Option #1:
LIVE WITH THE EXCESS SKIN
In some circumstances, a person will have no option except to live with and work on the excess skin.
But having excess skin takes its toll.
THE EMOTIONAL TOLL. Compared to obesity, having excess skin is far healthier. However, it can also be far more difficult.
- Many are unprepared for the excess skin, and unprepared to still have body issues, after so much success.
- Excess skin is more emotionally difficult than obesity, mainly because obesity is more socially acceptable.
- Difficulties throughout the day take an emotional toll: trouble with hygiene, with physical activity, and of course with intimacy.
- Loss of confidence from feeling alone, vulnerable, and struggling with fitting into clothing, struggling to carry the skin around throughout the day.
- Sense of loss because the diet did not make you look "fit." The clothes you dreamed of are off-limits with the skin.
THE PHYSICAL TOLL. Excess skin often causes significant back and neck strain, painful chaffing of skin, skin ulcers, and fungal and bacterial infections. The exercise so necessary to keep the weight off is of course difficult while wearing compression garments, but impossible without.
- Painful, debilitating strain on the back and neck, often unbearable, from the constant pull of the weight of the excess skin.
- Infections and ulcers from the moist warm areas under folds of skin. These infections are extremely painful, sensitive, and can emit a strong odor.
- Painful chaffing from basic movements throughout the day, such as walking. This makes your exercise routine, which you may need to maintain the weight loss, nearly impossible without compression garments. (Some women report wearing double or triple Spanx, etc. to. make movement pain-free.)
- Difficulty exercising wearing the necessary compression garments.
THE SOCIAL TOLL. Somehow, many people don't even know that excess skin exists. To be honest, it can be a bit alarming the first time you see it. Excess skin is pretty much taboo in public. These realities affect how a person with excess skin interacts with others.
A general sense of shame. The internal swirling feelings of shame, the dread of being hugged or touched, the exhausting fear of being "found out," the constant insensitive comments from family members who want to help. These lead to isolation.
Avoidance of Intimacy with one's partner. Fear that if their partner sees or touches the excess skin, "they will no longer love me."
Dating! Being overweight is obvious to anyone you meet. Excess skin, however, is hidden under a baggy clothing, or a compression garment, etc.
So when should you tell a date that you have excess skin? How do you navigate your commitment to honesty, while knowing that your many positive traits could easily outweigh the negative trait of excess skin... but also knowing that it takes time for the person to experience those positive traits? The reality is, that without that time to get to know you, that person you like is likely to reject you because of the skin. Excess skin is taboo in the world.
Scaring small children. Excess skin can effect the most sacred parts of life. We had not thought about this situation, until we witnessed it. Small children are often profoundly afraid of "abnormal" situations, and they often suffer in private with those fears.
Image a mom who lost the weight in order to be healthy and live longer for the sake of her baby -- only to be essentially ambushed by excess skin. Scary looking hanging skin that she believes would frighten her toddler, cause him to reject her, cause him to experience night fears, etc.
(That being said, we have heard about situations that were quite the opposite, when older children laughed, as mom was able to slip her excess skin over her hand, and form the mouth of a puppet, to talk and play.)
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Option #1: Live with the Excess Skin