Friend thinks she is fat and ugly

Pentacle Queen--

Question: Objectively, is your friend fat?

Ugly?

There are ways to help her in either scenario, but you DO want to be reliably helpful.

Does she think she is ugly and fat because normal stuff doesnt happen to her?eg guys dont ask her out but ask out all of her friends


Quote-Beauty is not a dress size.

I believe this woman should be directed to Slappy Doo Hoo.

Bring her to me.

Oh God. Isn't there any other way?

There could be several things going on here.

1) Your friend is neither fat or ugly and is fishing for compliments because that's just what some people do. There is nothing you can say to her that will make her stop asking you if she's fat or ugly. No amount of complimenting will stop this behavior. Confronting her and saying "Stop fishing for compliments" might. This is the most likely scenario in my opinion since you didn't mention anything about her obsessing over her appearance in ways like binging or purging, dieting, excessive exercise, thoughts of plastic surgery, thoughts of suicide...etc...

2) Your friend is fugly(fat and ugly). Nothing you can do except help her find ways to accentuate her good points with clothes and makeup.

3) Your friend has a real psychological disorder. Either distored body image (which is very common in the US) or worse, body dysmorphic disorder. BDD If this is the case, your friend needs to seek help. Now.

That about sums it up.

I have a different definition for fugly that has nothing to do with fat. I does, however, occasionally describe my disposition to a T.

Oh, very good post, Bella :wink:

Thanks.

I don't think PQ's friend is being anything other than a whiny teenager...but in case she really has a problem....

As someone who suffers from a distorted body image, I can say that it's tough to function in a world where size 4 is beautiful and size 10 is fat. I can't imagine what BDD is like to have. It must be torture.

People with real issues concerning body image don't go on and on and on about it. It's an internal battle, not one you want to share with your friends. At least for me it was/is. It was/is embarrassing for me to say I look fat. Or that I feel fat. It is embarrassing because that logical part of my brain, the one that is functioning in the real world, knows that what I am saying is silly. But I can't see anything other than a blob in the mirror.

I've started trying not to care about the size of things. "I used to wear a _ and now I wear a _" type thing. Primarily because clothes sizes have changed a lot. They are being made for stick figures and they don't fit anyone with boobs and hips.

Secondly, size is just a number, and if you feel good about how you look, who cares what the number inside your pants is? Those things are still struggles. I used to love to shop for clothes. Now it's a chore because I don't like how the clothes look on me.

I am my own worst critic and always have been. I try and be honest with myself but we are all so good at lying to ourselves, it's a real struggle when the image you see is not the image the rest of the world sees. And it's weird because everyone else says how healthy I look now. How great I look and all I see is fat. Fat fat fat.

And this is scary since I have come a long way.

I think a lot of times, body image problems are like a crutch for those of us who find comfort in being unhappy. Not actually being unhappy really but the static nature of it if you were sad for a long time. You don't like change and when you can't find anything else in your life that is so horrible you can't stand it, so you pick on the one thing that's easiest to pick on; your body. And the comfort of the familiar is better than the discomfort of change. And of course, then you are unhappy about your body and that makes you miserable, which is what you wanted but what you don't want because it makes you miserable. It's an awful cycle that's very very hard to break. And once you break it, it doesn't go away. It's just a little easier to control and accept.

What's really scary is that half this country is starving to death and the other half is dying of obesity.

right, sorry its taken me a long time to get back to this:

1. she is a size 12, she is not fat. she is not ugly, but is unusural looking. red hair.

2. it stop her from fancying people, going out with people. being more confident.

3. it is genuine

Well Penty, with a friend all you can really do is love her. It's not your responsibility to 'fix' it, and you wouldn't be able to if you tried for a thousand years. Like Bella mentioned earlier - some friends are like this, and the compliments are never enough nor do they change anything.

Be aware of her sensitivity to this issue, and by all means have fun with her; but don't take the load on yourself. Make sense?

TPQ--

Can you point out to her some of her good points? Physically, mentally and emotionally?

Oh, Bella, good job putting all of that into words...I know just what you mean about the sadness thing, and it's SO hard to explain, even just to yourself. Reading what you wrote was helpful to me, I feel like you expressed it in a way that lets me see what's going on in my own head better.

And you're so right about ignoring the size thing. For a long time I was so hung up on the "number" I was wearing that I'm sure I didn't look very good in what I was wearing because I refused to go up a size. Talk about a vicious circle..."I look so fat" (but I know it's because my clothes don't fit right) "but if I buy a bigger size, it proves I'm fat" (even though then I'd look and feel better in my clothes)... Oy.

PQ, I'm afraid flushd's right that if this really is a body image issue (not fishing for compliments) then there's not much you can do. If she would really be open to help (doesn't just want to hear you say she's not fat, but wants to do something about it), then try to help her figure out a real proactive thing to do about it. Like, you guys start getting together to jog or take a bike ride a few days a week.

But don't expect yourself to be able to "fix" her if she has a severe body image problem. If you think she'd hurt herself, like start being bulimic or something, then try to get her to talk to a counsellor.

What can be seen as fishing for compliments by others can actually be a person just desperatly needing a confidence boost.

hmm. noddy- she is amazingly clever, got loads of friends, popular, nice familly, well off. witty, funny, everything really...

TPQ--

Do you think she's dithering about her physical characteristics as a way of getting attention?

no. definately not. i didnt know about the whole thing untill she started crying hysterically last year when she got drunk, and then it all came out.