I’ve spent most of my life believing I was fat, and thinking that was a bad thing. I was born with a stomach that stuck out, as stomachs tend to do, and I grew up thinking I was fat because of it. That was pretty much the only reason. I remember feeling insecure about my body as my mind compared it to others in every situation I found myself in. I was one of the fattest kids in my large extended family. I was one of the fattest kids in most of my classes. I was one of the fattest kids I knew.

That’s what my mind told me. None of it was true.

I was born with a stomach that stuck out, and thin fingers that were paler compared to the rest of me. I have a short, boxy torso, and bony joints. For about 18 years, that’s how I thought about my body.

I am fat.

But some parts of me are skinny.

I didn’t think they could coexist as partial truths when I was younger. There was usually just one truth, and sometimes it was replaced by another.

Looking back, I can say that regardless of the connotation or context of the word, deeming myself fat was inaccurate at best and idiotic and harmful at worst. But because of the way society sees fatness as a moral failure that’s constantly being redefined, I grew up thinking that being fat was a justifiable reason for disrespect. Not necessarily because of how I felt personally, but because I don’t remember anyone disagreeing. I thought that inevitable disrespect applied to me too, but I was never fat. The world just convinced me I was.

It’s crazy to me how widespread fatphobia’s become in the past few decades alone, with things like “heroine chic”, GLP-1s, being obese/overweight, diet culture, and so much more. It’s all just normalized. It’s infinitely harmful to people, but it’s inescapable. There are no exceptions. I just wish the lenses we examine ourselves through were a little kinder.