Colleen--I undertand what you're talking about

[Guest guest]

Colleen:

Yes, I find that, while being a gastric bypass surgery patient does

not define who I am, it is a part of who I have become.

The part about you not feeling like you, OMG, I so identify with

that. I used to feel like a fraud before when I had lost weight.

Now, it's different because I've done a lot of

emotional/psychological/spiritual work, and now the outside matches

how I feel on the inside.

I no longer carry my pain as a suit of armour made of my own fat. I

feel pain. I don't have to stuff it down with food.

Anyone with the potential of becoming an important part of my life

needs to know because I can't hide the way I eat, but it's not just

how I eat. It's the way I draw boundaries about how I expect people

to treat me. I has affected every aspect of my life. And I need to

know that that person is supportive and not a food enabler.

And like you said, when things become more intimate, he's going to

see my open rny scar and my two reconstructive surgery scars. I

don't want that to be a shock and a surprise at that intimate time.

Yes, his email back to me put a skip in my step. And later in the

day, he called from the airport.

He said, " I sent you an email. "

I said, " I know. I got it already. Thanks. "

" I'll let you get back to work, but I wanted to say hello before I

got on the plane. "

That was really nice of him to call me before he left.

Thanks for understanding. I appreciate your support.

Francisco

>

> Francisco

>

> gosh sounds like things went well with telling Chip. At first i

thought why does Francisco have to tell him so soon about his bypass

surgery, then it hit me....... I remember back in my youth having

been overweight and having lost some 90 pounds on my own, and at the

time i met my exhusband in a night class in college he was friends

with a girl i had gone to highschool with and when she found out he

was dating me, she felt compelled to tell him that did he know i use

to be very very fat......................the day he told me this

story about what she had told him, i was devistated and embarrassed,

this was several months into the relationship and we had already been

intimate and he had asked me one morning what these lines were on my

stomach and i told him they were stretch marks ( one of my most

humiliatiing moments in life) but when the highschool aquaintance

told him of my being overweight and i was so mordified, later i did

feel a sense of relief because when i was thinner at

> that time, i had some kind of issue with it and i always felt like

i was not really " me " that i was some other " Colleen " pretending to

be a new " Colleen " but it does come back to me now the sense of

relief and freedom it gave me to have him know........................

>

> I think that your letter to chip and his back to you were good

and it must give you a food feeling and a good spirit about you and a

skip in your step....................good luck

> Colleen

>