Something's on my mind that I hardly see any talk about.
Obviously most llers not showing off they had surgery and most keep it a secret, other than close people who obviously can tell the person has grown taller...
But the thing that bothers me is how does one live with himself, living this lie. I mean, let's say you meet a girl, she's very impressed by your height and appearance, wouldn't she be terrified to find out the length you went to improve your appearance? Plus, if women wish to have children, they'd like to know the real genetic potential of her spouse... So.. how do you carry yourself without feeling like a fake person?
This issue bothers me a lot. I wish I'd be taller on one hand, on the other hand I feel so bad and disappointed of myself I can't solve this difficulty in my life in a healthier way...
I keep thinking of an ex, she kept bringing me down because of my height, so today if I'm taller, she would be the last person in this world to be impressed, shed be much more impressed to see I can hold on to what I am and own my appearance with confidence and acceptance and joy.
Even writing this message here convinces me to stop lengthening and add just the minimal gain of 2 cm.. just so I won't have a lifetime of regret..
Oh well...
I'll give my two cents here on a few things.
First of all, how tall were you when you last met your ex? Chances are you can still lie to her that you grew 1~2 inches when you last met, and 2 inches of a growth isn't that much noticeable as most people would assume unless they eye you thoroughly and compare you before and to other people. I know people 1 inch taller than me, and people sometimes mistake us being the same height while the people 2 inches taller than me are almost close.
And since studies show that men can even grow as far up to 25 years old, you can still conveniently lie about it. I know people personally who has grown past 21~22 and still grew 2~3 inches in the years after we graduated college.
Plus, if women wish to have children, they'd like to know the real genetic potential of her spouse... So.. how do you carry yourself without feeling like a fake person?
This is something most people that seems to be bothered both sides, the people undertaking surgery and getting married, and the people getting to know their spouse used to be short.
Here's the thing, unless you're an actual midget, chances are high your children will be taller than you if you're male. Genetics play a role of 60%~80% of height, yes that's true. But environmental factors still plays a huge part even if that's as low as 20%. If you, who struggled all his life as short, you can preemptively avoid that with your child. Generationally speaking, younger people are always taller on average. Take a look at the span of history, and people who migrated from Mexico to US, their male children were 10cm taller than their fathers due to better nutrition alone.
I'm asian, and in my case, I'm around 8cm taller than my father but that's primarily also due to me just having better nutrition, but that's not optimal nutrition neither, nor was I particularly active during my younger years. And my dad is short for a guy, primarily also due to nutrition, he was very skinny in his old pictures and I know their lifestyle when they were young as we were living as borderline lower-middle class when I was younger. He was as tall as my grandfather but some of his brothers were taller than them.
Another anecdotal cases are 2 younger male cousins of mine, one who has a giant of a dad. His dad was around 6'+ at the least(I can't tell how tall exactly because I only got to see him a few times). However, he was born out of wedlock, and that rough relationship alongside money issues, caused his dad to bail out on his mom. And for the majority of my time with my cousin when I was up until my first year in college, he was skinny and shorter than me and he never grew even close to 6' and most of us knew it was because he was very malnourished as a kid. He was getting by with food, but he was barely eating enough proteins.
The other cousin, has a 5'11 dad, his family was pretty decently well off but he was kind of a picky eater until his late teen years, and we're the same height. We're both 5'7". I was fat, he was skinny.
I can give more about my family members, since we all have varying heights all affected by nutrition, but I'll give one last outside of it. An old colleague of mine when I was working with him, we had a discussion about height since he was suffering from Hyperpituitarism since as a child but was controlled and only recently resurfaced just a few years ago and had to undergo surgery because he was already past growing stage so he would suffer acromegaly without the surgery.
He told me he used to live with his grandmother who would only feed him majority of his life, leafy vegetables. While his younger brother lived with his parents and eat a lot of meat and fish when he grew older and got to be 5'11 while their dad is 5'10. His brother didn't have an active pituitary gland. Interestingly, he only grew as tall as me so he didn't suffer gigantism primarily maybe because they were able to control his Hyperpituitarism thru medication, but he did grew fatter and suffered diabetes around his college years.
In the back of my head, I always knew I was robbed of my last few inches due to both nutrition and an active lifestyle. My family is not genetically tall by any means, but I can also attribute that to nutrition and lifestyle on their part. Generationally speaking, I'm one of the above average guys in the family. Even though I was nutritionally better off than my parents, since asians as well eat a lot rice, bread and grains, we don't necessarily have meat as our primary food source, so that additional protein isn't there to boost growth. Couple that with my rather sedentary lifestyle as a teen,(I was somewhat active as a kid, I grew in my teen years playing video games however), I couldn't boost much gh nor testosterone to grow any further than what I am today. Even though I became active around 17(my parents were the kind that thought lifting weights would stunt growth) when I was finally started to go to the gym, I knew at that point my plates were finally solidified(I had an early puberty/growth spurt around 11~12 years old, I saw my growth the fastest during these years).
So the next time you think your child is going to be short, think of ways you can actually control to prevent that and grow further, and not things you cannot like genetics.
Even writing this message here convinces me to stop lengthening and add just the minimal gain of 2 cm.. just so I won't have a lifetime of regret..
I think the last point here is, don't do this for someone who has left you nor others who also think the same. Height dysphoria is very suffering mentally speaking. Even if I am living in Asia, and I'm not considered short by my peers believe me since I'm above the avg male height here, but whenever I would visit a western country or even other Asian countries I would always feel small even though I'm a physically fit now and muscular. This isn't even talking about women nor dating, but rather being physically short makes me mentally weak. I always think, "What if I suddenly got into a situation where I got confronted by someone", or "someone got intimidated just because I got on their wrong side for no reason", and so many other reasons. It's not like I'm looking to start getting into fights, rather I just don't want people thinking they can rough me around just because I'm short. Being taller can be intimidating, and it makes it feel safer, more confident about yourself and more.
Thanks guys for your input.
I actually talked to a guy who did full 8cm femurs and he has a wife who helped him throughout the journey.
Today he says he has no single regret and he and his wife are very happy with the results.. my lesson from this is thay 1- you don't really do LL for yourself. I mean of course it's for yourself but you can't detach the surrounding people in your environment as a factor. Because the acceptance and judgment of the surrounding are the reasons to do this surgery in the first place.
2- if you find a spouse who love you for what you are, it wouldn't matter to him/her.
I hope we all be that lucky.
These are two good points. Truthdial seems to have his own issues, but yes. You can't detach yourself from society just because you artificially grew and want to hide it. You're undergoing this procedure because you want to be seen as the better you after all. At the end of the day, you have to think and compare both sides really. Would it really better for you to be short for the rest of your life, or slightly taller later on? Because for a lot of people, being short is way worse than getting that 2 extra inches later.
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Topic: The psychological issue no one mentions (Read 2420 times)