u/Abalonesandwhich

So I wasn't sure if this was the correct place to post this, but after perusing this sub and similar subs I found the people here seem the nicest, so here goes nothing.

I (31M) asked my doctor for the first time about weight management at my last appointment. I've spent a lot of my life significantly overweight/obese and my overnight job has just poured gas on that fire in the last four years. I got blood work done recently and had weirdly stellar results (other than a vitamin D deficiency, but overnight thing made that one a given, but I decided that I needed to treat that as a warning that things could turn if I don't manage my weight sooner than later.

I spent a very long time debating even bringing this up to her because she's been in my life for 15 years and has been very kind and compassionate in conversations when my weight is brought up. Even as I've gone from big guy to very big guy, she's been mindful to bring it up and pay attention to things like my blood pressure and all that, but never pushed me towards losing weight in a way that made me feel pressure or anxiety. My weight has been a hard subject for me speak about normally, so having to bring it up and announce intentions to try and reduce my size just has felt so awkward and taboo (which is largely if not almost entirely because of the way I grew up in a house where someone was almost always dieting... which you can imagine would inform the way I've approached food/eating from a very young age.)

Part of that discomfort is honestly why I'm posting here instead of trying to talk to a friend or loved one that I trust about this sort of stuff.

My doctor was absolutely in favor of me seeking medical assistance in pursuit of weight management and referred me to a bariatric center. She'd even suggested that I'd be a good candidate for surgery, but I am not considering that approach at all.

A girl I met in college passed away on the table during her weight loss surgery and I can't mollify the thoughts in my head that remind me of how excited she was for her life to change and how she thought it was a new beginning... and that just completely fills me to my very top with a white hot dread that also tastes and smells a lot like unprocessed grief.

I wasn't very close with her, but she was so sweet and kind just deserved so much more life than she got. And there are people who miss her so badly, a decade later, that I can't imagine going this path and being the small percentage of people who share her fate and leaving behind people I love with a (very big) me shaped hole in their lives.

All this to say, my appointment is tomorrow morning, just over 30 hours away, and I can't get this nagging anxiety and fear to subside because I just don't know what I'm walking in to. I know myself, I know I have a tendency to be defensive, and I can feel it already as I'm about to walk in that I feel like I'm going to have to protect and defend myself from feeling so vulnerable.

I know it's my providers job to collaborate with me on this journey to a healthier version of myself, and I realistically shouldn't feel like they're going to approach this from a punitive place... but the anxious voice in me is doing everything short of telling me that they're going to be live broadcasting the appointment to everyone who's ever seen me and that they're going to make me feel awful about myself because I somehow failed something by letting my weight get to where it is. I just don't know what to expect and that has done nothing but feed the anxiety within me to the point I feel like I could explode like a firework.

I don't really know exactly what it is I even want/need trying to post something like this. I just hope if anyone has felt like I feel now or can offer well wishes/advice/their experience, maybe I can find some calm before this all starts rolling.

If anyone doesn't mind sharing their experience:

How did your first appointment go when you started these conversations? Was it humiliating or did it give you hope? Did you leave feeling like you had more questions than answers?

(also any glp1 related nuggets of info that I really need to know... pls feel free to drop)

Thanks for suffering through the head dump if you got through this. ❤️