…not a good plan. So being in a state of unawareness I went home and drank more, wrote good bye letters to everyone and went to end it all. Thank the Divine I had a friend staying with me that night who loved me enough to call 911 and do an intervention.
I was angry at first, but it probably.. no it definitely changed my life in the right direction.
I was in the hospital for about a week… then I had to find out patient care. This is where my therapy began. I was 5 years post op at the time, and remember I was carrying the negative thinking about therapy that I had been programmed with. Therapy was my Divine Intervention. Although I went into it in a state of fear… oh yes. My poor therapist is an angel, a saint and peace carrying soul. My first words to her was “I do not like therapists.” I explained that if you break the word down it spells THE-rapist.. I told her I would give her 6 weeks to make me better.. that I did not have time for her and needed to be back in a space where I could function as the social butterfly, carry a drink glass around and nurse it for hours but not have the “need” to drink.
Oh boy.. I wonder if she thought to herself this ungrateful little bitch? Then, I know she didn’t simply because of the things she has helped me to see about myself. I was reacting out of fear. I was hurt and afraid and still carrying baggage from childhood on top of all the other crap I was continuing to accumulate.
Now, I look back at the pre op psych screening and I realize what a joke it is. They do not prepare us for the emotions that will surface with the weightloss. Often there are reasons we numbed ourselves with food, reasons we built an armor of adipose tissue. The surgery leaves us quite exposed.
Insurances are so keen to demand a years worth of medically supervised dieting, when a years worth of therapy would benefit so much more.
You may look at me and say NOT EVERYONE has the transfer addiction. Or that not everyone gets obese because of emotional issues ect… Ok.. and I said that too for years. It was just another mask to hide behind. Yes, I know there are medical issues out there that do cause weight gain/obesity and that it is true some people just love to eat.. and the weight loss surgery itself restricts intake…. but please look at this realistically, with an open heart, and honestly. If you lie about these issues you are lying to yourself. Healing begins with awareness and facing your fears.
Thank you for reading my blog…
Hugs,
Miss T
I remember in doing the research before I had my WLS, I found that there were 2 indicators for long term success. First was a positive attitude… the second was therapy… I went through 6 months of therapy before my surgery… I did it because I knew that something had to change. When I made my appointment for the pre surgery psych assessment, I knew that I was intelligent enough to pass with flying colors… I know all the buzz words to say, and the perfect affect to give off… but I also knew the only one I would be hurting was myself.
I requested to work with the therapist during the six months I had to take to jump through the insurance hoops. We met twice a week to start, tapering off slowly at the end…I made myself a promise when I started… I would be totally honest about everything. No matter what. I had to get to the bottom of why I was obese. I knew it was more then what I was eating and how much. Obesity it self was a shield, it was a way of keeping myself safe, and as so many times in the past, when I lost weight only to gain it back plus more, if I did not deal with those issues, not even having the surgery could keep me from regaining the weight I would loose through the surgery.
I already had dealt with other addictions… I knew how easy it was to transfer those addictions to other substances and behaviors. My point in having the surgery was to become healthy, not just physically but mentally, emotionally and spiritually… Getting therapy before and after surgery has become my own personal soap box..
and for the record Miss T… your blog was one of those that I started reading during my research… and was one of the ones that helped me to understand the importance of both attitude and therapy… thank you for forging the path.
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