I have been fat since I was very young. My mother is fat, my father is fat… and if I had a sibling, they would probably be fat too.

As a child, I grew up with my doctor telling me that the exercise I did “wasn’t real”, because if it was, it would be working. If it were legitimate exercise, I wouldn’t be so fat and unhealthy, right? I hated my yearly physicals as a child… I knew I was fat, and I always felt shame for it at the doctor’s office.

When I about 12 or 13, I started refusing to visit the doctor. I hated it. I couldn’t bear to have them point out my insecurities and make me feel so terrible about myself. I went many years, as a young girl going through puberty and growing into a teenager, without seeing a doctor.

As I got older, I needed a new doctor since I was getting too old to list my pediatrician as my family physician, so (very grudgingly), I saw a new doctor at age 16, for my first physical in years.

Once again I felt like I wanted to be swallowed into the ground. Listening to a stranger tell me I was obese. Feeling my semi-naked body being scrutinized. I remember my new doctor asking what my highest weight had been, and feeling too embarrassed to tell her she was looking at it. So I told her I didn’t know. I felt more shame during that appointment than I ever did as a child… as a child, I felt less responsible. It was somebody else’s fault I was so fat, surely… after all, I was only a kid, right? But at 16, I felt entirely responsible for the first time, and my doctor treated it as such. It was all me… I was the one who was screwing up my body.

I never regained the courage to visit a doctor again after that appointment. I am in my twenties now, and I haven’t had a physical in six years.

I had sex for the first time a few months after that last appointment, and six sexual partners later, I still haven’t been been back.

In my late teens, my period stopped. I haven’t had it for many years now. I am terrified about what could be wrong with me, but still… no doctor’s visit.

I have declined a surgery I require, and so I suffer on a daily basis because I will not go through several doctor’s appointments surrounding it.

I tough out illnesses and injuries. I suffer through pains. I constantly wonder if I’m ever ignoring signs of something more serious. I leave it up to chance, because the risk is always worth avoiding that dreaded doctor’s office. My fears and insecurities are so deep rooted, that even thinking about visiting a doctor brings me to tears.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair that I’ve been made to feel like my body doesn’t deserve medical attention. It’s not fair that I’m terrified a doctor will automatically link any problem I’m having to my weight. It’s not fair that I force myself to suffer. It’s not fair that I could have serious medical problems and not find out until it’s too late, all because I am so terrified of feeling shamed by people who are supposed to be helping me.

Fatphobia/fat shaming in medicine is not okay. I deserve to feel safe and comfortable receiving medical care. My body deserves to be cared for as much as any other body. Fatphobia could cost me my life one day, and that is not okay.