Totally caught off guard by this in the grocery store.......

Many of you know that I have damaged hips and use a walker.  I am at a point now where I am back to going to the grocery store with my husband.  It's been at least a year since I have been to the store as far as groceries because with all my weight I had to lose made where I could not get around the store much at all.   I have lived in this town since 1962 except for the years I lived in the mountains.  The manager of the store I graduated high school with has been there 43 years.  Today I asked if he was in and he came down and looked at me and I said Hi Tim!  He said do I know you? I said I had not been in the store because I have had bariatric surgery so I have had lost quite a bit of weight.  Now Tim and I have always talked and waved and I made the mistake of not using my maiden name instead of my married name.  He said it will come to him the minute I leave and we laughed, so next time I go in, will tell him who I am then he can look me up in the class yearbook. 

I know, where am I going with this.  Many will say that is great in some regards that you look so different that you are not recognizable. As many of you know I seldom ask for help and I am unsure how I feel about this.  I wasn't insulted in the least, but for someone not to know you gave me a very unsettling feeling.  I took care of a dear friend's mother who had Alzheimer's and I watched the devistation of not even recognizing her own children.  Then when my mother died, she suffered at the end with dementia.  So I think I just answered my own question.  To have someone look at you after 43 years and not know you brought up emotions of watching people losing their ability to remember who you are.  Regardless of that I talked to my husband I know we don't see it and I asked have I really changed that much?????  My husband said yes in some regards so here I am dealing with some of the situations that come up AFTER surgery.  I am altered in more than just my gastric system.  I see a thin me in the mirror, in my clothes in the way I walk so it's  not about that.  I just have yet to read what one feels and handles when they are no longer recognized.  All I can say is it's unsettling.  Any input on this people would really help.  Thanks, Jane

I think it's perfectly fine when someone who I've known but hasn't seen me for a long time doesn't recognize me. Once I tell them who I am then it's all good. It doesn't bother me in the least, however, I think your comparisons between someone not recognizing you because of surgery and having dementia are two different animals. My mother passed 6 months ago from Alzheimer's and it was about 3 years ago when she lost all recognition of those she knew. It's devastating when your mother doesn't recognize you. It's pretty expected that someone wouldn't know you after you've lost about 100 pounds if they hadn't seen you in a while. 

I think the thing is, that when someone doesn't recognize you after losing weight,  you may feel like they never really saw you at all.  They saw the fat and they saw the basics, but basically it feels like they were just looking through you all those years.  I haven't had this issue, I have likely not lost enough weight to be that drastically changed.   Lots of people tell me I look great, but not that I'm unrecognizable.  I think I'd be very bothered by that feeling.

I did not realize how much different I loo****il a friend emailed me an old picture of myself. Yikes! Except for the smile everything is different. I almost didn't recognize myself.

When I showed the picture to my husband, he said he didn't remember me being that big, although how that is so I do not know.

Maybe your friend didn't recognize you not only because of the physical changes but also because he hadn't seen you in so long.

Thank you all for responding.  Yes, I realize I am putting way too much into this and you all made some valid points.  Again this is why it helps when people can see this outside the box and give a different perspective.  He hadn't seen me in a long time.  Yes, Tim may have never seen me at all in the first place which really hit me as wow, she may be right!  Again thanks for your input on this.  Jane

I lost 190 pounds and have had MANY people not recognize me until I speak (and then they usually, but not always, recognize the voice).  I think many times, people form a general overall image of you (whi*****ludes the weight), and so the lack of the weight throws them off.  Even my own mother walked right past me at a convention center event when we had arranged to meet back in a particular area!  Once I flagged her down, she realized that she was sort of unconsciously looking for the 300+ pound version of me as she was scanning the crowd for me.

The first couple of times it happened, it WAS weird because I was not expecting it.  I found that in a couple of cases, when I saw someone in a store that I did not want to speak to, it came in handy to not have them recognize me, because I could just walk past them.  I sat in a restaurant directly facing a grad school colleague with whom I had a disagreement and our eyes met several times. Although she may have heard that I had gastric bypass surgery, and it is possible that she recognized me but didn't want to talk to me, either, I don't think she did.  There was never even a glimmer of recognition on her face.

Now, 5.5 years out, every now and then I run into someone who has not seen me since before surgery (or not since I was very early out so had not lost too much weight yet) and I now forget that people might not recognize me, so I start talking to them and it isn't until I see the confused look on their face that I realize they don't know who it is.

Alhough I can understand why it would bring up thoughts of Alzheimer's (my father did not recognize any of us towards the end of his life, and it was painful to see that he didn't recognize me), it is a very different situation.  You probably HAVE changed a lot and the change is much more noticeable to people who don't see you regularly.  So if even your husband is telling you that you look different, think how MUCH different you probably look to people who don't see you every day and probably don't look at you with as much attention as your husband does!  Also, have you ever been really thrown off when someone you knew casually got a drastic haircut or completely changed their hair color...?

Lora

Hey Lora.  Thanks much for your response.  It makes sense that after Tim not seeing me since I have lost weight to not make the connection.  I had to laugh when you said it can come in handy at times when in the store when you walk by people you don't want to speak to.  LOL.  But what really brought this slapping to my forehead "Hey I could have had a V-8 juice" moment I remembered at our class re-union the reason for our class picture on our name tags was because after 40 years without the pictures we would not have known who half the class was! 

So you are correct that this is normal and yes, I see my self everyday, but others don't and only remember me being heavy.

I keep saying I am having these awakenings lately.  Friday I had gone clothes shopping and was amazed Lora at what I was able to wear.  So I think I was having a double whammy of my first real experience of the effect of weightloss now and it not being from the scale at home.  Even with the positives we are not familiar with these new feelings and what to do with them. I guess after all this time and work now it is "I" who is living the experiences of life after WLS.  I have read so much, and focused so much for so long on the effects of WLS and on other people I guess it was my turn.  Thank you Lora, you always are such a down to earth person and give baby Gus a hug for me!    Jane

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i just ran into a girl on friday night who i dated for about 6 months in 2005.. she asked me if i knew Ron...  lol, i was like.. uh, i AM Ron..

it actually happens quite a bit to me.. just part of the gig.. lol

Now that is mind blowing!  I guess Ron, seeing everyone else on here with their before and after photos I see it but now it's my turn to experience the after effects of the weight loss.  It was great to hear from you, Ronman!  Jane

I was just thinking; the truth is, you ARE a different person in many ways.  The outside reflects the inside.  Before, the outside reflected a person who had issues that caused her to eat and become over weight.  Now that you are dealing with those issues via WLS and probably other therapeutic means, your outside reflects a person who is gaining control of her life.  Perhaps I'm looking too deeply into it, but it's good to focus on the positive side of a situation.