Christine Schoenwald

The truth is, we want our cats fat and our women skinny.

I’m in an ongoing threesome with fear and anxiety.

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.

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.

Some of our happiest moments are those when we think that no one is watching: when we sing at the top of our lungs in our cars, or we dance down the frozen-food aisle of the supermarket allowing ourselves the freedom to let our inner child out. However, when you’re fat and the fat person’s representative, you don’t get any of those times of abandon because you’re always trying to lead by example and show that you’re the perfect fat person.

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.

I’m riding my bike around a local community center on a Sunday morning.