Posted by Christin Bauer
on February 26, 2023
Fate whispers to the warrior:
“You cannot withstand the storm.”
The warrior whispers back, “I am the storm”.
Why fighter?
When I first heard the term lipedema fighter, I thought it was terrible. I associated fighting with resistance, with effort, with visibility, with being loud. Most of it comes with effort. An effort for which there was absolutely no room in my life. Why fight when I couldn't change anything? Why fight if there is no cure for lipedema? Why fight when I was doomed to a life of flat-knit tights or, alternatively, going under the knife for a lot of money?
So I resigned myself to the fate that whispered quietly in my ear that I couldn't withstand the storm. Better flat lay on the ground and let the storm pass over me. Except that lipedema is the kind of storm that doesn't go away but lasts. Ultimately, it was a friend who also belongs to the lipedema community who reached out to me and asked me to finally take care of myself again and to stop ignoring the topic of lipedema.
So I asked myself the question: “Can I be a lipedema fighter?”
I thought back to my childhood heroine - Sailor Moon. Firstly, after the transformation, she also wore long gloves, just like a flat-knitting hero and secondly, what I had always admired about her was that she turned out to be Fighter FOR love and justice designated.
Maybe I could be a fighter after all, just not, as I always thought, in the fight AGAINST my body and lipedema but in the fight FOR my health, as far as possible freedom from symptoms and as a role model for others . And then I heard fate again whispering in my ear: “You can’t withstand the storm.” And deep down I knew I could take him on. That I would finally go to the doctor again, wear my compression garment, that I would try out whether lymphatic drainage could help me and that I would finally connect with the community of fighters.
So I stood up to my full height, looked fate in the eyes and said: “I am the storm.”
"Will you stand with me in the storm? Here’s the link to the joint fighter uniform: "I am the Storm" collection"
