Chronic Illness & Body Image

Almost everyone I have met in the Chronic Illness community has had some sort of bad body image. Self esteem is devastatingly low. I have always had body image issues. When I was little, I would fill up with fluid and end up having severe edema, all because my kidneys weren't letting my body rid of the fluid. My eyes would get so swollen that I had to face upwards, and try to look under my eyelids. On top of the fluid retention from my kidney disease, I was also on high doses of the drug from Satan, Predisone. Prednisone is indeed a wonder drug. It's prescribed for almost every illness out there. It may be a wonder drug, but the side effects are the worst I've ever encountered. I will list some of the side effects below.

🔹The signature "moon face"
🔹Brittle bones
🔹Arthritis
🔹Gaining weight exceptionally quick
🔹Very large appetite
🔹Change in emotions; causing depression & mood swings

I think you get the point. Anyway, I was on Prednisone when I was first diagnosed. I was on it for 12+ years, and on really high doses (I've gone over 100mg). I was very large in my tween & teen years. I HATED my body. I got bullied often because I was overweight, and no one cared to find out what I was really going through. I went through my stages of depression and self harm, and I hid it from everyone for years. All of this because of my poor self esteem.
I'd go through stages where I would lose weight for a couple of weeks, and gain it all back. Which resulted in very large, deep stretch marks on my ribs and stomach. They used to bother me so much, I refused to change in front of anyone, I'd wear larger T-Shirts so they didn't lift if I raised my arms, and let's not even talk about Summer time. All of this changed one Summer when I went to Kidney Camp. I met a girl there who was on PD dialysis (she had a large catheter in her abdomen to perform dialysis) and she had stretch marks on her legs, back and stomach. Well, she was brave enough to wear a bikini in front of everyone. You might think since it was Kidney Camp, that everyone there would have been understanding, right? WRONG. People made fun of her for her stretch marks and she ended up going back to the cabin crying. Me and some of the other girls followed her back and tried to comfort her. I ended up taking my shirt off to show her my stretch marks, and I told her "Look at them like trophies. You have these marks that tell a story. They prove how strong you are and how much your body has gone through". After that, I didn't look at my stretch marks or scars as if they were bad. They ARE my trophies. They DO tell a story. I have stretch marks, surgery scars, and self harm scars.

I still get upset about my fluctuating weight. I am back on Prednisone now so I am noticing my body change. My face is a little rounder, and I am retaining a little more fluid strictly because of the Prednisone. I'm not happy with it at all, but I do have to remember this is only temporary.

Poor body image, obviously, can happen to anyone. And it can be from anything. Being overweight, underweight, scars from surgery, scars from self harm, stretch marks, anything! I shouldn't have been afraid to tell my bullies what I was going through, but I was. I hope this will help motivate anyone dealing with chronic illness to confront their bullies, and explain why some things are the way they are.

Thank you for reading! I'll be writing again soon, so be sure to check back!