When Your Legs Are So Largely Disfigured

Yes, people do stare.

Shannon Ashley
4 min readOct 23, 2018
Photo by Andreas on Reshot

We all take our lives and limbs for granted in some respect. Most of you take for granted that even if you don’t love your legs, and even if you’ve got some weight to lose, those limbs will still fit into a reasonable amount of pants or jeans.

Two days ago, my go-to jeans ripped at my inner left thigh, in the same damn place my jeans have ripped ever since I was 12 years old. Now I’m back to the precarious situation of having only one pair of jeans. It’s time to go shopping and it’s a nightmare to do so.

Jeans shopping for a woman like me means browsing one plus-size store or section after another, measuring leg openings, and begrudging every plus-size woman who can actually wear “skinny” jeans.

Do you have any idea how many years skinny jeans have been the bulk of the bottoms in plus-sized selections?

Far too fucking long.

Yes, I have enormous legs. I have diseased, lipedema legs which means I sometimes would prefer to have no legs at all.

I give new meaning to “thunder thighs.” My calves are best described as trunks. Tree trunks, or elephants. When I catch glimpses of their reflection in store entrances, I know the people passing me by have never before seen legs like mine.

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Shannon Ashley

It's not about being flawless, it's about being honest. Calling out vipers since 2018 🍵 https://ko-fi.com/shannonashley 📧 truthurts.substack.com