Asking for help after bariatric surgery

You are blissfully unaware

People think that you have the surgery and thats it. That you start losing weight, that everything is nice and smooth, no stalls, no regain, and that one day you wake up all slim, with a nice and toned body, no wrinkles, no flabby skin, no problem with food, you can eat and drink anything you like and your life will be a walk through a rose garden from now on. Asking for help? Why?

Hard beginning

We all wish it was like that. The reality is way more difficult. It all starts a very long time before you have the surgery. You don’t feel well in your body, you have physical limitations, your health is crumbling, you are getting more and more medication, with all due side effects, and you feel horrible, lonely, and depressed. Convince me it is not like this.

Then something inside you breaks, the last straw, something so painful, so shocking, so unimaginable that it pushes you to seek help and you end up with a bariatric surgeon in the end. This road might be more or less bumpy depending on the rest of the doctors you have to face to get where you need to be. Let’s admit that some questions from anyone involved can be nasty and right away humiliating.

Ok, so you go through the time of preparation for the surgery, you have all the mandatory medical exams, you see the psychologist, and you start making the necessary changes. Life can be hard at times, especially when you are facing your food demons, but you keep pushing and doing your best and it starts to seem it pays off and it makes you motivated and you think you can do that.

Second thoughts

Then the surgery approaches and you start having second thoughts, you feel like giving up, as if you are not sure whether you are doing the right thing, and you want to chicken out. It is overwhelming. The commitment, the lifelong restriction, and the requirements to meet. You know that if you don’t do things you should, you will gain it back. This is a pretty scary stuff. And you are all alone in this. No one gets your fears and worries. They tell you you are exaggerating.

Post-op reality

Then you wake up after the surgery and it is a WOW! Holly Jesus, what have you done, how will you deal with this? You are sore, you can’t eat nor drink, it seems all as an unsurmountable mountain, something like climbing Mt Everest without oxygen. And everybody tells you you are doing just fine. It all feels like a nightmare to you. Just fine? Aha? How? Where? When? No way!

Going through the post-op diet, all the stages of liquids, yucky pures, soft food… you see cottage cheese or scrambled eggs and you want to scream. Am I right? And everybody around you is eating what they want, all the food you can’t, everything is off limits for you, and again, you are all alone. You suffer in silence and depression starts to creep in.

You don’t feel well, you are tired and nauseous, you can’t do many things, and you are crawling day by day, but you are losing weight, so it at least looks better from the outside. Inside, it is a huge enormous mess. It is beyond description, you are going through the deepest circles of hell. (For those who are in their preparatory phase, don’t freak out, but be aware.) The emotional part of the post-surgery period is creepy and difficult. Oh, they forgot to tell you this, aha? Your bad. Now you are in and you can’t get out.

You normalize the bad

Then somehow things start to normalize and you get used to many new things that were difficult months ago. I am not implying it gets better. You only got used to them. You seem fine but inside you are struggling. And you are all alone in this. No matter what they tell you, how much love they show you, what they tell you, it doesn’t matter. You are going through an existential crisis. Many people go through regret and they hate their new slimming body. Slimmer? Yes. More flabby and jelly-like? Absolutely.

Everybody is different, that is sure. But many bari patients go through a very hard time emotionally around the surgery. It is anything but easy. To tell the truth, it was one of the hardest times I have had to go through in my life. You feel as if you were bipolar. One moment you are going through hell, and five minutes later you are celebrating. You laugh and cry in one single sentence. You are moody, and grumpy, everybody is getting on your nerves. And you are doing your best and trying to function normally. Mission impossible.

They didn’t tell us

The problem is that nobody told us before. We didn’t know. And now things are happening to us and we are facing a tsunami of feelings and emotions and we have no idea what to do with that all. It is flooding us and we are defenseless. We have never been outstanding around emotions and now this! How easy it would be to go back to food for comfort, right?

Many patients face a lot of fear and insecurity, they feel overwhelmed. There is a lot that is happening at the same time. You have no idea what is important and what is not, everybody wants something from you, and you have a lot to do, to accomplish, there are time frames when you should be doing something, and you are not because your silly body doesn’t let you, so you feel frustrated, angry, you don’t know what to do and where to go from there.

We were naive

You had some naive idea about how things would be, how you would feel after the surgery, how it would all make you happy, how all your problems would miraculously disappear, how all would be fine, your magic new beginning. What happened is that you have the same issues, especially the emotional ones, your relationships didn’t improve, and what’s more, they are worse than ever. There is no new beginning. It is all worse than it used to be. Hell unleashed. And you are all alone in this. No one understands.

Things can be overwhelming at their worst. You can feel depression, and anxiety, there are so many things you can’t even give names to. You feel abandoned, no one cares, everybody only says it will be ok, that nothing is going on, that you are fine. You are not. You need help. But if everybody says ye are doing just fine, so you don’t reach out and you keep it all for yourself.

Help needed!

Please, don’t do this. Bariatric surgery is not only about your body. Yes, they cut here and there, no doubt about it. But it is way more about you, about your soul, you as a person. You are undergoing a huge transformation, some things touch the deepest roots of you. You have to change, adjust, modify, transform… no matter how you call it. Nothing will be the same as before.

And it hurts. Physically and psychologically as well. It is as if you were giving up all your previous life and you are building something new, but with very limited resources. Your budget is for a garden shed but you are trying to build a fancy mansion instead. This is exactly how it feels.

Tell them!

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Tell your loved ones that you are not fine, and that it is hard. Most likely they won’t get it, but at least they will know. Tell them what you need, what they can do for you, and how you need them to help you. If you don’t tell them, put it in words, they will never know. Maybe they are doing something trying to help you and they are only making it worse. Tell them. This is all about you.

And if it is not enough, there is help out there. Your bari team has psychologists. Don’t be shy. They are there for you. Ask for help. Some things can be very hard to overcome and you will need to talk to someone who knows more than a friend over a coffee.

The help is there. All you have to do is ask for it. No, they won’t think anything about you. They are professionals and they have heard a lot. And yes, they also have their psychologists 🙂 they will do their best to help you. And if they can’t, they know for sure someone who will.

Things can get hard. You feel alone. You don’t know what to do, or how to proceed. But it is not necessary to struggle in silence. Tell them. You might be surprised where the help might come from.