Ask Dr. NerdLove: How Do I Stop Hating My Body?

October 16, 2015 by Dr. NerdLove

Hello. I came to you because of an online friend. I have struggled with anorexia since I was 12. I’m almost 14 now. I came here because people won’t take me seriously because of my age.

I also struggle with depression and severe anxiety, neither of which help with my case. I am about 5’2 and weigh approx. 113 pounds. I used to weigh only 98, but after treatments and therapy my weight has been increasing.

I find it very hard to reach out to people because of this. When my anxiety kicks in, it’s practically impossible. I just switched schools because I couldn’t face returning to my peers after they knew about my disorder. I need some help, because if I can’t find ways to cope with how my body looks, I’ll most likely drop out of school again.

After gaining weight in therapy, I’ve felt so horrible about how I look. Most of my peers are 3 or 4 inches taller than me and weigh 10 or 20 pounds less. I need some help with overcoming these feelings and not letting my anxiety get the best of me.

Stranger in The Mirror

It’s incredibly brave of you to reach out like this SitM. I understand how hard it can be living with a disorder like this and why it can be so frustrating when people dismiss you for being young, as though youth automatically meant that the way you feel was any less real.

I also want to commend you for getting help; that takes a lot of strength and you should be proud of the progress you’ve made. You’re working with a therapist and that is exactly what you should be doing right now. A therapist is going to be able to help you far more than a loud-mouth with a blog can, so I hope you’re talking about these issues with them too. Remember: Dr. NerdLove is not a real doctor.

What I am, however, is very familiar with anxiety and depression. I’ve been dealing with chronic depression since I was a teenager, and I’m well aware of how sneaky it can be. Depression and anxiety are so damn insidious because they speak to us in our own voices, whispering all the things you dislike about yourself in your ear as though they were sacred truths. It’s your jerk-brain, slapping you around because it’s an asshole and a bully that knows how to hit us where we’re weakest, knows how to suck the life out of us so everything is grey and lifeless and pointless and you can barely feel anything except worthless.

And it’s all bullshit. Depression is a liar, delivering bullshit and telling you it’s steak and you need to eat it all down, yum yum yum. Anxiety plays up all of your fears in vivid 3D, larger than life and three times as terrifying. It’s your jerk brain poking your buttons just because FUCK YOU, THAT’S WHY.

But here’s the thing: you’re stronger than you realize and your jerk-brain wants to keep you from ever learning that. You’ve already seen hints of that strength; after all, you’ve been able to push back against your eating disorder, which is incredible and you deserve to be celebrated for it. But it’s not going to be easy; your jerk-brain is going to fight you every step of the way.

So here’s what you do. First of all: keep up with your therapist. As I said, they’re in the best position to help you. It may take time to find things that work for you; people are complex and what works for one person may not work for another, which is why it’s important to keep at it. It may take a combination of therapies to get things under control and that’s fine too. It took going on medication to get my depression under control and to learn how to recognize it and to handle it. You may find that medication works best for your anxiety. Just don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself, even to your parents and to your therapist. If something isn’t working for you after giving it a fair shake or if any side-effects are making things worse, then you can and should insist on trying something else. After all, you‘re the one who’s living your life.

Next, I want you to start recognizing that beauty doesn’t come in one shape, size or weight and anyone who says otherwise is selling you something – usually literally. The idea of what a woman is “supposed” to look like is cooked up and quite literally sold to us by people with an agenda. Beauty isn’t about what the scale says or what your measurements are.

And quite frankly, most of the standards that women (and men, too) are pressured to live up to are quite literally impossible. Even models and movie stars don’t look like models and movie stars in real life; they all have folds, wrinkles, lines, bulges, dimples and cellulite that only disappears with dangerous levels of dehydration, obsessive levels of exercise, make-up, carefully chosen lighting and a hell of a lot of Photoshop.

The fact that your peers are taller or thinner than you doesn’t mean that you need to be as tall or as thin. That’s what they look like. You are not them; you are you and that’s amazing. Part of feeling better about yourself is learning to love yourself, to decide that you look damn cute regardless of what you’re “supposed” to look like. As cheesy as it sounds, looking at yourself and saying “I look great!” regularly does affect how you see yourself.

Another thing you need is Team You: the people who love you, who you trust, who have your back and will give you support when you need it. Team You are the people you can turn to when you’re feeling weak, when you’re feeling lonely or when your anxiety is especially loud and you need other people to talk you down. They will be some of the strongest defenses you will have against your jerk-brain and it’s lies. They’ll lend you strength when you need it, encouragement to keep you going and cheer you on as you improve. It’s also to be careful to avoid people who will tear you down for no reason other than because they’re assholes. They’re the hardest to ignore – even when you know they’re full of shit – because we all have what’s called a “negativity bias” that means those negative comments hit us 5 times harder than compliments. Social media like Facebook and Twitter are especially full of these assholes. Be ruthless in blocking them, muting them and deleting their bullshit; you have no time for them and all they do is crap on other people for their own pleasure.

It can also help to try taking control of your own brain. Speaking from personal experience, I’ve found that yoga and mindfulness meditation are great ways of controlling depression and anxiety. Meditation in particular is like being given the instruction manual to your own brain; you learn how to quiet those anxious thoughts, to calm your self and find peace, even at times when you are at your most stressed and anxious.

But the last thing I want to tell you is that your disorder doesn’t define who you are. It’s something you wrestle with, something you work to control, sure. But it’s not you. You’re more than someone who struggles with their self image or with depression and anxiety. And more than anything else, it’s certainly not something shameful or a sign that you’re a bad or weak or defective person. I mean, let’s look at the evidence here: you’re working with a therapist, you’re taking control of your life and your body and you’re continuing to reach out to find more ways to manage all of these issues. I don’t think you realize just how fucking amazing that is. You’re facing down all of these things that’re in your way, you’re taking the hits and you’re getting back up again. Do you not realize just how brave you are, how much strength that takes?

Yeah, you’ve got your jerk-brain screwing with you. But you’re hitting it back. You’re refusing to let it keep you down. You’re staring it in it’s face and you won’t give up and you won’t give in and I’m starting to run out of synonyms for “amazing”.

You are braver and stronger and more resilient than you realize. It’s not going to be easy. You’re going to have to fight your jerk-brain every step of the way. But you’ve made it so far and that’s incredible.

You’ve got this. I promise.

Hi Doc!

So, here’s my problem: my girlfriend of a year believes she is a whore. Why does she think this? Well, she’s had a bit of a shady past before meeting me. Now, she’s not a person that slept around before we met. In fact, she lost her virginity to me.

No, she thinks she’s a whore not because of the acts that she’s done, both acts she’s WANTED to do. She used to lead men on because she liked to, but never had sex with them because she liked the positive attention, but not the actual act of sex. She’s openly admitted to liking the idea of a threesome between me and another guy and/or woman. She tells me that she’s had more than one fantasy of having sex with guys she’s seen only once. She was actually so worried about all of this meaning she was a whore, she didn’t believe that at first our relationship was anything other than me just trying to use her for sex.

None of this bothers me actually, because after a year and despite any of what’s listed above, I still know her better than she knows herself sometimes, and she’s always been one to jump to conclusions about a lot of things. But underneath she’s the sweetest soul and she has proven time and time again that she loves me to death and would never hurt me in any way.

Sometimes though I feel like she’s really just trying to poke holes in our relationship, but that’s not fair of me to say that about her when I know she’d never do that. My point being, she has this very negative image of herself and can’t get the idea out of her head because she’s believed it about herself for so long that now it threatens my relationship altogether. Any thoughts?

No Need For Angels

Welcome to the wonderful world of conflicting messages regarding women’s sexuality, where women are expected to be sexy but not sexual at the same time. One of the overwhelming messages regarding women and sex is that female sexuality is performative – that it’s something to be done for the benefit of men; if it’s done for their own gratification, then there’s something horribly wrong with them.

Witness the no-win situation that women are put into when it comes to, say, selfie culture. Dudes will gleefully troll a woman’s Instagram feed or Facebook profile looking for those bikini pictures, the underwear photos, the downward angle “Don’t I look cute?” images that show off their cleavage… and then turn right around and call her an attention-whore and insist that she’s vapid and shallow. Folks will ask for selfies and then mock the women for taking them, concluding that taking these photos is evidence of some sort of moral degeneracy. Because God forbid women should do things for themselves or their friends and not for the pleasure of others.

(Incidentally, when I see people complaining about attention whores, I presume that they lead monastic lives – avoiding all forms of social media for fear of drawing attention to themselves, taking pains to remain in the background and remain unnoticed… after all, it couldn’t possibly be that they’re just looking for another bullshit way to verbally slap women around, oh no.)

Now throw all this together and blend it into a sex-negative culture and we have your girlfriend, caught in the middle of all this bullshit.

Your girlfriend has absorbed the moralistic anti-sex bullshit that says she’s a bad person for actually wanting to enjoy sex. She’s played the game of being the coquettish tease but pulls back because she doesn’t actually want to be the tease. She wants to get fucked, but to admit to doing so is to be the whore. She’s horrified that she has these fantasies about people she’s glimpsed on the street as though 99.999% of humanity hasn’t fantasized about banging some hot rando on an hourly basis. Her jerk-brain is whispering in her ear that she’s dirty and sinful because she has committed the unforgivable sin of being a human in possession of a libido, quelle horreur!

So what’s a good boyfriend to do? Well, you talk to her. You tell her that those fantasies sound like they’re amazing and you’ve had plenty of your own that are just as lurid. You reassure her that she’s not a slut because sluts aren’t a thing; a slut is just a label applied to someone having sex in ways that other people disapprove of. She’s got a sex drive and an active imagination and that’s awesome. That’s part of what makes her uniquely her and you like that side of her. You tell her – daily, if you have to – how incredible she is and what a great person she is.

Everyone has a past and that past is part of what makes us who we are today. So she was a tease before. OK and? Yeah, it’s kind of a dick thing to lead people on but it’s also not like she’s obligated to come across just because she’s flirty. She’s young, she went looking for validation, now she knows better. No harm, no foul and it’s lead to where she is now, with a guy who cherishes her and thinks she’s sublime.

(At some point I’ll find the time to write up my thoughts on men’s fears of dating teases, gold-diggers and users…)

What does it mean that she’s had these fantasies of threesomes? It means that she’s had fantasies of threesomes and it gets her off… that’s it. Same with those fantasies about banging Johnny On-The-Street: it’s a fantasy. Big fat hairy deal. Maybe the taboo nature of it gets her motor humming; awesome, she’s taken sex-negative bullshit and uses it to give her something to rub one out to, spitting in the eye of everyone who’s told her that it’s bad. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter why she has those fantasies. Fantasies are just that: something in your imagination. What you fantasize about doesn’t define you or dictate whether you’re a good or bad person. It’s just what’s going on in between your ears.

Tell her how awesome she is, reassure her that not only is she not a whore but that her fantasies are great. She’s heard that she’s a dirty, sinful slut for most of her life; now it’s time for her to hear from someone she loves and trusts to tell her that this is part of what makes her sexy and cool and sweet and wonderful all at the same time and the two of you can be sexy monsters together, giving middle fingers to sex-negative bullshit one orgasm at a time.

Good luck.

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Marty Farley

Doc, you've got a big vote from me for the article about men fearing teases, users and gold-diggers. This is one aspect of toxic masculinity that fascinates me.

LW2, I hope your girlfriend can get past this, maybe with a sex-positive therapist. Sounds like you're doing everything right, and a lot of it is gonna be her working through these issues with herself. I'm rooting for you!
- awesomizer_jr
  
  Being a more-educated-than-wealthy guy in a middle class environment, gold-diggers sound like fiction to me, not unlike all those misogynist nerds with fedoras that I keep reading about and never seeing in real life. However, I can see how financially successful guys from a deprived environment might have more to worry about. I mean, if you're a struggling single mom with next to no job skills/experience, wouldn't it be almost saintly to NOT be looking for a short cut out of there, even if it means maybe you gotta pretend to like some guy more than you really do? It's survival.
  
  As for users, well they're out there. On 2 different occasions, I was used by girls in loveless relationships who were seeking an ego boost and someone to have control over. Sure, you can make the point that getting emotionally involved with someone in a relationship was an unwise decision, and it definitely all happened with my permission. But they were very convincing in making me believe they cared about me, and both times it hurt like hell when I started figuring out it was all bull.
  
  Guys do that shit to women all the time too, of course, and it does neither gender any good to obsess over people being potential users. But stuff like that does happen.
  - K-J
    
    I really dislike the gold-digger mythos as well.
    Just because some people aren't good earners and would really like it to be together with someone who's better at it (who wouldn't?), that's not to say that there aren't other values or "currencies".
    
    There's a somewhat posh coastal town not far from where I live, and there you find a few galleries and shops which I'm sure don't pay the upkeep, Most likely, they have high earning spouses who keep it afloat, but these guys, maybe they don't have all that many dreams of their own.
    They're good at making money perhaps, but with a lack of personal dreams, it at least feels good to fulfill someone else's.
    
    That to me is an ok order of things, and it's cool these shops exist.
    
    Same as someone who steps into somebody's life as a provider (so long as he/she actually can afford it). Well if you're not realising all that much with your means anyway, why not realise someone else instead?
    - Jenn77
      
      We should keep in mind that no one knows the 'cost' of a relationship unless they're a part of the relationship. It's possible these shops bring in more than you think, but it's also possible the people who are floating the shops feel that what their partner brings into the relationship, companionship, child and house care, sex, is worth the price of rent.
      
      Eselle brought up a good point that people in these arrangements are usually aware of them and chose them for a reason.
      - trundlebear
        
        People made fun of a certain person here by "buying his wife a hobby", which she's proceeded to not only turn into THE national chain, but also the only national chain of that type that has been turning a profit for the last several years and has gone through pretty much constant innovation and change, neither of which are easy or cheap to do. I've met her many times and she didn't strike me as any different than any other CEO I've known — relentlessly driven and extremely competent (and also very very busy).
      - James Gilmer
        
        I'm so happy you got this covered, I was kinda pissed when I saw that shit come up but I'm not supposed to be using my arms much (thanks slipped disc!) but I've known loads of men and women whose spouses have helped them open up businesses and people who don't know the couples always start "gold digger" claims.
        
        And then if a divorce does happen, that just seems to justify it to some people, especially if the ex is bitter about the divorce, never mind that while they were together they were perfectly happy couples who were indistinguishable from any other couple.
        
        I see so many people make comments about; "Oh, yeah, he bought his wife a "hobby"" when talking about women starting businesses with their husband's help, but when the husband pursues something it's always "his dream".
        
        Bottom line; no one knows what happens between two people in a relationship, and even if a marriage is meant to "marry up", it still takes place with the knowledge of both people. The narrative of women "tricking" men into marriage or having a child or whatever just won't die despite anyone who does it for real probably being in the smallest possible minority imaginable, and the fact that it's always (shock) the woman who has somehow "tricked" the man.
      - Jenn77
        
        Exactly. I mean unless you're their accountant you don't know if the business is successful or who's bringing the most.
      - eselle28
        
        This is a bit further down the class ladder, but there have been a couple of times I've been irritated/amused by a home-based daycare being characterized as a small supplement to allow a woman to be a stay at home parent. Although people often do start that business after having children, in at least a couple of cases I know of (and I suspect in many others I don't know about), the daycare operator is the family's breadwinner even based on straight income and is vastly the breadwinner if tax deductions are factored in.
      - James Gilmer
        
        My best friend's first wife loved baking and decorating cakes and started making wedding cakes. They replumbed their basement and put in an industrial kitchen, got the permits, etc.
        
        She grew a successful business on her own over the course of seven years, including moving into an actual storefront as her business grew.
        
        For reasons totally unrelated, things just didn't work out.
        
        The thing I heard most about their ten year relationship was; "Man, I didn't think she was a gold digger, but after he sets her up with a bakery…"
        
        To his credit, he always shut that kind of talk down when he heard it, but despite it not remotely being true in any way, people just assumed that while she worked her ass off alone to build a business out of their basement that grew into a storefront that brought money in for both of them, somehow it must have been a cunning ten year plan to act as a gold digger.
        
        Never mind that it's completely asinine on the fact of it and he would always tell people that wasn't the case at all…people just totally inserted that narrative because it's the narrative they've been taught.
        
        I've seen it happen hundreds of times.
        
        As Jenn said; unless your accountant, you don't know the state of the business, and unless you're a mind reader you don't know the state of someone marriage or why they're in it.
      - rebootI730
        
        I know a woman who met her husband while she was in line at immigration and he was working in customs at the airport that day (talk about an inappropriate time to hit on someone). People say she married him for citizenship and money and he married her because she was young, beautiful, and no one who was not desperate would marry him because he is boring. Maybe yes, maybe no. But she created a string of hair parlors and nail salons that allowed him to retire early to his dream home in Arizona. So maybe it started out with her marrying because he had something she wanted, but in the end he got as much as she did.
  - Marty Farley
    
    But that's kind of my point. It happens to both genders, and it's kind of something that's just a potential side-effect of seeking a relationship. So if it's fairly common and done to/by both genders, why does it seem like so many guys are *terrified* of it?
    
    I've been used for an ego boost before. I've been used for sex before. It wasn't pleasant, and it hurt, and I was mad, but I also stood up, brushed myself off, and assumed sometimes that's just how it goes. I didn't go ranting on my OKCupid profile about how all men want ego boosts (I've actually had more ego boost users than sex users; in fact, I've had experiences that were a lot closer to the Average Guy than the Average Girl according to social rules. Damn, maybe I AM a dude…) or go around trying to convince other women that men will only go on dates with them as a way to avoid their own desperation.
    
    So if it happens in more or less equal amounts to both genders, why then is there such a fixation among guys (at least online) to avoid it? That's the question.
    - Trakiel
      
      I think at least part of it ties into the whole cultural idea that a man's primary contribution to a relationship is material wealth "a man is a provider". Because of this expectation, being able to set a firm boundary with regard to financial expectations (or against potential financial exploitation) becomes more difficult. For example, there's the idea that if I were go get into a relationship the money I've been saving up for the past few years for a new car should instead be spent on my partner or some couple-related expense – to spend it on myself would just be selfish and conflicts with the role of "man as a provider".
      
      Another reason is toxic masculinity. For those who subscribe to those ideas the fear is purely getting the short end of a transactional exchange – their buddies will make fun of them for spending too much money on a woman for the amount of TM status she provides.
      
      To add to all of that, there's also the fact that way in which men are raised leaves us more vulnerable to emotional upsets/pain – which many of us are aware, even if only subconsciously.
    - awesomizer_jr
      
      Marty – good question. Maybe for guys who have had little to no success in dating, individual instances of being taken advantage of that would be less of a big deal for someone with more experience, stand out that much more starkly instead. Or in the case of the online misogynists you seem to be referring to, they're probably just parroting the party line.
  - eselle28
    
    I find your example to be a very strange one. By and large, financially successful guys who don't know many women (I'm assuming that's what you mean by a "deprived environment") don't know many single mothers who have no job skills or work experience. Even when these people do know each other, I find that there tends to be mutual disinterest on both sides. I certainly haven't seen much willingness on this site by even men who claim to be desperate to date women who they perceive as being of a lower social class than themselves. For the most part, I also don't see many women of that description who are focused on dating lawyers and accountants. A guy from a similar background who has a steady job seems to be a more commonly pictured partner.
    
    There are couples who I'm sure have an arrangement that's based at least partly on the fact that one person wants a highly attractive partner and the other wants security and leisure time. I know there are quite a few where there's a fairly explicit agreement that one partner will work very hard in the labor market while the other will take care of all domestic tasks or (in the case of couples in higher income brackets) will mostly enjoy leisure activities but will be highly available and relatively undemanding during those periods when the working partner is at home. From what I've seen, the working people in these arrangements were seldom tricked into them. They bargained for them, and as with all bargains, some people are satisfied and some later decide they prefer something else.
    - awesomizer_jr
      
      eselle – I meant "deprived environment" quite literally, as in "poverty". I know of no demographic more vocally fearful of gold-diggers than wealthy rappers of humble origins.
      - eselle28
        
        Ah, gotcha. That does change the situation I was picturing.
        
        Though…I am going to throw out there that I'm puzzled at the dilemma. It seems that a lot of wealthy musicians, actors, athletes and so on want partners who are very conventionally attractive. It also seems as if a good number want (and that many need, if they're going to have stable relationships) partners who are willing to shape their lives around their boyfriends' or husbands' careers, going on tour or relocating with each trade and accepting long absences. That strikes me as being the tradeoff in the second paragraph, and while I can see anyone who's become suddenly wealthy wanting to be careful of being taken advantage of (including by male friends or business advisers), it seems as if most of those arrangements are in fact going to involve leveraging some income-earning potential against other contributions to a relationship. The alternative would seemingly be to date more average-looking women who have their own careers, can't always attend concerts, and who expect their partners to contribute more to non-financial aspects of the relationship. I suspect a wealthy rapper could find at least some women of that type with effort, and that doesn't seem to be who famous entertainers in any genre tend to seek out.
      - awesomizer_jr
        
        Very true! Plus it might be complicated by the suddenly-rich dude being culturally more comfortable with the gold-diggers he claims to avoid than with many of the financially independent women he would appear to wish for. I guess it's hardly the only context in which people expect their potential partners to be xyz and the-opposite-of-xyz at the same time. We're all contradictory mofos.
  - @Alcoraiden
    
    Gold diggers do exist. They're rare, but someone I know was one. Got married to a guy, had a kid with him, all so he would take care of her at home and so she wouldn't have to get a job.
    
    However, the odds of running into one are so low you basically shouldn't assume anyone is one.
    - ember
      
      You got voted down for this but actually I agree. I know one woman who is exactly like this. And in my life I have met hundreds, thousands of women who are not. Pretending that such women do not exist, even if they are rare, is bad news to me because it a) ignores that women are individuals with a full range of behaviour, some of which can be shady and b) ignores that there still exists income inequality between men and and woman and therefore, there may still be more impetus for some woman to want to find a provider-type.
      
      People are people: some of them are douches.
      - @Alcoraiden
        
        I get voted down for everything. 😛 I'm used to it. But that's a pretty interesting theory there in B…
    - eselle28
      
      Just to be clear, you're describing a man in a relationship where he was mislead into thinking his wife wanted something different or one in which he's realized the current arrangement makes him unhappy and that he'd prefer to be with a woman who worked?
      
      I don't deny some women of that type exist, either. There are people of all genders and orientations who use others. But I do think it's important to mention if an couple singled out for criticism is one in which one person is unhappy and the other person is happy, because there are some women who want this and go about seeking it in an honest way and there are men who prefer wives like this rather than trying to balance domestic work with working women. If a couple comes to that arrangement and is happy about it, no one is being used and I don't think it's necessarily more condemnable than seeking a partner who shares your interests or who agrees that having a bunch of dogs and no kids is a good life plan.
      - @Alcoraiden
        
        The man was misled. His wife never loved him. She wanted the security of a guy with a pretty nontrivial income, and she had a kid with him to basically glue them together. They got divorced when the kid was young because she was tired of living with a guy she didn't care about.
      - eselle28
        
        Fair enough then. I mean, I do think that some of those arrangements are acceptable even if love isn't involved, because some people are fine separating that from their marriage and familial arrangements. Dude deserves to know what he's getting into, though, and if you're going down that path I think you need to be pretty sure you're going to be able to stick with it.
Mohr

Hey SitM
You are doing great. You are taking care of yourself and that’s fantastic. Some thing that might help you with your body image is trying to recontextualize what food means to you. I personally like to view food as one of life’s great joys and that every meal is an adventure. That’s way when I am eating I feel like I am gaining something that’s personal and enjoyable, instead of just giving my body nutritions. Sending your mouth on a trip to taste bud wonderland might help you view food as something enjoyable instead of just a calorie delivery system. So you might want to look up a foodie blog about your area or trying cooking something new and exciting.
adamhunter1223

LW1: Doc's right, he's absolutely right, but I want to add one thing here. One of the worst things about having any kind of mental health issue (aside from the fact that society turns it into a giant scarlet letter) is that it keeps you from seeking help. Any of this sound familiar?

'They'll never listen to me, I'm just a teenager. This is just normal teenage stuff.', 'X person is right, there are a lot of other people worse off than I am, I really don't have much to complain about comparatively' (my personal favorite, because somehow someone else being miserable means that you have no right to get help), or 'If anyone finds out they'll never want to be near me again.'

Been there, done that, and it's all bullshit. Doc talks a lot about how our brains (and society as a whole) tend to get stuck in a rut and push HARD against someone or something that bucks the trend. Just the fact that you got yourself into therapy is huge. It's extremely hard to reach out for help because of both the external pushback (the scarlet letter principle, and the 'just get over it' bullshit) and the internal crap you have to deal with too. Keep going to therapy, no one deserves to live mired in depression and chained with anxiety. You've already proven that you're strong just by taking that terrifying first step. You've got this shit beat, all you need is time.
- devicat26
  
  co-signed. What you're going through is super tough and let me just say – don't do this alone! I know when I was going through severe anxiety/depression I found myself thinking 'why bother' to things like going out and talking to people and I allowed myself to become isolated because 'nobody would understand'.
  
  DON'T DO THAT. That's the jerk-brain talking. Isolating yourself is the worst thing you can do. Continue seeing a therapist, find a support group – you really aren't alone in this battle.
- Hazel
  
  This is true, and vitally important. One of the most frustrating things about getting treatment for mental illness, is the fear that you can't trust your own judgment about how good or bad things are. I've been in so many situations where I've looked back on certain periods of my life and thought, 'That was not so bad, I got through it.' But when I spoke about it to someone else, I got a totally different perspective. I saw people who I liked and respected treating what I had considered routine as being a great ordeal that I should feel proud of having survived.
  
  That's how I feel about it now, LW1, and that's how you can feel about it, too. You've been through a terrible ordeal and you've pulled yourself out of it. There will always be people who can't understand this, and that sucks. But you know the people that you can trust by the strength of their reaction, and these are the people who will tell you the truth: you should be incredibly proud of how far you've come.
K-J

I think LW2's friend is way too hard on herself.

I have a great degree of sympathy for "teasers" actually. It's not often actually about playing somebody for a fool. If that's it then bad, but when you're young, things are chaotic and empathy is not completely developed. Shit happens, hope they get over it.

More often it's about being noticed. I mean ideally we should be self-sufficient, happy with ourselves and not give 2 cent about whether random people think we are attractive or not, and yet..

..sometimes you crave that attention. You might not be looking for somebody who'd want to sleep with you but you want them to be turned on/intrigued/affected by you all the same.

I can be a total negative anti-social dick in front of my keyboard sometimes but when I'm out and about, with friends at a bar, I sometimes see it. Someone wants to feel desired in general so why shouldn't I charitably give in?
Why not slightly don the act of the Looney Toons wolf if it makes someone feel good about him/herself for a while?
It's not like it costs me anything.

Not saying it's gender specific either. There are some instances when I fish for similar reactions (and feel guilty as hell if someone reads too much into it too).

It's play and pretend, and quite often that's enough.
- @Alcoraiden
  
  I can really sympathize with this. It's nice to know that people think you're sexy, that if you wanted to, you could go out there and take someone home. That you're a 10 for a day.
  - K-J
    
    Totally, and even if you may want that for yourself most of all, if you can get over yourself it a little, you suddenly get a good eye for spotting it in others.
    
    If you miss something, try to give it to others who seem to be missing the same. That's a good philosophy.
- Ahriman42
  
  My sympathy is limited, but that’s because I’ve run into too many pathological attention seekers; people who were so far off the deep end they act like addicts.
  - PintsizeBro
    
    I try to cultivate sympathy for anyone I see who is in pain, but I still keep people who are toxic to me out of my life. They still have value as human beings and I can wish them well, but I'm under no obligation to set myself on fire to keep them warm.
  - adamhunter1223
    
    There's a difference between sympathy and trust, or even liking someone. I'm not fond of my rampantly alcoholic family members who live down in Alabama and I wouldn't trust them not to do something stupid if they visited me, but I know they're miserable because they've always been dirt poor and using booze to self-medicate is the only way they've ever seen anyone cope with life, so I can't write them off as moustache twirling villains.
  - James Gilmer
    
    I don't suppose you stopped to think that if they were, as you call them "pathological", that they might have some sort of underlying mental health issue, trauma, or other issue causing them to seek attention and approval?
    
    You don't have to approve, and they may not need your sympathy, but empathy is useful in determining whether someone is running a con or someone just happens to have a pathological need for something stemming from some deep trauma or mental health issue.
    
    Empathy makes you a more tuned in and smarter person, and gives you a better read on people.
    
    The ones at an extreme that I've encountered have all tended to have horrific things in their past or be going through horrific things that caused them to engage in attention seeking behavior. Mostly non-harmful attention seeking behavior. It's rare that that sort of thing actively butts into other people lives unless they've already stopped to gawk at said attention seeker.
- adamhunter1223
  
  Well, part of the whole 'teasers' thing is people not taking no for an answer. Just because you go out dressed to impress does not mean you're going to say an automatic yes to the first person (or the second, or the third, and on and on) that asks for a number or a date or what have you. It's a lot easier to pile on someone for 'leading you on' instead of taking a rejection like a mature adult.
  - K-J
    
    Yeah, I understand logically that that's where these guys anger comes from but I seriously can't relate to it.
    
    When I was that age, I was so convinced I was repulsive that I instantly generalised that all teasing behavior coming my way had to be 100% roleplay, meaningless fun, dares and displays of self-irony.
    That made it real easy for me to play along for a bit, enjoy the humour in it and then leave it at that.
    
    I don't know, maybe I left one or two girls disappointed because it was impossible to convince me they weren't joking. Come to think of it, that still happens to me ocassionally!
    Ah, well. A victimless crime. 🙂
    
    So I'm a bit biased and on opposite ends but I still can't understand how guys who get a sly glance, a bit of grinding against them, how they can read so damn much promise into it. It's one thing to get a little drunk and act out for thrills under the eyes of your friends and lots of other people.
    It's a totally different thing to go away just the two of you and have sex somewhere.
    
    Hell, even if somebody starts making out with you on very loose premises, it could still just be someone on severly drunk auto-pilot…. that is if we're still talking about young, just-old-enough-to-drink people.
    
    It's never a done deal until it actually happens.
    
    When adults do something like that, I think it's different. Then it's nearly always "Let's cut the shit and go have sex already".
    - adamhunter1223
      
      I can sort of relate since I was raised in an extremely christian home and almost all I ever heard about dating aside from the standard SEX IS EVIL!!!11!1! spiel was that any girl who flirts with someone is a jezebel looking to trap someone in sin (yes, seriously). Add to that getting picked on constantly all through school by female students (male ones too, but not quite as many actually) and I was paranoid as hell and convinced that if someone flirted with me, not that anyone ever did, they had to have some kind of ulterior motive.
      
      Oddly enough, now that I'm a bit older and not convinced that anyone is out to get me I'm a much happier person…funny how that works, innit?
- Bwmn
  
  I agree that this is one of those things where I think age is a huge mitigating factor. I think knowing when you do/don't want to have sex – especially as a young woman – is not entirely clear cut at all and comes with huge biological and social boogey men. However, being flirty and teasing both serves to provide attention as well as inching closer to what you do/don't want sexually speaking.
  
  I also know that as a tall girl or for friends who developed younger – I was often treated as older and presumed to be more experienced than I was when I was an older teenager/young 20's. Not in the sense of being shamed, but in the sense of "you appear older and confident, ergo I assume you're experienced". And in that sense, often I'd find myself in situations where teasing ended up being a defense mechanism. That felt like the better move than going "hey, I'm actually only 16, really inexperienced and insecure".
  
  As with many things – stuff that is understandable when we're younger, can become less forgivable as we get older. And if certain behaviors, in this case attention seeking, ends up being truly hurtful to those around you, then not taking steps to modify the behavior is definitely problematic.
- whitepier
  
  I've known teases where it was no problem at all, and teases where I got very hurt.
  
  I think it is possible to tease ethically, but I'd say don't play people off against each other, and don't deny that you were ever flirting when you were.
Heightofhubris

I’m having problems wrapping my head around having a positive body image. I think the major hangup is that Doc states that beauty doesn’t take body type into account… but clearly people favor one body type over others. As someone who’s single, hatred with your less than optimal body type seems like a logical conclusion.

Does self love just wash it all away and make everything work itself out? At this point it feels like trying to convince myself that oranges are actually green.
- K-J
  
  You're less than optimal body type is a slight deduction of your odds.
  Your hatred of it is a major one, because it shines through immensely.
  
  When Doc. is talking about getting in shape, dress better, practice telling jokes and whatnot, it's about small improvements to general odds, but 70% of the actual success is still in attitude.
  
  Also, it's alot about, being on board of improving things about yourself has a really strong effect on your attitude and self-image, which directly correlates to that prime factor.
- eselle28
  
  My suggestion would be to work on thinking about your body separately from dating or beauty for at least awhile. Your body might not be a feature that's incredibly attractive to dates, but there are things in life other than dating. Your body processes food and feeds your brain and allows you to enjoy your favorite book or playing with your dog. Depending on your physical abilities, it might be able to run and jump and hike. It might feel sexual sensations or be able to enjoy the feel of warm flannel.
  
  Being able to be okay with your body, if not actually love it, doesn't mean you have to consider it one of your strong points when it comes to dating. It might be something about you that's fine but not a huge draw, or something that isn't for everyone and that doesn't appeal to all potential partners. Unless you're the blandest, most generic person out there, you probably have some other traits that aren't everyone's cup of tea. Not all of those traits can be changed or are things a person would even want to change about themselves, and in that case, I think it's better to accept them as part of a whole person who has other things to offer than to obsess over them. Self love doesn't wash others' beauty expectations away and make everything work itself out. It can make you happier, and it can also keep you from scaring away those people who like or are fine with your body type but who find your body hatred difficult to deal with.
- Marty Farley
  
  No, it doesn't make everything work out. In fact, thinking self-love, or self-acceptance, will lead to love, is setting up an inevitable trap for yourself when it *doesn't* work out.
  
  I'm trying to stop hating my body not because it'll get me more dates, or get/keep me in a relationship, or anything external that involves other people. It's because I have to live in this body, and it's easier to take care of something you love. I try to avoid tying my self-worth to my body; I try to think of myself as a good person based on my behaviors and values, whether I'm thin, fat, gorgeous, ugly, whatever.
  
  A feeling of self-worth is not a way to get a relationship. Self-worth is the reward all by itself. You should love your body, even if everyone else thinks it's awful and ugly, because it's *yours*, and because loving it will make your life happier and healthier, even if you never get another date again.
  
  If you hate or love your body based on what others think of it, you are going to be tying your self-worth to other's people choices and behaviors; choices and behaviors that are not always logical, or even relevant. The ONLY way to be happy is to love and accept yourself, even if no one else really does.
  - adamhunter1223
    
    Like a wise youth pastor once told a youth group I was in: "The body you got is the body you got, a lot of people will try to make you feel bad about it…mainly because they want to sell you something. God doesn't care, and the people who actually matter in your life don't care either. You can choose to buy into hollywood and be miserable whenever you look in a mirror, or you can choose to be happy."
    
    Not to say that being okay with yourself if you're not the hollywood ideal (like ninety nine point nine nine repeating percent of the human population) isn't difficult, but I'd rather not feel like shit every time I pass a reflective surface.
  - Conreezy
    
    "Does self love just wash it all away and make everything work itself out?"
    
    Probably not, but it's going to take you a hell of a lot further towards actual self-acceptance than a perfect body. The benefits of having a hot body are temporary, after all, as the body is subject to all sorts of circumstances that are extremely difficult to control (or like Time, which gets us all no matter what we do). Also, they're largely overstated. If and when I manage to remove my mind's eye from my own image issues, I can see that I have the type of body a lot of people wish they had, yet that hasn't brought any drastic changes to my self-perception. (Personally, I gauge myself by what I lack, not what I've accomplished, which negates all possibility of a positive self view, since there's always something better to be. Like, even if I literally Saved the World, I'd probably say to myself "Yeah, but that's just 11% of this solar system.")
    
    What I should be doing is focusing on positives and nurturing a sense of approval with myself as I am currently. I'm getting better at it, and I'm warming up to the fact that being kinder to myself allows me to accomplish more out of legit desire to improve rather than shame or fear.
- lonelyoffices
  
  Your premises seem solid enough to me but your conclusion, "hatred with your less than optimal body type", doesn't. Occasional frustration or sadness or anxiety that certain types that you don't resemble tend to be favored seems to be a proportional response. Self hatred doesn't. Others have laid out why.
  
  And ironically enough, a lot of oranges are green or green tinted. They're often dyed orange to appear more marketable. That's a metaphor or something, I think.
- Robjection
  
  "I think the major hangup is that Doc states that beauty doesn't take body type into account… but clearly people favor one body type over others."
  
  Except for the fact that many people don't favour the body type you're thinking of over others.
  
  Also the self-love thing is one of those things that's necessary but not sufficient.
- trundlebear
  
  I had awful body image for a very long time, and it was hard to learn to actually love my body — it's the only one I get, after all. But I DO now, and that thing, that liking-myself, loving-myself, it adds a tremendous amount of confidence and removes a TON of stress and anxiety. That confidence has made me much more successful both in dating and in other spheres. It's taken time and work (a big part of which was finding clothing I like, that flatters me, that I can afford, and that is also work appropriate, usually it's pick any 3), occasionally working with retail associates in clothing stores to recommend and try on things I never would have considered, and a lot of really awful "Nothing looks good on me everything is terrible ahhhh" (Sears, I hate you, your sizes are lies). Actually, one of my best clothing-discovery days was immediately in the wake of that, as I went to a specialty store and repeated basically exactly that, and the sales associate hugged me and said "Come on, I know just what you'll love". And she was right! Even when she had to talk me into a couple of outfits!
  
  Anyhow. The other thing is that there really ISN'T one body type that all people find attractive, or even most. Seriously. One of the other ways I really learned to love my body was the honest joy my partners have taken in all of my body — this is an honest joy I take in other peoples' bodies, too. I personally find washboard abs on men to be not at all appealing but a teddy-bear shape will always catch my eye, and I love women in pretty much every shape and size.
  
  (This is part of why the ab-shots on OLD are not a great idea… 1, you're marketing your belly, not yourself, and 2, if that's the part you wanna highlight, I am running far away because we clearly have very different views on what's important in life)
  
  I'm not saying that it washes everything away — it is an easy thing to slide back into body-hating — but I've also found that I've lived long enough that my body has its own equilibrium, and if I'm listening to it and not fussing over things, then I feel good, my doc gives me the A-OK perfectly healthy for my yearly physical, and I've let go of all that worry about what people might be thinking/judging/etc when they see me, or see my grocery shopping, or see me at the gym. It's really transformed strangers into folks I can smile at or have a quick chat with instead of "oh no oh no they're looking at me they must think I'm a monster".
  
  It's also taken all the shame and anxiety out of food and eating, both with friends and by myself in public. Nobody CARES what I'm eating, and if they DO, they're a judgmental asshole looking for "acceptable" ways to hate other human beings and that has to be a really sad way to live.
- Chiclet
  
  Favor a body type, sure. Personally, I have a thing for tall, dark haired, blue eyed men – that combination gets me every time. I also happen to be desperately in love with a 5'4" hispanic guy who's not in the best shape and I get lust pangs every time I think about stripping him down to his skivvies.
  
  Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder and it's not defined by what you got going on with your outsides, I promise.
  - lonelyoffices
    
    If you're uncomfortable answering this I understand, but you touched on something that I struggle with, which prompts my question. Apologies ahead of time if you are uncomfortable.
    
    How does that reconcile in your head? I mean the difference between your type and the person you're lusting after. I struggle with this because I don't have a type so much, so I can't seem to draw off my own experience, and my SO has a type, and I don't resemble him. Although we're both older now, her type is a young Antonio Banderas, and I'm more of an Anthony Edwards from his ER days moving forward.
    
    It's not that I have no preferences, but they're pretty diverse. I would think that having a type would almost be a filter you'd see other people through. I'm open to understanding it differently, but my intellect or imagination fails me, so hence my question.
    - eselle28
      
      I'm someone else, and I have a few types which may not be super narrow. I suspect different people are all going to have different answers to this.
      
      For me, typey traits mean I might consider someone who others find to be sort of average or maybe even unattractive to be gorgeous. It also might mean that I notice them even in a movie theater or a grocery store aisle where I'm not normally paying much attention to other people's appearance. I also have a few non-typey traits, and those generally mean that I won't find someone attractive, even if I otherwise like them and even if other people would consider them appealing.
      
      But beyond that, there's a whole world of guys who aren't in either category. I find some of them attractive too. Not everyone needs the bonus points from my specific quirks to be good-looking! There are also a lot of traits that people tend not to think of as being attractive to them because we don't have words to describe them. Most people describing their physical type might list hair or eye color, body type, grooming, and other identifiable traits. Maybe they'll use movie star comparisons, which are awkward, because even movie stars don't look like movie stars. None of that really touches on things like facial features or expressions and gestures or smell. At most, people might vaguely say they enjoy nice smiles or pretty eyes. That stuff plays into attraction and probably into type as well, even if it's unstated and not explicitly identified.
    - Chiclet
      
      Oh, that's not an uncomfortable question at all.
      
      It's not really something I feel I have to "reconcile", because it sounds like you're suggesting that half of me is being tugged towards my type and the other half of me is being pulled towards the guy himself and somehow there's this tension in between the two urges, which is not in the least true.
      
      A type is just another way of saying I have an attraction preference for a certain set of physical characteristics in absence of anything else. I have a preference for caramel laced vanilla ice cream, also. If you give me a lineup of guys and say "pick the one you find most attractive based on looks alone", I might pick the tall, dark haired guy because I have nothing else to base a decision on. If you offer me my choice of ice cream at the 36 flavours shop, I will probably gravitate towards the caramel if I'm feeling indecisive.
      
      But as soon as the guys in this hypothetical lineup open their mouths to talk to me, the "type" – the physical characteristics – immediately drops in importance to somewhere near the bottom rank of what I look for in a guy. You can be the most perfect example of my type and if you're an absolute self-entitled ass, you can just stand there and look pretty in the corner while I chat up the sassy east indian guy, trying to get close enough to tell if I like his cologne. If I'm feeling confident in the ice cream store, I might try out that triple fudge chocolate brownie mix just to shake it up a little.
      
      It's like what Dr. NL keeps saying over and over again, in a variety of ways – looks WILL get you the second glance, possibly even the first shot at the conversation but after that, it's all you, baby. It's who you are that carries you, not what you look like – and having a preference is not something that's written on a stone tablet, carried down from Mount Sinai.
      
      Also for the record, I had a real thing for Doc Green because of who he was, instead of George Clooney who was more my physical type. And I now find myself more attracted to hispanic guys than I ever was before.
      - lonelyoffices
        
        Thank you both, Eselle28 and Chiclet, for responding.
        
        I'm not being self pitying when I say that my attractiveness may be mostly the wordless kind, wordless because it's not readily seen and therefore hard to describe.
        
        I suspect that if someone asked my SO what draws her to me, she'd mention a few things that aren't typical of a response to that question, she'd realize this, and then say something like, "that's hard to put into words",
        and mean that as a compliment. That's pretty much happened, actually. There are times I hear that as a compliment, albeit one that's a bit mysterious. Today, right now, mystery has it's limits though.
        
        And on the Doctor Green, Doctor Ross deal, when people lusted after Doctor Ross, folks got it. Doctor Green had his loyal followers too, if fewer than Doctor Ross, and they seemed to always be explaining themselves. Like their preference was a mystery.
        
        I need a hobby or something 🙂
      - eselle28
        
        That doesn't sound self-pitying. Wordless attraction, or at least the kinds I can think of, tends to be a bit less perishable than hair color or body type. Though part of me also wonders if wordless is a language limitation. The only language I really speak well is English, but I do wonder if perhaps others might have at ways for talking about at least some of the qualities we might be discussing.
        
        My Doctor was always Doctor Carter (well, okay, and after that the Tenth Doctor). I actually think that the internet may have changed that sort of fandom dynamic, though, since it gives people who have more particular but very strong interests a place to connect. I don't think the idea of conventional attractiveness has become less powerful (especially since everyone being discussed both then and now is conventionally pretty attractive), but I think we might be moving toward a place where less explaining needs to be done.
      - lonelyoffices
        
        On wordless attraction, I do think that language and thought influence each other. It may be that the more visible charms mostly seem more visible because we can readily label and speak about them. That, then, influences our thoughts, and perhaps less significant differences between one attribute and another get magnified, at least conceptually, because one is more accessible..
        
        Another thought is that I think, broadly speaking, there are people who connect easily and quickly with others due to obvious attractive traits and enough personality to not obscure them. Then there are people who connect, but with greater effort and apparently less heat fueling the connection. That'd be me. And then there are people who really struggle to connect at all.
        
        I am grateful that I have a way to connect. There's always a little part of me though that wishes I was, or maybe recognized when I've been more the first guy, the person someone wants to just fuck. Usually that yearning rests quietly in some shadowy nook in my head while I go about my business, but today it seems to be demanding my attention. But I'm getting a little bit of perspective back. This has helped. Thanks.
- PintsizeBro
  
  This might come off as pedantic, but oranges can be green.
  
  Just because you've been told something your whole life, that doesn't mean it's true.
  
  No, not everyone is equally beautiful. But that doesn't mean you're a hideous monster because you're too tall or too short or your butt is too big or your ears stick out or whatever.
- Jenn77
  
  Well I'll ask did hating your body change it? Did it improve your life in any way? If the answer is 'no' then why do it?
  
  Eselle had a good point that self-hatred is going to drive away the very people who like or accept your body, so what's the point?
Kathleen_Henry

Did anyone else's shoulders go straight up to their ears when they read "I know her better than she knows herself"?
- whitepier
  
  I was about to say the same thing. There were several bits in that letter that made me wonder if there's more going on here than meets the eye. (Or, as the phrase has it, "If someone tells you what they are, believe them.")
- enail0_o
  
  Yes!
- eselle28
  
  Yes. I think that in the context of the rest of the letter, a charitable interpretation would be something along the lines of: "I haven't seen anything to indicate my girlfriend is untrustworthy, so I think these thoughts are her jerkbrain talking." The way it's expressed is problematic, but I do think there's a bit of a lack of vocabulary to discuss jerkbrains and their ways (I mean, there's a reason I'm using a Captain Awkward term). I also think that you can not know someone better than themselves but still sometimes be able to pick up on hints that it's the jerkbrain talking and not the usualbrain.
  - Kathleen_Henry
    
    Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines, but all the same, the phrasing just :l
- ember
  
  Ah, that's what my ex said when he tried to convince me that no, I really did want to have All The Babies with him. Spoilers: I didn't.
spencerdub

From the article:

Next, I want you to start recognizing that beauty doesn’t come in one shape, size or weight and anyone who says otherwise is selling you something – usually literally. The idea of what a woman is “supposed” to look like is cooked up and quite literally sold to us by people with an agenda.

From Twitter:

ASK DR. NERDLOVE: She’s 14 and recovering from an eating disorder. How can she get her anxieties under control?

Perhaps I'm missing something, but was there any indication that LW1 was female?

Maybe it was in information that was not published in the column, like LW1's email address or name, but I don't see any indication of that in the text here. And while the Doc's comments about body image and impossible beauty standards for women are definitely on-point, boys and men can experience anorexia too–and it can be compounded by toxic masculine ideals that say eating disorders are a "female" thing.

Which is why the apparent assumption of LW1's gender concerns me. If the Doc is wrong, that assumption of his could reinforce some nasty beliefs about mental illness and masculinity.
- Kathleen_Henry
  
  Wow, I did not even notice that.
- eselle28
  
  I'd assumed based on the estimate of peers being a few inches taller than 5'2" but weighing 10 or 20 pounds less than 113 pounds, which seems closer to female teenage body types than male teenage body types. That being said, men can absolutely have anorexia and people with ED tend to misestimate others' weights (the one here seems like it might be off even applied to girls), so it would probably have been better to either clarify the LW's gender or be a bit more neutral in terms of the wording.
  - sgoch
    
    . . . hmmm, but I have definitely met men who are that height and weight. So. It probably pays to be cautious.
    
    Side note — I definitely recall reading that the average woman in the U.S. is 5'4" and 140 lbs. That statistic is old and probably wasn't as comprehensive as it could be, and even if it were across the entire population of the U.S., I think that comprises too many different body types to be *super* useful, but concur that this person may skewing what is "normal" for even their age group.
    
    (Just did a quick check — the BMI is bullshit, of course, but their description of their age group being 90-100 pounds and 5'5" to 5'6" would result in a BMI between 14.5 and 16.6, which is, ah, well, within "you may be dying, and soon" range. LW, if you are reading along, I am not criticizing you! But I would recommend you look at the BMI project that was put together by Shapely Prose — http://kateharding.net/bmi-illustrated/ . It was really powerful for me to understand that I might look fine to other people at my current weight.)
    - Kathleen_Henry
      
      Also, keep in mind, LW is 14, and has been having problems with anoxeria since they were 12. A 5'2, 98 lbs 12 year old boy is not so far-fetched.
      - lonelyoffices
        
        I'm a guy, and I've always been too aware of ht/wt stuff, so I remember clearly where I was at different ages.
        
        I was 5-2 and 100 at age 11, 5-4 and about 115 at age 12, and 5-7 and 125 at age 14. I was typically a bit taller than most of my male peers, and about the same weight as most of them.
- adamhunter1223
  
  I…huh, I didn't notice that either. Good catch.
- trundlebear
  
  Absolutely. While it affects a disproportionate amount of women, men with EDs are unfortunately often denied care or taken seriously. Combine it with fat-shaming culture and… (TW for more EDs and medical jackassery).
  
  Well. My ex had an ED (and he is okay with me discussing it). He dropped over 100lbs in under 6 months. His doctor? Told him congratulations. No tests on his heart or other organs that were being wickedly stressed, no "hey maybe you should be talking to someone about this", just a pat on the back for his decision that human beings only needed 300 calories a day to survive.
  
  This is another part of toxic masculinity (also "Men are totally logical creatures so anything they do is logical") and it was absolutely heartbreaking to witness his body and brain shutting down as he starved himself.
  - trundlebear
    
    Also, I don't mean to go WAT ABOUT THE MENZ but that kind of erasure is awful.
    
    Also also, being aware that half of 6-year-old girls (and 1/3 of boys) think they are overweight and 80% of 10-year-old girls having gone on a diet is WORLDS BEYOND AWFUL. My mom signed my sister up for Weight Watchers when she was 10 (the youngest they'll take people) and prompted such a severe body image and eating disorder that it's only 20 years (TWENTY YEARS) and multiple hospitalizations/medications/surgeries later she has finished high school and started being able to live her life without pain. That pain was 100% being told she was fat and therefore worthless and not trying hard enough or else she wouldn't still be fat, and it being words and thoughts does not make that pain any less real or hurtful. I almost lost my sister because she didn't want to be "the fat kid" in her high school class.
    
    I have a lot of feels about this topic, nothing but oceans of hugs and love for people suffering through it, and nothing but maulings and ragestompings for people who have decided their thoughts on other peoples' bodies are more important than those actual people.
- Bfm
  
  The first thing I noticed about the letter was that there was no evidence of a gender of the writer attached to it.
  
  I'd be lying if I was surprised by the response to it, both by commenters and the Doc himself. I hope that there's unpublished information that confirms the Doc is right though.
  
  But I guess that the premise of this assumption is one that frustrates me more than most – I'm male, about 52kgs (115lbs) and 5'9". I don't know if I necessarily have an eating disorder but I do know the pain of not being happy with your body. It's not pleasant.
  
  But maybe I'm a jerk for assuming it might have been a guy from the gender ambiguous language.
  
  Props to LW1, whoever they are, for writing in. I wouldn't have been able to do that at 14.
- James Gilmer
  
  He redacts the names and email addresses as well as other identifiers, and in the past he's specified when he doesn't know the gender, or called attention to something when it was a man writing in with a situation that people assume only affects women (like domestic abuse) so I think it's pretty safe to say he knew the gender of LW and it was in the cut content.
TinyTeacup

LW1, I could give you a list that goes on for pages about my body's flaws. I could tell you I'm 5'2'' and somewhere around 180 pounds. I could tell you I have a 32'' waist and 43'' hips. I could tell you I have man shoulders, thighs as big around as a person, calves big enough to be another girl's thighs. I could tell you one of my eyes goes weirdly squinty when I smile and my smile is all crooked and I look like I'm about to bite a kitten's head off. I could tell you my teeth are yellow because of a bad coffee habit, my nails are ragged from biting, my hair is frizzy and full of split ends. I could tell you I look like I have a double chin when I smile for pictures and tilt my head the wrong way. I could tell you the way my body jiggles like a ziplock bag full of lard. I could tell you that one of my cheeks is rosier than the other, and I look perpetually embarrassed. I could tell you about stretch marks and scars and the little mole on my neck and the pimples on my arms and legs. I could tell you I have hairier arms than some men I know. I could tell you. I HAVE told you.

And I can tell you it's bullshit. It's all bullshit. It's so much fucking bullshit. Because I probably sound like a troll when I say it that way. I probably sound disgusting, vile, awful. And I know there are some people who might say I am, because some people are fucking assholes.

But I can also tell you that I'm fast on my feet as a fencer, that I can fight a guy twice my size with years of experience over me and knock him on his ass and demand respect in self-defense. I can tell you I can run up a mountain, and bound back down again. I can tell you that I'm strong. And I'm smart. I completed a BA in three years instead of four. I'm in law school, and people come to me for help when class doesn't make sense. I earned free tuition by working my butt off. And I'm funny. And I'm sweet. And I'm dependable. I'm the person my friends go to when they're having a hard time, when they're hurting, and thinking of hurting themselves, and they're struggling, and they're drunk again but it was too hard to deal while sober, and when they hurt they come to me, and I listen. I get my friends out of their shadows and back in the sun.

And I found a man who loves me, who is too damn good for me, and I've put him through shit because I let all that bull from before get to me. I let it get to me, and I let myself believe that I was ugly. I let myself believe that I was ugly, vile, stupid, awful, weak, useless, worthless, unwanted, unneeded, evil, a failure, a loser, a waste. And it's BULLSHIT. I promise you, it's bullshit. Because I don't know you. I don't know you, and I don't know your life. I don't know who you are, where you're from, or where you're going. But I KNOW you're more than just what you think you look like.
Robjection

"Next, I want you to start recognizing that beauty doesn’t come in one shape, size or weight and anyone who says otherwise is selling you something – usually literally. The idea of what a woman is “supposed” to look like is cooked up and quite literally sold to us by people with an agenda. Beauty isn’t about what the scale says or what your measurements are."

How much would it cost to get this put on a blimp that flies around the world, spreading its message as it travels?
- adamhunter1223
  
  According to the first blimp advertisement site I found via Almighty Google: between two thousand and ten thousand per month.
enail0_o

Folks who were wondering what the witch doctor spam looks like, here you go!
- trundlebear
  
  This is one of the greatest things I have ever seen.
- James Gilmer
  
  The worst part is that I recognize the doctor's name, and that's actually one of the shorter ones.
  - enail0_o
    
    Yep, and I think a little less…enthusiastic? than most?
    - trundlebear
      
      So many questions are left unanswered, too! Can the magic be done over the internet? Do I have to mail them physical pieces of the person I want hexed? What if there's a competing wizard involved? Do I get a refund if my ex doesn't come back to me?
    - OtherRoooToo
      
      I love that you all actually have a critique for this.
      
      The Ebert & Roeper of Witch Doctor Spam.
      
      😀
trundlebear

LW1, huge hugs to you. It's really hard to love your body when you've been bombarded since birth with advertising and media showing impossible standards as "normal", and that if you don't look like that, you're not trying hard enough. If you're at all open to recommendations, "The Beauty Myth" by Naomi Wolf is a really eye-opening, helpful read (although it is mostly going at it from a woman's perspective). Another would be Portia de Rossi's autobiography about almost losing to anorexia (and make no mistake, it IS a fight, to the death) "Unbearable Lightness". Fiction-wise, in Courtney Milan's latest contemporary "Trade Me" the hero is a man with anorexia and it is both authentically and sensitively handled (and nope, True Love does not magically "fix" him).

EDs have been a part of my family and friends for all of my life and there is nothing so heartbreaking as someone, a wonderful lovely someone, hating themselves and spending all the energy they have on that hate, when they ARE beautiful, especially because that wonderful person they are inside shines through. You're sharp, you're already doing so many right things, and because you live in the wonderful age of the internet you can find things like online support groups for these things where people who have been there and felt exactly that can tell you how they got through it.

I couldn't look myself in the eye in a mirror for years. One of the MOST powerful things my therapist taught me was, even if it seems really hard or silly, to look yourself in the eye in the mirror and tell yourself the things you need to hear. You are a worthwhile person. You are beautiful. You are loved. You deserve to love yourself.

You're at a point in your life where you are starting to figure out who you are and who you want to be, inventing yourself and who you want to be, and your body's going to come along for the ride no matter what you decide.

Also, as someone with anxiety and takes medication for it, there's no shame in it — none at all. Most of the time just HAVING my anti-anxiety meds available (in my pocket or purse) is enough to drop my anxiety down to nothing! Working with a good therapist, and good family doctor have helped immensely, too. I haven't had an anxiety attack I did not see coming a week away in almost a year now, and that's only because my family's really bad at boundaries 😉

So, hugs to you. We're here for you. There are all kinds of places out here to help you.

Oh oh oh and, one of my favourite songs ever, as it sums up perfectly how I feel about other people and what they eat/look like/wear/etc. Uh. I hope my HTML works.
This Is My Jam
- OtherRoooToo
  
  another jam
  
  🙂

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