Summertime Blues: When IBD Bloating and Body Image Issues Heat Up

I used to love summer. But now, managing my body image amid the season’s skimpy outfits has become exhausting and depressing.

Adulting is hard. Paying bills? Rude. Buying groceries? Exhausting. Making time for friends, family, and myself? Impossible.

And as I’ve nestled into my late 20s, I’ve found adulting becomes even harder and more exhausting during the summer months.

I grew up in Northern Michigan, where summers were (and continue to be) the picture of perfection. I spent every adolescent June, July, and August with my family on the lake boating and swimming, playing in the sand, and perfecting the s’more.

Now, as an adult in New York City, I dread the arrival of summer. It’s no longer free and relaxed but instead polluted with hustle and bustle.

I find myself constantly fighting the fatigue of adulthood, my exhaustion compounded by the inevitable weddings, birthday parties, baby showers, and travel plans for the summer months. This summer, I’ve found myself even more bogged down, not just with the buzz of activity but also psychologically by my body image and Crohn’s disease.

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Bloating and body image

My Crohn’s has been active for the last year or so. I’m always bloated and have yet to find a lasting alleviation for it. My bowel movements are irregular, and my stomach is consistently swollen.

I’m constantly dehydrated despite drinking well over 120 ounces of water a day. I exercise daily and eat a balanced diet, yet I find my clothes pick and choose when they want to fit me correctly.

My self-esteem and body image have taken a hit because of it.

Friends suggest going to the beach, then I feel something in my diseased stomach sink. I would prefer to melt in the heat, dressed in pants and bulky T-shirts, if that means I don’t have to be self-conscious about my body in fewer layers of clothing.

I’ve started taking bloating pills and countless prebiotics or probiotics, trying to find any sort of solution to alleviate my bloating. I’m exhausted — not only from the heat but from the endless thoughts about my body and how I feel about it.

I don’t like to wish life away. But the New York City hustle and heat deplete me, and I don’t have the energy to expend on my body image. So, I’m longing for September, when I can cocoon in bulky sweaters and not give my body a second thought.

One more thing to manage

Growing up with Crohn’s has given me a complicated relationship with my body. I was diagnosed when I was 12 years old and consequently lost nearly 40 pounds.

It was something I used to be thankful for. Crohn’s gave me the small body that I always wanted.

It is a messed up and backward way of thinking. Surely, we should be celebrating healthy bodies rather than joyously praising weight loss?

I’ve struggled with disordered eating for most of my life. During the last 5 years or so, however, I’ve developed a healthier, more peaceful relationship with my body. Or so I thought.

It’s been quite upsetting for me this summer to feel as though I’m backsliding. I worry that my constant distractions and concerns about my body and how I look are undoing the work I’ve already done.

And yet, here I am: I hate going shopping because I dread trying on clothes that won’t look good on me. I hate going to the beach because I dread wearing a swimsuit. I hate going outside because I dread putting on shorts over my bloated stomach. I hate waking up and wondering what my body is going to look like.

My body image has become another thing to take care of. It’s exhausting enough to try to make it through the day. It’s simply draining to spend my already-depleted tank criticizing myself and how I look.

An invisible illness to others — and ourselves

We can often point out the physical toll that Crohn’s has on one’s body. We see the physical weight loss, feel the piercing pain, and experience the diarrhea and fatigue.

It’s so much harder to see the mental toll that Crohn’s has on us.

Crohn’s is often called an “invisible” illness. Others cannot see, from the outside, the pain it’s inflicting on our bodies.

But I think that Crohn’s is also invisible to ourselves. It has taken me years to understand the long-term effects it has had on my mental health. Crohn’s has shaped my relationship with my body, health insurance, money, food, family, and now, summer.

Lifelong partners

I have long struggled with my identity in relation to Crohn’s. I have never, even from a young age, wanted to be “That Girl with Crohn’s.” Until recently, I withheld sharing my diagnosis with most people. I didn’t think it was something that should define me. In some ways, I still think so.

However, my Crohn’s does define so much of my life. It defines where I work. I must have a job that offers me health insurance. It defines what I eat. I must pay attention to the foods that bother my stomach. It defines how I move through the world. I must not sweat the small stuff, so as to not increase my stress levels. It defines what I wear, what I drink, and what I think about myself and my own body.

I wish I could say that I have an answer for feeling better about myself, making it through this summer, or alleviating my Crohn’s symptoms. Like all of us, I’m learning as I go.

But even in writing this article — in admitting these insecurities about my body and surrendering to the power that I’ve discovered Crohn’s has on my life — I’m learning that even if my bloating dissipates and my body image miraculously improves, those insecurities and complicated feelings will always be there.

Like my Crohn’s, they’re with me for life. I suppose it’s just about finding a way to keep the flare-ups — of my symptoms and my insecurities — at bay.