Swimming the Rapids

Ok.  So.  Since I last wrote, and probably sometime before that, I have been trying desperately not to slide into the comforting darkness that is depression.  I am swimming in the rapids.  The waves are sometimes coming over my head.  And I can feel the suffocating beginning.

It's ok.  I've been here before and a lot worse.  And it's not that I am not aware of the rapids around me. In fact I think that over the years and especially more recently, I have become increasingly aware of troubled waters that I sometimes find myself in.  In the last year I have been able to navigate the river with better ease than before.  Instead of having myself trying to breathe underwater, I have been trying to point my feet and staying bobbing above the water.  That means, instead of being sucked down by the depression, I have been learning to coast through it.  Maybe not always enjoying the ride, but knowing that it will end and there will be calm on the other side.

I really, really, REALLY, want to lose weight by myself.  I'm not so good at it though.  So I have been considering having surgery to help things along.  That is not easy to write.  I haven't even said it out loud with my own voice.

But here is my dilemma.  On one hand, I feel like this is something that I should be able to do!  So many people have lost it all on their own.  I have read their success stories and am amazed at their perseverance!  They are hard working and rock stars at pursuing their goals.  I want to be as amazing as they are.

As someone who is a saved by Jesus, I feel like I shouldn't have to use any other tools but Him to make it through the tangles of my food addiction.  That my dependence and faith should be enough.  I feel like if I have surgery that I am saying that God isn't big enough.

I also wonder if I am messing with His creation also.  That maybe this is the way that He made me, on purpose!  I wonder what I might be like if I was thin and if that isn't part of the reason why the refining hasn't been completed in terms of my body.  Doctors can do amazing things with plastic surgery and sometimes I think that I would like to be the object of that.  But then I wonder if by doing that, I am bringing dishonour to the creation that He has made.

On the other hand.  I have been reading and researching about food addiction.  The biochemistry of food addiction and drug and alcohol addiction is scarily parallel.  I've said before that that scares me.  I would never expect a heroin addict to quite cold turkey.  I wouldn't expect a heroin addict to fix their own addiction.  And if food addiction and drug addiction are closely linked in terms of feeling high, how then, can I without more intervention, rewire the circuits in my brain?

So my dear readers.  That leads me to my question for you.  What are your thoughts about this?  What are your thoughts on people who have surgery to lose weight?  Is it right or is it wrong?  Is having surgery getting help in an addicts life or a cop out?  I am honestly looking for answers and am very interested in what you have to say.