I feel fat. I just tried to put on some really nice shorts, but they were too small. They still fit me last year, but I have since gained weight. I don’t even know how much weight, because I daren’t step on the scale.

I hate how this illness is affecting my body. And I hate how I feel angry and frustrated and repulsed by how my body is failing me.

I’ve always been athletic (not that this kept me from feeling fat, but I did kind of *know* that I was slender), but now I look down at my tummy and I see a big round ball, instead of a flat part with a slight bulge at the bottom, just above my hips. I *know* I’m still not as fat as I feel – I’m not obese – but I am overweight and I have gone up two clothes sizes since I got sick. I hate that. And I hate feeling this way about myself. I want to love myself for who I am, regardless of what I look like. I do not judge others for being fat. I just hold myself to different standards.

And this is one thing I am still trying to learn. I deserve kindness from myself. I deserve to love my body. But it is really, really hard to love a body that is sick and refuses to let me do one of the things I have always loved to do: exercise. I hope I learn in time. I fear I may not, or not fully. Time will tell.