Body Positivity: A Chronic Illness Body
Chronic illness can do some weird stuff to your body, and sometimes, treatment can do even weirder things. If your illness is invisible, it may make you feel even more self-conscious about the way your body looks in a particular moment, because the people around you can’t see that your illness or treatment causes the changes. As a woman (and a young woman, especially), I have felt embarrassed, stressed, and self-conscious by some of these changes myself.
Pre-treatment, when I was sick all the time, I felt that I looked the roughest in my life. My hair and nails were so brittle, because I was constantly sick. My skin was unpredictable. The bags under my eyes from the fatigue couldn’t be covered by any amount of makeup. Acquaintances would comment that I looked “so skinny” as a compliment, but all I could think was that this person isn’t seeing how exhausted and sick I was feeling, regardless of how well-meaning their comments were. The truth is that I felt outright frail, because I was constantly ill. This body just felt weak and worn out, as a result of an endless cycle of respiratory infections, stomach bugs, antibiotics that upset my stomach, and having no appetite from the combination of all of this. I am certainly not the only one either. My good friend Mary, who shares the same diagnosis as me, went through something similar. She was always thinner prior to diagnosis, because she was battling infections, just like I was. Even when people were giving her compliments, they were hard to feel good about, because on the inside, her body felt so embattled. The body she was living in didn’t feel like her own, and her acquaintances weren’t noticing how tired she was feeling.
As soon as I started treatment, I began getting these pockets of fluid where my immunoglobulin would deposit immediately after an infusion until my body absorbed it over the course of a few days. It literally looks like two big, slightly red bumps the size of maybe half a lemon under the skin on my thighs, right where I infuse. Really, it’s a super hot look during swimsuit season. After several months on this treatment, I started to feel healthier, but I also put on more weight than I ever had in my life over the course of several months. Even though I knew that this was largely because I was starting to feel well again, it still took some adjusting. Some of the clothes that I had loved for years no longer fit me or looked quite right, and I was feeling pretty crummy about being at my highest weight ever. I was terrified of the upcoming summer months and putting on a swimsuit, because of the added weight and medication lumps.
A few months ago, I ran into a college friend during Mardi Gras that I hadn’t seen in a while. One of the first things she told me was that I looked healthy. She commented that my hair looked fuller and stronger and that I looked like I was glowing compared to the last time we had seen each other. I could’ve cried and hugged her at the same time. It was the most genuine and insightful compliment I had ever received. Less than a week later, I attended a friend’s wedding, where she (the freaking bride) took time out to tell me how healthy I looked and that I had a spark back that she hadn’t seen in a while. I don’t know if either of these friends knew how much I needed to hear this at the time, but they probably will after seeing this blog post. Their encouragement and heartfelt compliments helped me start to love this newer, healthier body, because I fought so freaking hard to feel like myself again.
Women are already held to extraordinarily high beauty standards, and we are constantly bombarded with images of unrealistic beauty on social media, in movies, on TV, etc. With a chronic illness, that pressure is even more intense, because we are also comparing ourselves to healthy individuals all over social media and in our friend groups whose bodies are not affected by the ups and downs of chronic illness. Even when we know EXACTLY why our bodies are changing and why we can’t help it, we all still struggle with body positivity. The truth is, we just have to be kinder to ourselves. We fight health battles that many others don’t deal with, and we have to take pride in the strength of what our bodies and souls do every day. I find myself reminding my brain of this every time I feel anxious about wearing swimsuits with my infusion bumps visible or when that old dress doesn’t fit anymore. Take pride in feeling healthier and getting your glow back when you are feeling good. Focus your energies on your overall health and well-being, instead of picking yourself apart, especially when your health is in a rut. Give yourself some grace and compassion when your disease or treatment is wreaking havoc on your body, because I know that many of you would give that same kindness to those around you if they were going through the same thing.
Chronically yours,
Jen
