Neurosis, thy name is Bea.

Historically speaking, my weight has been a bone of contention in my family since I started sprouting breasts. I wasn't overweight at that point but that changed over time. There have been lectures, ultimatums, pleading, bargaining, bribes, and threats. Each round left me feeling emotionally wrecked. I took their concern and worry and interpreted it as judgement and conditional love. I looked for comfort and control in food. DUH! I was a teenager, teenagers do the exact opposite of what their parents want. So, eating was like flipping my parents a tasty bird.

So,when two days after Thanksgiving,your mother starts a conversation with "I'm only going to bring this up once, and then I'll never speak of it again, but I want you to listen"...RUN!Or at least grab a bottle of wine,because you're going to need it.

In a nut shell- she wants me to consider "that lap band operation" because she doesn't think anything else will work, "you've tried everything", and she thinks I'm ignoring the problem....[blink].... [blink] WTF???

My knee jerk reaction was to get angry, hurt, and revert back to my not so healthy habit of flipping the bird. But I'm an adult now, sort of(there was an unfortunate incident with a bacon egg and cheese biscuit this morning), and can recognize that my mother is truly worried about my health, happiness, and general well being. She is handling it the only way any good Irish/Italian mother would - worry, research, then tell you what you should do(oh, and don't think she didn't through in a little guilt- she's a professional!).

So, back to going under the knife. How do I feel about going under the knife? I don't know, seems a little drastic to me, and kind of like using a band aid to cover a gun shot wound. If you take away the physical ability to binge eat, or over eat, or eat period ,really, what happens with the underlying bag of crap that got you here in the first place? Does that go away? I don't think so. How is that little ol bugaboo going to resurface? With an even more destructive compulsion? Therapy, yes, that would have to come with it, but that takes time. You've ripped away all your coping mechanisms (as unhealthy as they were), without giving yourself time to safeguard yourself with new ones. I don't know, that scares the shit out of me.

And maybe this is all one big rationalization because I don't want to entirely give up my security blanket.

Fuck! I want to be able to do this on my own, without invasive surgery, without obsessing over every bite of food I put in my freekin' mouth! This is really starting to PISS ME OFF!!!! Why is this so god damned hard for me! What if I can't do this? What then???? Christ, maybe I do need therapy.