theOcean
Moderator
- Location
- Toronto, ON, Canada
Have you found that dealing with IBD has changed the way you identify at all? I know we talked about this in another thread about changes regarding sex, but I'm more interested in identity.
I'm queer and my identifying as that didn't change, but I found that dealing with IBD sent me through a lot of body dysphoria, especially during my last hospital stay. Within the eleven days that I was there, I was on IV the whole time and they massively overcompensated and gave me way too much fluid. I ended up swelling up like crazy from it -- I went from being near-skeletal and massively underweight from flare to having so much water weight I had fat rolls on my ankles, and my belly looked like a pregnant woman's. It was terrifying, and took almost a week to get back down to how I was before once they took me off of having a constant saline drip.
I'm pretty androgynous, though I'm comfortable IDing as female. But suddenly going through such massive body changes like that were terrifying. Grappling with my weight loss was hard, too -- I was used to being relatively curvy and enjoyed it, and suddenly I was stick-thin and had to throw out my whole wardrobe because nothing fit anymore. It made me really have to reassess how I wanted to present myself.
I'm queer and my identifying as that didn't change, but I found that dealing with IBD sent me through a lot of body dysphoria, especially during my last hospital stay. Within the eleven days that I was there, I was on IV the whole time and they massively overcompensated and gave me way too much fluid. I ended up swelling up like crazy from it -- I went from being near-skeletal and massively underweight from flare to having so much water weight I had fat rolls on my ankles, and my belly looked like a pregnant woman's. It was terrifying, and took almost a week to get back down to how I was before once they took me off of having a constant saline drip.
I'm pretty androgynous, though I'm comfortable IDing as female. But suddenly going through such massive body changes like that were terrifying. Grappling with my weight loss was hard, too -- I was used to being relatively curvy and enjoyed it, and suddenly I was stick-thin and had to throw out my whole wardrobe because nothing fit anymore. It made me really have to reassess how I wanted to present myself.