Christine Schoenwald

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.

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

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.

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.

Anxiety isn't something people choose to experience — it's connected with how their brains see the world.

A new study conducted by Offir Laufer, David Israeli and Rony Paz (of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel) has found that individuals with anxiety see the world differently, and this difference is because of a variance in their brains.

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.

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 in an ongoing threesome with fear and anxiety.

We all want someone who will appreciate our curves, voluptuousness, strength, and beauty without fetishizing us. I’m fat, I’m fabulous, but I’m not your fetish.

Now I know that just because I’m fat doesn’t mean that I don’t have moments of fatphobia. My own fatphobia has taught me a lot.