<-I know this entry got really long, but it's incredibly important to me. So I hope you'll take some of your valuable time to read it. Thanks!->

    Unless you don’t already know, part of the disease I have causes the fat cells of the body to enlarge and replicate too quickly, regardless of diet or exercise. And those diseased fat cells are deformed, often with two nuclei, and they burn at such a high temperature that it’s physically impossible for the body to burn them off. Thanks to this horrific and really rude disease, I’ve gained quite a bit of weight, and now I’m in a very real race against fate to try and cheat death through multiple very painful operations. It’s not my fault that this happened. I didn’t do anything that caused it. In fact, my diet was just reviewed for its calorie content and nutritious value and it turns out I’m eating as healthy as I possibly can given my allergies, at a average total of 1400 calories a day. I didn’t smoke, do drugs, have sex, or do anything that could have caused this disease. It was just in my genes. It was doled out to me by nature before I was even born. So I don’t think anyone could ever say I did something wrong and the consequences were getting Dercum’s Disease. I know that to be undeniably true, but it doesn’t really make a specific aspect of this disease any easier.

    I never used to care what other people thought of me. Not really. I knew who I was, what I was doing, what I had done in the past, and that I was basically a good person. I went through a little bit of a crisis with this self-awareness after my toe was amputated. It started to bother me when I’d go shoe shopping, and inevitably every single time I’d have at least one person staring at where my toe had been amputated. I knew they weren’t judging me, it’s just that mixed look of curiosity and pity got to be… trying. Because I stood out. Because it caused one too many double takes. Cause it freaked out one too many children. And besides, no one likes to be the cause of any of those things.

    Eventually I pretty much got over it as time went on. Although I still don’t like the freaking out the kids part… But this? I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this.

    I’m really tired of walking – or rather, limping – around a room and having at least one set of disapproving eyes following me everywhere I go, with that obvious disdain, with the thoughts that are running through their minds so perfectly enunciated by their contorted faces.

“Why is that young girl so fat?”

    It happened again today as I went to get an x-ray for my hip. It’s been hurting really bad and I don’t know why. I didn’t injure it, I didn’t do anything to it, but some days it’s so bad I have to walk with a cane. It really sucks, especially on top of everything else. So I was walking from the reception desk to my seat when this woman – who was so freakishly skinny that her face was pulled so tight across her face she looked like a barely living mummy – followed me around the room with her eyes. I could tell exactly what she was thinking, as her eyes flicked back and forth from my face to my butt. And her cat-butt-face mouth wasn’t exactly the best poker face she could have conjured up.

“She should go on a diet, just quit eating so damn much.”

    The worst part is, you can’t even say anything back. You can’t even defend yourself. Because if you say out loud what she’s obviously thinking, you look like a dork. Or people will think you’re psychic and then you’d be like that nerd guy on Heroes, and no one wants to be like that. At least if she said it to your face, or at least your double chin, you could fight back. You could have some recourse. You could make her feel like a total dipshit for thinking such horrible things about someone with a potentially terminal illness.

“She’s like a poster girl for the American obesity epidemic.”

    I always used to get upset when I would hear people insult other people who happened to be a bit larger than they were. I distinctly remember one time when I was driving around with my friend Mike. We were on our way to my house when one of my neighbors – whom I’d never met – was walking from her car to her house. I’m guessing she was probably like a size 18, not even that big. And Mike opened his mouth and said something about how fat people should be forced to go on a diet, and how he couldn’t even imagine how someone could “let themselves go like that.”

    I wanted to stop that car, make him get out, and walk home. But instead I just lectured him. I told him how dare he judge that woman, whom he had no idea what her life was like, or what her trials were, or why she was the way she was. Maybe she had a terrible disease, maybe she was anorexic as a teenager. Maybe she had some mental disorder. Maybe she just had a really hard life that we had no idea about. Maybe she gave birth to sextuplets for all we know and she’s still carrying around the pregnancy weight! The point is, we don’t know, so why judge? Why be so harsh? We don’t judge people who have scars and say, “Man, how can people do that to themselves? How can they be so stupid? Why did they let themselves go? And how could they be so stupid to walk into the kitchen, get out a knife, and practice surgery on themselves!”

“Fat people really disgust me. Someone should cut off their bon-bon supply.”

    We never invent arbitrary reasons for why people have scars. We never fabricate grand tales about someone who got cancer. We get angry when people are discriminatory against someone else’s religion, race, or way of life. So why is it okay to do any of those things about people with weight issues? The fact is, it’s wrong. We just don’t know. I really wonder how many people have looked and me and thought some of these terrible things about me. And it makes me sad, because it makes me think of all the people out there who are in situations like mine, who have the unimaginable pain and anguish of watching your body become distorted, to see it fall apart. To lose complete control over what you look like, to slowly stop caring, replacing that with just wanting to live. To give up absolutely everything else, if only you could keep breathing. Just for a few years more. Anything, you’d give anything, just for those few years.

“Why don’t they just go on a diet?”

    There are literally hundreds, even thousands, of reasons why any one individual may have a little extra weight on them. Only one of those many, many reasons is that they eat too much. And yet we always come back to that single solitary reason. There’s a whole medical specialty about adipose or lipodystrophy disorders and diseases just like mine. There’s Lymphedema, BSCL, Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, FLPD, Kobberling familial partial lipodystrophy, Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome, HAART-Related Lipodystrophy, Chagas Disease, and of course, Adiposis Dolorosa, otherwise known as Dercum’s Disease.

“They need to get up off they’re butt and get out in the world. Exercise will cure everything!”

    The aforementioned conditions are just a minute sampling of the countless diseases, conditions, and symdromes relating to being overweight. Why is it that we immediately point to over-eating, when it – as a possible explanation for being overweight – is far out-numbered by diseases and syndromes? I bet the number of fat-related diseases are higher than the calories than any over-eater eats in a single day. So why don’t we think of that? Why don’t we stop before we judge and think that just maybe the person we’re sending those disapproving glares at may just have a suckier life than you.

“Gluttons disgust me. If only they’d be more active in sports, then they’d be healthy like me.”

    I’m not trying to say that the obesity epidemic isn’t something to be concerned about. I’m not saying any of this as an excuse for over-eating. I’m not saying that overweight people shouldn’t go on diets if they and their doctors feel it’s necessary. What I’m saying is, stop jumping to conclusions. Stop sending disapproving glances before considering the consequences. Stop and think before adding to the trials of someone who’s already dealing with the harsh reality of debilitating disease. There is enough unfair judgment and hate in this world already; we don’t need to arbitrarily add to it over the issues of others we know nothing about.

    After all, if nothing else, we should know that life is fleeting, and our lives can change in an instant. Believe me, mine did. Adipose diseases can happen to any one, without prior warning. The next time you look at someone’s who overweight, imagine yourself in their shoes. Imagine your life turning upside down. Imagine your body changing without you having done anything wrong, without being able to stop it. Imagine the physical and emotional pain of such changes. Would you be so quick to judge then? I would hope that after such contemplation we would instead smile at such a person, in an effort to in some way silently say to them, “I’m sorry for what you’re going through.”

    Like I said, we don’t look at a scar and immediately jump to the conclusion that the individual in question started playing with scalpels. That’s an insane and illogical conclusion. So is immediately seeing an overweight person and being convinced that they over-eat and all of their problems are due to their own mistakes. So don’t do it. Because one day, it may be you facing those same stares you’re dishing out so quickly. And even if you don’t have to face those stares yourself, you shouldn’t have to be in such a situation before you’re compassionate for the plight of a fellow human being. Caring about someone else and treating them with respect shouldn’t – and doesn’t – have prerequisites. I’m happy to say that the lecture I dealt out to my friend Mike was years before I ever knew I had Dercum’s Disease. And today, that lecture is still the same, but now, it just has a little more emotion behind it. A little more experience. And a little more heartache.

    Next time you see someone a little bigger than yourself, don’t leap to conclusions. Instead of condemning them, remember that they’re people too, and sometimes life just sucks and there ain’t nothing we can do about it. Remember that love and understanding can still at least help us to feel happier despite our sucky situations. Remember that judging others is wrong, no matter what situation we’re in. Be it race, creed, color, or size, we’re all human, and being human comes with trials. Each one different. And no one of us is better than the other, especially when it comes to belt sizes.

    So instead of leaping to illogical conclusions and silently wishing those around you would go on a diet, or that their weight is somehow their fault, think this instead, for me:

“I’m so sorry for what you’re going through. And I wish you the best.”