These pics are of my mum and I on Mother’s Day six years apart.

I came across the photo in the red top a couple of days ago; initially, I was shocked at my size.

I never feel disgust or embarrassment when looking at photos of my past self because I empathise with that version of Patty and I understand how I got to that size.

My over-eating and my obsession with food served me at that time because I was not doing well emotionally and because I didn’t have the right tools or enough awareness or knowledge to know how to cope with what was going on in my head.

I wasn’t sleeping well, I had nightmares just about every night, my relationships were challenged and I was on a downward spiral.

Many times I hoped to fall asleep and not wake up because life was way too hard.

It took my sister dying to get my butt into gear. Six months after her passing I realised it was getting too hard to get out of bed so I went and spoke to a doctor I was diagnosed with depression and I started taking prescribed medications.

Those meds numbed my mind which made it easier to get up and show up every day but I started piling on more weight and I felt nothing – not happy, not sad – nothing but numbness.

I stayed on the meds for quite a while and then I had the gastric sleeve surgery and then I got back into therapy.

Therapy—all types of it—helped me with my mind and thoughts, and the gastric sleeve was the perfect tool I needed to help me eat less (you can imagine how much my stomach stretched and how big it got when I weighed over 160 kg).

The journey was, has and is a long one. I believe that it may be lifelong and that’s okay.

I know of people who have had weight loss surgery who hide the photos and who don’t let anyone know they’ve gone down that path, each to their own but not me.

I share my story because as my daughter calls it – I (we) are chronic over-sharers, because I’m proud of my progress and because being here today is something I have worked incredibly hard to do.

Life is what one makes of it; all the past experiences, the traumas, the sadness, grief, the loss, the hard times – they didn’t disappear they’re still around but what I’ve done is learnt how to work through them, how to cope, how to identify them and how to live with them so that each day not only is bearable but also so I learn how to thrive not just survive.

One photo, lol – one photo got me here to all this reflection so of course when I showed my mum she said we need to get a photo this Mother’s Day as an updated (comparison) photo 😉 and I’m glad we did.

#thepattyproject #healinghutenterprises #keepingitreal #livedexperience #thenandnow #depression #MindBattle #bekindtoyourself #itgetsbetter #mothersday