Christine Schoenwald

I know there are far worse injustices happening in the world, but getting weighed in front of people smacks of fat-shaming, and feels incredibly invasive.

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.

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.

I still went to the painful place of being fat-shamed and decided that was why he had refused to kiss me. The pain never fully went away.

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

A sad fact: Many men who are sexually attracted to fat women are ashamed of it. We need to talk about men who want sex with fat women but won't date them.

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.

“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.

My brother, Frederick, was eight when I was born. I don't know if he was happy to have a sister or resented me being born, as it was difficult to get any kind of reading on what he was thinking or feeling. I never felt any love or affection from him — unless his way of showing it was through emotional and physical abuse.

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