Why can anorexic individuals not see the difference?!

dakotababy

So I in no way am judging anorexics, but I am simply asking this as I am trying to find more information/maybe some personal experiences who could explain this to me.

Why is it that anorexic males/females can not see the difference between a healthy body weight (whether is be strong, ripped, toned - whatever) and the unhealthy body weight (bones, rib cage, lack of muscle). Like...I guess do anorexics find the unhealthy look "sexy" or "in" or "desirable"?

I don't know, I just think that if a picture of a body that is toned/muscular/thin were shown (Lets just use jillian Michaels, because i love her) VS. a body image of lets say an anorexic body...would an anorexic prefer to look like the healthy-thin person or the unhealthy-thin person...any thoughts?

alisonlynn1976

No personal experience with eating disorders, but from what I understand, a lot of it has to do with a distorted self-image. They'll say that the healthy-thin person and the unhealthy-thin person both look great, but they themselves are fat and hideous even if they are actually thinner than the people who they say look great.

diodelcibo

It is a mental thing, one will look in a mirror and see a fat person staring back ; they do not think they are "skinny" as you put it.

glovepuppet

i wasn't a proper anorexic (i didn't see a fat blob and i wasn't trying to lose weight) but i never looked in the mirror and saw the skin & bones i see in some pictures of me. i think part of it is that change is gradual, and what you see in the mirror changes so slowly that your mind adjusts to that standard of 'normal'.

TheRealParisLove

It's like dyslexia but for body image. They literally see a fat person staring back at them in the mirror.

http://www.eatingdisorderpro.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/webinar-anorexia-distorted-body-image.jpg

dakotababy

I understand that - but if they were to be "inspired" to become thin (even though they already are) would they not be more likely to over-train/eat really clean(obsessively) to get a more tone look rather than the...current popular look of anorexics...which I can only describe as dilapidated

chantelp89

They definitely don't think of themselves as being sexy or attractive in any way

kimosabe1

It is a mental thing, one will look in a mirror and see a fat person staring back ; they do not think they are "skinny" as you put it.

this^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

glovepuppet

I understand that - but if they were to be "inspired" to become thin (even though they already are) would they not be more likely to over-train/eat really clean(obsessively) to get a more tone look rather than the...current popular look of anorexics...which I can only describe as dilapidated

i don't think it starts that way.

they'll start by wanting to look like [insert latest pop-culture hottie] but, having attained that weight, they don't magically feel confident and beautiful. they were feeling a feel good buzz from losing, so they naturally go back to that in the hope that the next goal will magically make them feel confident and beautiful. eventually the goal gets lost to the habit, every bad feeling they have about themselves [falling grades, failing relationships, childhood trauma] is filed under ''would be ok if only i looked beautiful''.

Lumen1505

Its not just what is 'seen' in the mirror but also what is 'felt' when viewing themselves or perceiving themselves. There is no one answer as it may be different for each person.

I know for me when I under ate (many years ago) it was wanting to make myself smaller or disappear, not vanity. For others it may be a wish to remain in a child like state and for others it may be to conform to what the media portrays as desirable.

Eating disorders are utterly complex & individual to each person, while there may be 'themes' there is usually more going on beneath the surface, which is why they can cause such devastating damage to sufferers and their families.

eringrace10

From friends that are recovering. (Yay) I 've always always understood it has having a lot to with control, they might feel they have control over any part of there life apart from what they eat so its can become an eating disorder.

confetti_blind

A lot of people with AN know they are too thin. It is a fallacy that body dysmorphia goes hand-in-hand with AN. They are two different mental disorders.

There are hundreds of different reasons why a person with AN restricts their calorie intake and only a handful of those reasons relate to weight or body image.

Some people with AN are motivated by a need to control something when other elements of their life feel out of control, for example. Other people with AN are self-punishing (a type of self harm) because they do not feel worthy of reward. Food might represent 'mother' to some people and rejecting food is a way to reject 'mother'. I could give 100s of other reasons.

It is really simplistic to generalise and assume that EDs are related to a desire to be thin. They are a mental illness and not a diet plan or a lifestyle.

PS: True sufferers of AN do not need 'tips' and do not recite pro-ana babble quotes and do not have pictures of superskinny celebs as their thinspiration. Those people are the 'wannabes' and the 'wannabes' generally have absolutely no idea what it is like to genuinely suffer from an ED. I still find it incredible that people would ever aspire to develop a mental illness - it is like aspiring to be schizophrenic or hoping to become bi-polar.

vicky7917

I think it's called Body Dismoprhia Disorder. They genuinely don't see what you see.

luceegj

It's becuase deep down it isnt really about body imagin its a need for control!

RunEatLift

They definitely don't think of themselves as being sexy or attractive in any way

Exactly. I've been recovering from anorexia since last summer. I looked horrible at my lowest weight and I was well aware of it. However at the same time I loved it - it brought me a sense of comfort and security. Counting calories, pounds, minutes spent exercising all stopped me from thinking about what my actual problems were.

Kristineevans1

I don't suffer from AN but I do suffer with EDNOS with anorexic tendency I am trying to recover ( and doing pretty well) and also body dismorphia disorder. If you look at my picture it will give you a good indication of what I see and how I look.

Ed's are formed with districting cycles ie you feel bad, feel fat , body check ie squeeze pinch feel all the disgusting fat over your body ( even when what your feeling is skin, muscle etc) you can "feel the fat " therefore you must be fat , so you eat less, when you do eat you feel bad then you feel fat .....and the cycle continues

It is definitely a control thing and a coping mechanism, it is like having your brain rewired and even though you know what you should be doing or not doing your mind takes over your body and it's very hard to fight it.

K x

LaLouve_RK

Distorted Self Image projection of your brain. It's basic psychology.
Stress and depression can make you do crazy stuff...

patentguru

Very tough to self judge accurately. When I look in the mirror, I see no flaws or fat. Only when I put pictures of me at 20% fat vs. now at a far lower percentage can I see the difference.

Schraudt814

It's the nature of the disease...it's more psychological than just not eating.

andiechick

From friends that are recovering. (Yay) I 've always always understood it has having a lot to with control, they might feel they have control over any part of there life apart from what they eat so its can become an eating disorder.

^^^^This

Anorexia is a Mental health issue and its not just a case of being as thin as possible - altho some may start this way - there's often an underlying cause, either to do with control in their life like said above or maybe even due to trauma. Each case is individual and should be treated as such

yksdoris

It is a mental thing, one will look in a mirror and see a fat person staring back ; they do not think they are "skinny" as you put it.

this. it also happens to "regular people" and particularly people who have recently lost a lot of weight - they often still feel fat even though they aren't. To illustrate, I went to this scince center/amusement place which is mainly aimed at kids and teenagers (they had a get-in-for-free-day. so sue me) and they had this whole section about various body images, including scarification, piercings, tattoos... and weight. There was a mirror that would move your image from super-skinny to super fat, and the idea was to hit "stop" when you thought it reached the point wher you actually were. I invariably hit stop at a heavier point than I actually was. Even though at that point in my journey I was already at goal weight and I was very happy with the way I looked, I still didn't see it properly.

Personally, that was when I realized how important it is to lose weight slowly: not only is it better for the body, it also gives the mind some time to catch up!

TavistockToad

isnt that like asking why cant a depressed person just cheer up?

LorinaLynn

I've never had an eating disorder, but I have had (do have) other emotional disorders (anxiety and depression) as well as wicked bad eyesight (astigmatism and myopia).

I can draw parallels between the two. My eyesight problems keep me from physically seeing the world clearly. Everything is blurry and out of focus. My emotional problems keep me from mentally seeing the world clearly. Everything is bleak.

Just like the eye problems, the emotional problems happen gradually. You don't really notice as your eyesight gets just a little bit worse, although you may experience some symptoms like headaches. But it isn't until you go in for an exam and get new glasses or contacts that you realize just how out of focus everything has been.

It's trickier with emotional problems. Harder to diagnose, harder to treat, and it also happens so gradually that you just accept how you're feeling as normal.

da_bears10089

If you think about a person with OCD, to the normal person, it seems absolutely ridiculous that an individual would have to engage in repetitive activities constantly, but to that person with the disorder, they MUST do it for everything to be right in the world. Anorexia is a disease. They have unattainable images in their head, so they will never get to the "ok, now i look good" phase like the average person can.

fakeuntilumakeit

First off I don't have an ED, so forgive me if I'm way off track, but the way I understand it having OCD (since a child) is that The Mind is super complex and thoughts can become distorted, usually by traumatic events or confusing events which the mind tries to rationalise. All I can say is that no matter how rational an onlooker may think, a sufferer will equally think that their own thoughts are rational, even if self harming. So for example an ED sufferer may not eat, but this does not necessarily mean this is too be thin, it could be a distorted thought about food, eating, swallowing or the process of digestion, the outcome of the act of eating etc, and what the event of eating will cause....e.g. I may choke, or I may be sick, or eating is healthy and I know my body needs it, but I do not deserve this, because of ................ The distorted thought is usually triggered by an earlier distressing event, but that event may not directly relate to food, yet food had become a fixation as in I can control the food intake, which means I can control the bad thoughts, or control the outcome.,

I may be wrong like I said I do not suffer, but as it is a distorted control behaviour, I assume it is far more complex than wanting to be thin.

Similarly to what someone else said, someone with a true ED probably does not post pics of their body, as they are most likely not to be confident in their own body image.

bkw2488

It is a mind thing. I am not anorexic, but still have a distorted image of the way I look. What I see in the mirror is not what everyone else sees, or at least that's what they tell me lol. Many people with self image problems pick apart everything about themselves.

crazypeachs

i was never diagnosed, but as a child i believe i was anorexic. my mom has a photo of me at the age of 7-8 in which my legs were bones. gross. but at the time i honestly saw myself as fat. i thought i had several extra pounds and wouldn't eat much because i believed i was adding to the fat. looking back, there wasn't any.

not sure what happened, my folks divorced which brought a drastic location change, and i didn't look at myself so much anymore (maybe it was grief? who knows.) anyway, i was a normal weight throughout high school and ballooned after high school. particularly as an adult, i got huge (6'2", 308 at my heaviest). i think i saw myself as smaller than i really am. again, distorted view of my mirror image. i'm hoping to lose weight and see myself as i really am, but i'm keeping present in mind the possibility of going overboard (or minimizing the fatness) again. i plan to start a photo journal to keep tabs on myself. and to be encouraged by any changes.

anyway, it is pretty much not seeing reality and images as they are. as the person is. the image is distorted by the belief. (i must be fat/i can't be that fat)

RobynLB83

No personal experience with eating disorders, but from what I understand, a lot of it has to do with a distorted self-image. They'll say that the healthy-thin person and the unhealthy-thin person both look great, but they themselves are fat and hideous even if they are actually thinner than the people who they say look great.

This.

Christina_3192

isnt that like asking why cant a depressed person just cheer up?

^ Exactly!
Eating disorders like others have said are a mental health issue.

FitMrsR

It's not really about being thin. It's often about control or other mental health issues. I was never *that* thin but to myself, I looked exactly the same as I did when I was 40lbs heavier. I honestly couldn't see why everyone was telling me I didn't look healthy. It wasn't about how I looked though. I couldn't eat. My ED brain wouldn't allow me to so every bite was torture. I never wanted to be 50lbs and all skin and bones. I wanted to be fit and toned but as I got sicker and sicker I wanted to be thinner and thinner until I wasted away. By that point those really thin people started to look more normal to me and they weren't as thin as I first thought they were. It's a terrible disease and even though I exercised and what I did end up eating was clean and healthy it doesn't help. I lost a lot of muscle so I couldn't be fit and strong. It's very hard to explain if you've never been in that situation. Just like I can't imagine what it would be like to be a drug addict or bipolar. Because I'm neither of those. I also can't understand how it's so easy for people to enjoy food even though I was like that at one point.

ETA: there comes a point where you are too weak to do much if anything so exercising and toning is out of the question but you still feel that need for control. The need to be thinner. It's not as simple as just deciding to be healthy. Like one person said, it's like telling a depressed person to cheer up. And, from my experience at least, people with EDs often suffer from depression among other things.

chanel1twenty

So I in no way am judging anorexics, but I am simply asking this as I am trying to find more information/maybe some personal experiences who could explain this to me.

Why is it that anorexic males/females can not see the difference between a healthy body weight (whether is be strong, ripped, toned - whatever) and the unhealthy body weight (bones, rib cage, lack of muscle). Like...I guess do anorexics find the unhealthy look "sexy" or "in" or "desirable"?

I don't know, I just think that if a picture of a body that is toned/muscular/thin were shown (Lets just use jillian Michaels, because i love her) VS. a body image of lets say an anorexic body...would an anorexic prefer to look like the healthy-thin person or the unhealthy-thin person...any thoughts?

I was in a treatment facility for Anorexia when I was 16, I have recovered very well...just one relapse at 18.

You have to remember that Anorexia is a mental illness, and that all of us have various degrees of Body Dysmorphia. We don't see ourselves as we are. We would find Jillian Michaels' body and the unhealthy skinny body equally desirable...because it's thin. Thin is thin. Toned is toned. Bones are bones. I do not have the body to weigh less than like 135. I have child-bearing hips and hold all weight/fat I have in my hips, butt, thighs. When I was 114lbs with protruding hips bones, sunken cheeks, an overly-defined clavicle, and a huge gap between my thighs when standing up, I didn't see that.
Looking back at pictures now that I'm in recovery I can see who scary thin I was at the time. But at the time, when I looked in the mirror, I saw Rosie O'Donnell. I still struggle a bit and receive therapy for the Body Dysmorphia (BD) aspect of things. It's difficult to get treatment for BD.

It's also a lot about control. Most ED sufferers have been victimized in some way, and one's body and eating habits is the ultimate thing you have control over. I was raped when I was 15 and diagnosed Anorexic at 16. Coincidence? No. The majority of sufferers have a story similar to mine. My body was violated and during the attack, and loooong after, I felt disgusting and that my body was taken from me (I was a virgin when this happened). My eating habits and how I looked were 2 things that could not be effected by him or anyone else. Sometimes I believe my illness started as some sort of f****d up self-punishment or discipline that grew into this'd unyielding need and obsession to be thin. My psychiatrist believes that after my attack I began starving myself as a way to make myself unattractive and undesirable to men, but you can theorize all day about one's subconscious actions.

Just remember that Anorexia, Bulimia, and EDNOS are no less mental illnesses than Schizophrenia or Depression, and that unless you've endured it and are a survivor it's something that you will never truly be able to understand.