Support Group Excerpt

Excerpt from 100 Pounds Thinner: Life After Obesity Surgery

By Linda Algazi Ph.D

Based on a Coastal Center for Obesity Support Group Meeting

Just as we’re about to start tonight’s obesity surgery support group meeting, Carol creates a scene! Carol, an otherwise always-sedate school teacher, with new outrageously red locks, jumps ... well, she didn’t exactly jump ... she used one friendly man’s shoulder for support in climbing, ungracefully onto the granite corporate table. She almost fell but at the point of almost-disaster, that man and another each grabbed a thigh and boosted the part of her that hadn’t quite made it, up on the table.

Carol, still 93 pounds over her goal-weight, is delighted. She throws her hands in the air and shouts with glee, “I’ve got an important announcement. Look at me,” she preens herself, “I’m not ‘freaky fat’ any more!”

Gasp. The room explodes with applause. Twenty- three year old Andrew, who gets a new tattoo for every 50 pounds he loses, and Carol’s friend Diane try to talk her down and get her off the table.

“Just a minute, “ she says. “I’ve earned this. I don’t know how many of you are still by-pass ‘virgins’--- but I’m not going to get down off this table until I’ve had a chance to show you how your life can change ...and how mine already has.”

Defiantly , she folded her hands across her chest and continued. “My children’s friends have stopped giggling and whispering ... I’m wearing clothes I haven’t worn in years ... I fit through turnstiles at the drugstore.... I got on an airplane last week and although I had hoped I wouldn’t, I still needed that awful seat-belt extension... but the person next to me didn’t even sneer ... that used to happen all the time and I didn’t feel ‘freaky’ --- just fat.

“I’m here to tell you that just fat is j-u-s-t fine ., for now at least. ” She looked me in the eye assertively, “Now,” she said, “I’m ready to get down.”

It’s true. Carol is not at all ‘freakyfat’ any more. Her children no longer have a ‘freakyfat’ mom. Her husband no longer has a ‘freakyfat’ wife. And she managed to descend from the table a little more gracefully than she had appeared on the way up.

“Andy, my six-year-old put his arms around me the other day, and announced, “Look Mom, look...” (I was sure he was going to notice how much smaller I’ve become since I’ve lost my 130 pounds). But instead he said in true six-year old style, “My arms have gotten longer!!!

” Carol is still smiling when she tells us her cute story; the rest of us are laughing, except for Buster, her husband, who is scowling. “Can you believe her?” he asks the group. “This new ‘attitude’ of hers is driving me crazy.”

“What do you mean, attitude?” says Carol. She faces him. “I am different. and I’’m proud of it. Did you actually expect me to lose 130 pounds and not be different?”

“I’ve got lots more weight to lose...It’s just that now the freaky part is gone. I can cross my legs... and people don’t stare at me any more in restuarants to see what I’m eating. And who knows what else will happen to me when I lose the rest!” she says with a wicked smile.

“See what I mean ... attitude...The “nice” Carol is g-o-n-e! Sometimes I think that the freaky part was the nice part !”

“I knew it,” said Carol. “You liked me fat! “I don’t think you understand what ‘nice’ is, my darling husband. You think ‘nice’ is when I was like the broom in the broom in the closet waiting to be needed... you think ’nice’ is when we are on camping trips and I stay back to watch our stuff so that you and the kids can go rafting... you think ‘nice’ means never making demands or even requests because I didn’t think I was worthy.

“When you’re ‘freakyfat’, there aren’t options. I couldn’t go river-rafting --- it’s not that I didn’t want to. It’s not that I was ‘nice’. You thought I was being ‘un-nice’ last Saturday when I asked you to watch the kids for a couple of hours so I could do some shopping. ‘Un -nice’ indeed. I’m holding my pants on with safety pins... and I won’t even tell you about my underwear. Look, I wasn’t talking about going to some fancy store or anything.... I just wanted to go to the swap meet to buy some new stretch pants that would stay up!

“All right, I’ll admit it., she continued. I also wanted to get out of the house for a couple of hours... just because I could! Before surgery, I couldn’t do that. Can’t you understand? It was too uncomfortable to walk “ I am different now... normal-different... ‘unfreaky.’ It was ‘freaky’ to stay home all of the time!”

Buster changes his demeanor. He looks sad and scared. “All you want to do is leave every chance you get ... It was never like that before... I feel like you’re leaving me one pound at a time!” Buster has started to cry.

The group becomes uncomfortably silent.

Tears come to Carol’s eyes too. She sits and puts her head down on her arms on top of the table.

“Leaving you... one pound at a time?”

There’s lots of whispering and head-shaking.

Is that what this is all about? I ask Buster. Are you questioning Carol’s love? Are you afraid she’s going to leave you as she becomes more attractive?

Silence.

Carol?

“Buster, I need new underwear, not a new husband!