January 25, 2008

before & after pics, and a long ramble...

these photos are going to be on tv soon, so i better get used to people seeing them..... air date is now set for february 7th, 11pm on channel 3. (there will be a link to the story, so anyone can see it after it airs and i can post the link on my blog.)

me at my heaviest in 2001 (300 pounds.) the pic on the left is a week before surgery, and the one on the right is me right after surgery.
yeah, anyone who says gastric bypass is "the easy way out" can kiss my ass. being cut open from bellybutton to breast bone is not "easy". coming home with a foot long gash on your abdomen is not "easy".


my "pretty woman" dress trying on phase. i kept the tags on them, thankfully.....much easier to return!


these are my favorite skinny pics. more so because miles and maggie are in them with me. but i liked the outfit and the haircut wasn't so bad... i wasn't at my actual thinnest here, but close. probably weighing about 150.
i can't decide which is worse, seeing the before or after pics. i am uncomfortable with all of them. when dan & i started dating, i didn't want him to see the pics of me at my thinnest. i guess i thought he might see them and think, "hey, i got ripped off! i want to date the skinnier version!" (thankfully, that was not the case and groundcat likes me for me.)

it was interesting, seeing the reporter's reaction to my photos. she said neither set looked like me! and she pointed out how confusing it must have been for me, looking so drastically different in such a short span of time. during the interview she asked me about that. i tried to explain how i felt almost "alien", that my body didn't feel like it belonged to me, and how i didn't recognize myself in the mirror.
losing weight is a positive experience. losing 150 pounds in a year was.... amazing and exhilarating. but it was also confusing as hell. the attention i got was nice, but after a while it hurt my feelings. was i so hideous before?
at one point i saw some coworkers i hadn't seen in a year. when they saw me (after surgery & at my thinnest) some of them actually cried! they ran up and hugged me and cried. i didn't know how to take that.
going from 300 pounds to 150 in a year..... i've tried to explain the feeling...... i ended up feeling not only physically vulnerable, but emotionally as well. i was just very fragile and raw. and then, when i was not at my strongest, life hit me below the belt. here's a list of a few of the things that i dealt with:

1. i went through 2 very messy and painful relationships
2. i put my dog miles to sleep
3. i helped a friend's husband get into the surgical program and he died having the surgery
4. david (who had been my roommate when i had the surgery) moved out
5. then rachel moved out of the house and the tenants who moved in were....difficult
6. i had major surgery to have a large hernia repaired and 15 pounds of skin removed from my abdomen (that surgery was incredibly grueling and painful and i had a horrible recovery.)

the other thing going on was "malabsorption". they bypass up to 5 feet of intestine so that if you eat fatty foods, you don't absorb them as much. but this also leads to problems absorbing things your body needs, like vitamins and calcium. people were starting to show signs of early osteoporosis after WLS! we were lectured on taking additional vitamins and calcium supplements.

they didn't talk about prescription medication as much. the low dose of antidepressants i had taken for years suddenly stopped working. and my sleeping pill, that had worked for years, now only allowed me to sleep for 4 hours instead of 8.

so, somewhere in that difficult mix, i started drinking wine. no one had warned us about the strange effects of alcohol. i was 32 yrs old, and all of a sudden a single glass of wine gave me an amazing "buzz". this was new and never happened prior to surgery. something about the bypassed intestine triggers a strange effect with folks... plus, a few glasses of red wine along with an ambien helped me sleep.

(this is going to be part of the news story, & the reporter has details on a recent study regarding WLS patients and the odd effects of alcohol...)

i spent almost 2 years in a state of deep pain, a severe depression. no one knew what to do with me. i had succeeded at WLS and was thin, so why was i so miserable? my family, friends, even my doctor, were at a loss.

so how did i heal? how did i finally get out of this depression? i finally found a good therapist, and my doctor found a medication that helped with anxiety and depression. that's the short answer. more on that another time......

14 comments:

copaX said...

I have to second monica's reaction. neither set looks like you. Not saying you looked hideous or gorgeous, just saying neither set looks like "you", the "you" I know.

I'm looking forward to watching the interview, I'm proud of you for having the courage to openly discuss your past experiences like this, and I'm hopeful that I can someday achieve the level of acceptance you have towards life and what it throws at you.

GLITTERGIRL said...

listen pal, don't make me cry at work!!!

seriously, thanks for saying that....

:)

GLITTERGIRL said...

listen pal, don't make me cry at work!!!

seriously, thanks for saying that....

:)

GLITTERGIRL said...

listen pal, don't make me cry at work!!!

seriously, thanks for saying that....

:)

GLITTERGIRL said...

awesome, 3 posts in a row!!!

time to go home. this has been the longest week!

Anonymous said...

i agree with chris. i am in awe of your story. i have come to know that what you see is what you get in jennifer charlton. you are the most "real" person i know which is exhilarating.

i can imagine it felt like an alien. i was 115 at my skinniest but i didn't realize i was that skinny. my skinny roomate gave me her size 4 jeans which fit but i still didn't "own" that i was thin.
another thing that i could relate to is when i got positive attention just because i looked better....i was the same person inside...why didn't you notice me then????

i know that my weight serves many "purposes" - it protects me...primarily from getting positive attention...it is a comfort...a safety blanket. I NEED TO CHANGE MY MENTALITY!!!!!!!!!!!! i guess it's like any change or letting go of a bad habit....what will take its place? i can't hide without my bodysuit. oye vey i need your therapist!!!

GLITTERGIRL said...

wow ginny, your comments blew me away... talking about this stuff is hard, but knowing other people relate makes it a little easier.

and my therapist, i only saw her 3 times! but she was able to help me understand some things going on. things i'd missed on my own.

when i tried therapy in the past, i found i was able to tell the therapist what was wrong with me, and what i should do. they were always impressed.

this therapist i saw in cleveland, she called me on my BS. she told me i was "too smart for my own good" and proceeded to point out some things about myself i'd never considered.

i only saw her those 3 times, but the stuff she said stuck with me.

copaX said...

That's the problem I've had with therapists. At this point I've got the major stuff all laid out in my head. So when I meet with them, I say "Ok, here's the deal, I'm a perfectionist, I have issues with fairness in the world, blah, blah,blah" and it catches them off-guard to the point that they just kind of "coast" and don't really work as hard for me, since I'm doing most of the work for them already.

GLITTERGIRL said...

sometimes it takes a few tries to find a good therapist. you can't give up easily.

you have to be ready to give them a real chance, and go in there prepared to be brutally honest.

then you have to know when to "fire" them and find someone who is a better fit.

it's a little like dating. you might have to go through a few attempts before you find the right one.

Anonymous said...

thanks dr.glittergirl! i was kidding about the therapist. after i wrote my comment i was like oh sh*t......is this going to be read by all channel 3 viewers!?

Anonymous said...

Jen,
I received your 'story' in an email from a fellow WLS friend. As I read your story & blog - tears are running down my face. I am in agreement with so much of what you say. As 'they' say - it's stomach surgery, not brain surgery. To deal with all the emotions then and now, are more powerful than what I expected. yah, you feel great - look great - but the emotions of when medications or other aspects of life put on the pounds - then all of a sudden, ALL those negative COMPLETE FAILURE thoughts and emotions take over. Then you're doomed. Surgery or no surgery - you just trade one obsession for another, but in the end - you feel like a complete failure. Just like you said: the fat girl who failed WLS surgery.

What you are doing takes such a great amount of courage. I want to thank you for having that courage to open up your life publicly - to allow all WLS patients that we are not alone in our 'failure' of WLS.

GLITTERGIRL said...

anonymous,

i read this comment and cried! you're the first one to make me cry, congratulations!!! he he he....

the story hasn't even aired on the news, and you're the 3rd person to tell me this very same thing. doesn't that just blow you away? i thought i was the only one who "failed" surgery. now, since doing this interview and talking to people, i am seeing that the surgery failed us. i mean, i tried my very best! we all did!

i originally wanted to do this story just as part of my own healing process. and to give folks having the surgery some info i never got in my 1 1/2 years of research. now i am glad i did this, to give everyone a voice like us, who gained weight and feel like failures. the crazy thing is that there are more failures then anyone would have guessed. but we all hide, out of embarrassment.

out of the group of women i met in the pre-surgery process, 1 has kept the weight off. the rest are like me, like you. and i know they all tried their very best, like me and you.

i'm going to keep talking about this, to anyone who will listen. and my blog (which for 3 years has been mostly a way to share my goofy humor with others) is going to be a place to keep talking about this as well. maybe we can use it like a message board?

thank you for commenting on my blog. you're the first anonymous person to reach out to me on the WLS story, so i feel like i accomplished my mission: to let at least one person know that it's not their fault.

forgiving myself was the hardest thing, but now i can say, "i tried my best" and know that it's true. i hope you can find that peace.

Anonymous said...

I must disagree. I think both the before and after photos look like you. Look at your eyes. Look at the goofy face you are making. I am betting you had ugly blue toenail polish in the pic with Miles. 300 or 150, you are still you. I am closer to the 300 now, but @ 10 years ago was closer to the 150. And I am the same person. A pain in the *ss who needs a behavior chart and laughs and likes to scare you with a big "BUUUUU". Also, within that time frame is when I got to know you, so there is a bright/slightly dim light.

GLITTERGIRL said...

"300 or 150, you are still you." that is so true. and i knew that, but it felt like maybe no one else did at the time.

uc freak, you definetly had a front row seat to the "before & after" since we worked together during that time.