Girls, why is it that when you're drop dead gorgeous and sexy as all hell, YOU think that you're fat & ugly?

[FunkyMonkee]

This isn't the only instance of this but the one that sticks out in my mind the most: in college, I met this girl, Jennifer Marcin, who could've EASILY been the twin of Debby Harry (Blondie) and was very much like Kim Cattrall, especially in, "Mannequin" and most people thought she was very much like Marilyn Monroe. She was SUPER pretty, super sexy and super sweet!! Nearly every guy on campus wanted to fuck her brains out! I would've given my left testicle to have her as my girlfriend!! It's not like I was using it, anyway! I even asked her to marry me, once!! But, she thought she was fat and ugly!! WHY?

[Bricealan]

I had a drop-dead beautiful girl in my office... young teen, took her picture, and she said the picture was "awful" !!! The picture was a good picture

I asked her to her face..."I want to know WHAT you see when you look in the mirror"? She did not answer... female ego? She was disgusting.

[Dongie]

Karen Carpenter is a prime example. As she grew up her dad referred to her as his little fat girl. She developed anorexia and died at 35 or so. Every picture I've seen of her was a perfect figured pretty woman.

[sage2021]

The only explanation I have for that is there is a medical condition where people can look in a mirror and actually see themselves as fat. When they aren't fat but average.
I just can't remember the name of the medical condition.

[DishLady]

For some, it’s a little like looking in a funhouse mirror at a carnival… some women don’t see an accurate portrayal of themselves. Low self esteem is a terrible thing.

[FunkyMonkee]

It is! But, they MUST get LOADS of compliments on their looks! Doesn't THAT ever seep in?

[DishLady]

No... I forget the name of some of the books they used to keep on the girls' summer reading -- a lot of unsavory books about girls making themselves vulnerable... skipping ahead, one year -- it was either my sophomore/junior year -- the book list was all about girls with eating disorders and I wondered, "WHY THE H I'm spending my summer reading about this garbage? Are they trying to ENCOURAGE eating disorders?" All I knew for certain was that we would be quizzed and graded on the summer reading list items on our first week back to school... But you know what happened that first week back? About 20-30 girls landed themselves in the medical office because they'd passed out... WHY? Eating disorders... Parents were called and there was a lot of finger pointing at the school, but very few of the adults thought about the fact that the girl's self esteem was so low that she absorbed the self-inflicted abuse described in the summer reading list and thought "HEY, this sounds like me... this is my way out of my miserable self-doubt... I will be thin and beautiful."

Mind you, these were all REALLY GORGEOUS young women who were just fine as is... But back then even the very modelesque Princess Diana (RIP) was a stick-thin waif because of her own (now highly-documented) eating disorder... Back then young girls systematically made to feel like they were painted into a conceptual corner. (It's partially a carry-over from the 1930s-40s... look, even Audrey Hepburn's father bullied her into having an eating disorder. In the 1980s/90s an 18yo Tyra Banks was told she was "too fat to model" and she was a total waif with a little bubble butt and a fairly modest-looking rack... There are literally endless examples in literature and life. So many women are made to feel like they're "FAT" for no reason.)

[DishLady]

To reframe the problem in a different way, while this negative social conditioning is underway, most girls are just starting puberty and already feeling SUPER awkward because they're going to start bleeding once a month -- a full-on biological shedding of their insides starting at ages randing between ~9-14 -- which makes us feel sort of like space aliens... bloated, puffy, exhausted little space aliens who aren't fit to be outside while all this is happening. (Historically... and even in parts of the Bible, there's mention of women "in confinement" because of either their periods or a pregnancy. One of the most famous ones is in the book Mahabharata from Hindu scripture, where the female lead, Draupadi, is dragged out of her confinement to be "shamed" by the nemises of the book. (No spoilers, it's a very deep and intriguing legend you can look up and read on your own.) Draupadi (arguably the first feminist, definitely one of the strongest women described in any ancient texts, marginally akin to (and surpassing) the divine characters Athena or Artemis).

The point is... it's drilled into us early on that a girl has to look and be a certain way -- to "look good", which feels impossible in those first years when you're just trying to get accustomed to your own biological process... and just as soon as you do there are more changes piling on... boys notice you, possibly pressuring you to go out if you're particularly "hot" to them... other girls will press you to look and be "like them" (sort of like the "Mean Girls" phenomenon)... and your body is still changing as it fills out between high school and college... That "filling out" is just collagen releasing itself, but it can feel and look like bloating, which then sends some girls spiraling into an unrealistic "gym rat" mode or another eating disorder...

[DishLady]

There are actually so few women out there who are truly 100% confident in who they are and what they look like... And those who are confident and strive to ignore all this negativity tend to get an unfeeling verbal lashing from either guys or girls about being confident -- HOW DARE THEY be confident when the norm is the total opposite "HOT MESS" type? 🤔 😔 🤷🏻‍♀️

Some girls are able to take it all in stride and some are mentally fragile and succumb to all the negative social critique and conditioning, in which cases the endless diets, eating disorders, etc. are embraced as a lifestyle choice designed to "control" their weight, health and life...

With girls like this, you can compliment them DAY AND NIGHT, but once she has mentally locked and loaded this negative vision of herself it's nearly impossible to get that mental perspective and intention to shift to anything positive...

[FunkyMonkee]

Diana Ross.

[DishLady]

YES!!!

[FunkyMonkee]

How about if we TELL THEM they look fat and disgusting? Reverse psychology.

[DishLady]

LOL. No, I don't think that would help them.

[Apple1996]

Because most of us girls are insecure with our looks