"It's your fault you're fat."

Most of my childhood I was very skinny, healthy and athletic. Then two weeks after I turned ten, I developed type one diabetes. With type one, your pancreas no longer works, and you become insulin dependent. There is also a slight chance of developing Celiac Disease, which I did. You can also gain a lot of weight, which I did. And the Celiac made me swell up even more. 

In 7th grade, I was on my school's track team. One day at practice, one of my bullies looked me in the eyes and said, "It's your fault you're fat. You ate all that sugar."

It was true that I had gained a lot of weight, but just the way he said it made me want to go cry in a corner. That was the first time I ever really began to notice how I actually looked, and I've cared ever since.

"It's your fault," I tell myself every time I even look at sugary food, even though I am the "perfect" weight for my height, even though I have someone to hold me close every night who swears he loves me every single day, who has given me a beautiful child. I still believe that it's my fault that I developed type one diabetes, even though it had nothing to do with me personally; my pancreas just decided to stop working, and it hasn't in years. 

I doubt that my bully ever thinks about making this comment, but I hope he has grown up to realize that there are some things we simply cannot control, and I hope he uses that knowledge before he speaks of things he doesn't know.