Welcome to the fatosphere, amandaw.

5′8″. 173lbs. BMI 26.3. Sizes 12 and 14 top and bottom. 38-34-44.

My habits have not changed. I eat the same shit I ate six months ago, and get the same amount of physical activity (trust me, that is carefully monitored). The only thing that’s changed is the shot in the ass I get once a month.

After my body settled down from puberty, I was 5′8″, 110lbs, 16.7 BMI, sizes 6 and 8, 32-25-36. I had no appetite and was visibly undernourished. Fending off accusations of anorexia, I would insist that “I’m not fat; I have fat.”

Just before I turned 19, I started on the Lyrica, which gave me a normal appetite. After about a year of slow and steady weight gain, my body settled in to 5′8″, 150lbs, 22.8 BMI, sizes 8 and 10, 34-30-40. And there my body stayed for just about three years.

Three years during which I lived a variety of lifestyles, to use the popular vernacular. I ran around college eating quite a bit; I ran around college eating almost nothing; I sat around my mother’s house eating fast food at least five times a week; I started working on my feet eating healthy portions of home-cooked family means (sandwiches, chicken, grains, pasta). And I stayed the same weight through all of that.

Last night, I went to a friend’s house to try on suits for an upcoming job interview. She used to work as a paralegal, so she had an abundance of suits. She is, well, the average American woman size-wise. She had several suits mostly in 10 and 12 but across a range of sizes.

I tried on every suit. I think there were seven or eight.

None of them fit.

OK — one fit… if I didn’t zip up the pants.

I was fucking humiliated.

I haven’t been able to fit my own jeans recently. I am fortunate that the only thing I’ve had to leave the house for recently has been physical therapy, so I’ve had official excuse to appear in public wearing sweat pants.

The friend was very helpful, and we ended up at Kohl’s where she bought me a fitting skirt, pair of pants, button-down top, and thong.

(Which makes her the first person to ever buy me underwear.)

I was not well. I had done far too much that day, to begin with: wake up early, physical therapy, driving to Canonsburg and back for aforementioned syringe in the ass, and shower, all without a single pain killer. I should have known to take one before going to the friend’s house, because trying on clothes always exhausts the hell out of me (I’d put it on the level of a long shower in terms of physical cost). But I didn’t until all the clothes-trying-on was done.

The physical consequences should be obvious, but something else happens when I’m in that kind of state. My brain goes blank. I am putting so much energy into staying awake, alert, upright, and minimally active that I don’t have any brain power to spare — to form coherent sentences, find the right word for the idea I am trying to express, offer responses that are relevant to the topic being discussed, or just plain make any sense.

Being social in this state is hard enough. It’s even harder when there’s the dark cloud of humiliation hovering over your head.

I looked myself in the mirror. I arched my back, sucked in my stomach, straightened my shoulders.

The gut didn’t go away.

God. I don’t know how to say this. It’s hard. It’s really hard. Up until recently I still saw myself as the skinny chick. My brain still thought it was stuck in the body I inhabited as a teenager.

And now? Now I’ve finally caught up: my brain feels like it’s stuck in the body I inhabited those three years prior to the Lupron.

I was OK, mostly, as I grew. I’ve been involved in fat acceptance for a while now, and body positivity has been a pet issue of mine for years and years; I trained myself to stop finding things to disparage, whether in myself or others, and instead find things to treasure. I accepted my fat rolls, and welcomed the substantiating of the tits. I admired my ass. I was building muscle; my thighs are thick and solid and I rather like them that way.

But now I can’t fit in my fucking clothes. And it’s fucking embarrassing.

***

I have a lot to deal with, personally. But right now I am fervently hoping that cessation of the Lupron will go hand-in-hand with shedding of the weight I’ve gained. I’m already damn sick  of it. The first month I suffered worse pain, dizziness and tremors and fainting spells; I had two months of reprieve after that, and in the last month the back pain came back like a boomerang and hit me in the ass, and brought with it cramping, nausea, and a scary amount of hair loss.

I have two months remaining. One more shot.

I’m scared. I’m scared I’m going to keep gaining. I’m scared there are some new and even more bizarre side effects in store. I’m scared that after the Lupron is done the pain will come right back. I’m scared it won’t have done anything.

I’m scared that all of this will be for nothing.

I’m scared that the Depo won’t do my body any better. I’m scared my periods are going to be as bad as ever when I come off the birth control. I’m scared we’ll end up running into trouble trying to conceive. I’m scared pregnancy is going to wreak havoc on my body. I’m scared of birth. I’m scared I won’t be able to keep up with kids once I have them. If I have them.

Most of all, I’m scared the pain is never going to go away. I’ll be thirty years old and living with the knowledge that I’m not even halfway done living and I’ve already exhausted all my options.

And when I look at that prospect, honestly? I want to die.

***

I meant this post to be about body dysmorphia. Fat. It ended up being something else.

I don’t know. I’ll be ok. But I’m struggling.