Christine Schoenwald

"Throwing tons of time and energy into dieting instead of working on my novel."

As a fat person, the thought that I’m already taking up too much space and that it would be selfish to ask for more is always in the back of my mind.

When the formerly fat spoke of their hardships, I didn’t take them seriously. I thought that without the problem of weight, their lives must be perfect.

I’m fat, but I have no fat friends. It’s not that all my friends are height-weight appropriate — it’s just that I can’t describe them as fat.

“You’re fat and ugly,” I’d hear, or, “Look at your stomach, it’s disgusting!” This wasn’t a neighborhood bully taunting me on my way to school — this is what I said to myself all day long, well into adulthood.

I grew up in a fatphobic household — one that was created by my mother’s fear of getting and staying fat.

Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa are nearly here. So, what do you do when your family doesn’t celebrate any holidays whatsoever?

My swimsuit phobia started in middle school — that breeding ground of body shame and fear. One minute I’m a kid excitedly putting on my pink two-piece and running into the ocean, the next, I’m avoiding any place where people are known to live in their swimsuits and I might be forced to wear one.

One of the reasons that narcissists are so troubling is their lack of compassion and awareness regarding how their behavior affects other people.

I’m a survivor — of fat camp. How terrible could a weight-loss camp be? Well, it was bad enough that I’m still dealing with its after-effects decades later.