Attractive...

[Syvelocin]

A few things...

First, I have an open question. Is the motivation behind your ED (as far as you know) to become more attractive, or to be less attractive?

And for the rest of this thread... I'm not going to mention anyone or any threads. I've just been looking through a few, and some comments about thinner girls not being attractive, and even larger girls not being attractive, seem so... selfish and offensive.

I'm a really thin girl. I'm actually naturally small-framed, especially looking into my family tree on my mum's side. My aunts are all tiny, and my mother's on the smaller end of the average sizes. Even with my body type, I'm still quite underweight. I'm working on it, but I'm noticeably small.

For me, body type doesn't matter. Personality (as long as they're reasonably smart and not too egotistical) isn't as critical for certain traits. Hair and clothes and heritage and age and mental health and weight... none of it matters. Personally, it's love and devotion that matters. I just want to know how, for other people, love isn't as blind as it is for me (maybe it's my pansexuality?)

Anorexic girls have problems. And, shying away from them doesn't make it any better.

I've known Jay, my fiancé, for four years. He met me at the peak of my drug abuse. By then, I was already struggling with both self-harm and anorexia. He still found my beauty. And that's a big point that I love about him. He was so willing to look past the fact that you can see my hip bones through my skin. He was so ready to help me get better. And now, he's my main motivation.

I've dated a lot of guys, and surprisingly, through the years I've gotten a good number of admirers. I still refuse to admit that I'm pretty, but admirers I know I have. Ex-boyfriends and stalkers a plenty.

If they can love me blindly, then what is this turn-off to something we are trying to fix?

Like I said, I'm someone to love blindly. That's probably why I've dated/loved the most drug addicts (2), smokers (3), self-harmers (2), alcoholics (1), anorexics (2). It's kind of nice to see the changes you make in them though.

My current crush (other than Jay, of course) is bipolar, suicidal, anorexic, and a self-harmer. I still love her incredibly though, and every time I see her, I just want to hug her and have a nice cup of tea with her, nothing related to what she looks like.

I don't know what the point of this was...

[Triceratops]

It started off years ago with the feelings of ugliness, low self-worth and being "unpure".

Now it's just control. I want to get better, but I also want to have the control I feel like I can never have. It's usually a numbers game for me, and I want my body to be organised (I know it sounds weird), not necessarily to be thinner anymore.

[Asylum]

My eating disorder started when I was very young. My parents are control freaks, to feel like I was in control, I choose not to eat. I started eating in the fifth grade because this one girl I liked ate.. and I wanted to be like her. In middle school my meds caused me not to eat, but it wasn't just my medicine. I didn't want to eat. I felt ugly, fat and I wanted to lose weight. I even passed out once due to not eating. In the summer of the eigth grade I didn't care about my weight.. Starting highschool I stopped eating again trying to lose weight, I weighed myself every day, I sitll do.. I'm trying not to.. It was to see how much weight I could lose. My lowest weight recently was 107 lbs. Which doens't seem that low, but it was for me.. I still want to feel control, and skinnny, and even at a number in which i'm comfortable with. I know that may seem very vain, but I odn't think of it that way.. I think of it as feeling happy, more confident and just better. I also use itas self harm. When my stomach hurts because I don't eat, no one knows, no one can see it. However.. it sucks because I have stomach ulcers which won't heal and they hurt like hell. The only thing that gets me to eat really is so i don't lose my hair. Sometimes now when I do eat I get sick, or feel terribly ill. I used to throw up.. so I still get urges to purge after I eat. After I was sexually abused.. which was my freshman year in highschool I didn't want to be attractive.. so I self harmed a lot more, and I didn't eat to self punish, because I beleived it was my fault (but it wasn't..). I am still considered underweght, and people say I'm thin.. but I just can't see it. I also love blindly. Out of the guys I've dated, 3 were self injurers, and 1 had an eating disorder. I am very happy to have met someone who loves me blindly.. He can deal with all of my problems and still love me.. he is truely an angel and my savoir <3.

[Fiction]

What may be a possible eating disorder for me sounds pretty similar to what marcie explained. I enjoy knowing the number of my weight, and making it as low as possible. Seeingmyself getting thinner is just an added bonus. I like to have something to aim for, and lowering my weight is something i can use for this. it's like my concentrating on certain things like my weight, or keeping my room constantly tidy, i can block out other things. I know that sounds weird :/

[ShatteredWings]

Depends who I'm directing it at.
To myself, more. If any form of target treatment worked, i'd go for that instead.
to others, less. No one want to date a bag of bones, right? Paticuraly not the straight males who I am most certianly trying to deter attraction from.

and yeah, i want the number lower. even if it's irrational - and at the moment i nkow it is, that can change though - i want the number down to something specific

[dbrkk]

For me, it was a desire to become more attractive and appealing to people. I was depressed at how different I was from everyone...different interests, different personality, different point of view, AND I was fat...while everyone else my age was going through that stick thin phase. I knew I couldn't force my personality and interests to change, but I could force my body to change.. And that's what started it all.

Rith, I agree that it seems like really small or larger girls are indeed subjected to a lot of offensive comments...not just here, but the world in general. Now in all honesty, I'm the type of person who looks at personality and inner qualities over appearance..But I have to say, what looks the BEST is when a girl just lets her body be the way it is, whether it be big or small. That is, not forcing it to be thinner/fatter then it naturally should be. You can REALLY tell a difference between a girl who's happy with their body, versus one that's actively trying to control it.

I think it's great that you met a great man like Jay. You really deserve it. Actually, everyone deserves someone like that in their life. It's a shame that people like him aren't easy to find nowadays. :/

[enjoying_my_insanity]

well i dont have an ED but i really want to loose weight...i feel fat and i want to stop eating...but i cant...i feel fat and ugly no matter how many times people call me thin and beautiful...im scared of becoming anerexic...i dont want to become unhealthy...just thin and pretty.... :(

[Syvelocin]

well i dont have an ED but i really want to loose weight...i feel fat and i want to stop eating...but i cant...i feel fat and ugly no matter how many times people call me thin and beautiful...im scared of becoming anerexic...i dont want to become unhealthy...just thin and pretty.... :(

There are safe and simple ways to lose weight if you need to lose weight. Eating better, exercise, or even a plan (no diets though).

I know what it feels like to feel fat and ugly, and I'm also repeatedly told the same. I haven't said anything about my weight yet too publicly on VT, but I'm 154 cm tall, at 80 pounds right now, and that's not even my worst. It's not fun at all. I can't swim, because I'm self-conscious of my hips (I'm thin enough to where you can see my hip bones). I always have the thoughts in my head that Jay doesn't want me because of it, and I'm also scared out of my wits to have him even see that part of me.

Though make sure you know whether you do need to lose weight, or it's just in your head. Try a BMI calculator directed at teens, or even something like this (http://www.docshop.com/2007/12/15/height-and-weight-chart-for-men-women-and-teens/) site. Most of the time, it's not going to vary too much if you're younger than 21, but 13-16 year-olds might be a bit less in weight than that.

And to tell you the truth, from what I've seen, it isn't the thin girls that are usually the most attractive to guys. It's the average-sized girls that tend to be recognized as more attractive. Unless you're solidly underweight or overweight, you shouldn't be worrying about your weight at this age, hun.

And I do enjoy everyone else's replies. I don't actually hear from others with eating disorders that often, so I usually feel pretty alone about it.

I don't care as much about how attractive I am to other people nowadays. Right now, it's about making myself look beautiful, to me. I've grown to not give a damn if someone thinks I'm beautiful. Now, some body type comments bother me, and the opinions of people close to me matter.

I started, though, with wanting to be less attractive, both with body shape and with clothing. I would wear very lose, baggy clothing, to hide whatever curves remain while eating very little. So that probably stemmed from abuse. Then it twisted to where it was all about body image, around the time I started dating.