What do you think of anorexics?

I probably wouldn’t start dating someone with that sort of disorder/disease/whatever-they-are-calling-it-these-days. Were it to be discovered later on then of course I’d do my part in helping them get past it… but the mentality behind it.. I dunno.. seems like a formidable beast to conquer..

I’ve known two people in my life with severe anorexia. Both of them were hospitalized from it. It was/is a sad and painful experience. One was a close friend in my teen years – she died from it. The other is more recent (a family member who is now in treatment).

I am not disgusted by people with anorexia. I am very empathetic and I hurt with them.

Could I be in a relationship with someone like that? I could but it would be extremely difficult watching them slowly kill themselves. Of course I would encourage them to get help. I would give whatever support they needed. I don’t think I could turn someone away because they had anorexia. That’s just not me.

I would not choose to be in a relationship with someone who has a serious eating disorder. Yes I would try to get them to seek help. I would be neither disgusted or empathic. I would be worried and concerned.

It’s very hard for me to watch. My husband is borderline obsessed with two areas of his body he calls fat, and I think he is nuts. Making those two areas thin, means he looks too skinny and ill in general in my opinion. I have a friend like that also, this over focus on no fat anywhere makes her not really see how she looks overall. Anyway, when my husband is on a kick to be “thin” (he is thin already) he eats very few calories, which makes me very uncomfortable, and his goal is to look like a cancer patient in my opinion, and he is not anorexic, not close to being to that extreme, he just tip toes around the line once every few years for a few weeks, usually when he had been a little overweight (note: he has never been technically overweight for his height or BMI, etc.) for a year and just gets very annoyed with himself. Just that makes me so uncomfortable that living with someone who is truly anorexic would be almost impossible. I would be angry I think, even though I would want to be supportive. The anger would come from my own anxiety watching them distroy themseves and be so innaccurate in how they see themselves. Plus, my husband is an ass when he restricts his calories too much, which he will deny.

I could not be in a relationship with someone living with a serious eating disorder. I would be empathetic and do what I could to help them find help. If someone I was already in a relationship with developed an eating disorder I wouldn’t dump them necessarily, again I would do what I could to help them find help.

You are asking two different questions:

1) What do I think of anorexics? They have a disease, most like mental, not physical, and it is killing them slowly. I feel sorry for them in their suffering, but I believe that they can overcome it with will power.

2) Would I be in a relationship with an anorexic? I sure wouldn’t go into a relationship with a current anorexic. Anorexia is, as others have said, self-propelled. It’s a testament to an unbalanced view of a person’s self image, and an unrealistic solution to their perceived problem. So I wouldn’t voluntarily go into a relationship with a person that is so unbalanced, because who knows what else might be out of kilter?

No opinion once again about a group. I take people as individuals.
I personally would not date someone with a disorder. It seems to me like disorders consume a person’s attention. They’re so preoccupied with it that they cannot devote all the attention necessary for a healthy relationship. only my perception, but the person only has room for “me”. Everything is all about whatever the obsessive behaviour is.
The same holds true for any other addiction. It consumes the person and everything revolves around it, or takes a back seat.
I’m done with sitting in the back. I’ll get out and walk first.

I’ve dated several anorexic or recovered anorexic girls. None of them incredibly long term though. Their anorexic issues didn’t really define the relationship, but they were quite frustrating. In every case the girl knew she had an issue, which made it 10x more frustrating when they’d be like “oh I had a huge lunch” and you’d ask what and they’d go “oh a little bag of chips” .... :| face commenced from me.

Like I said though, it didn’t define the relationship in any case.. nor was it a major issue in any of the relationships (only in one case was it still an actively anorexic, but “recovering” girl). The relationships ended on their own for various reasons.

For the first 20 years of my life my mum was anorexic. Sometimes it was “under control” but other times she was being told by the doctor that she would be dead within the year if she didn’t start eating properly. She is now a healthy weight but I don’t think a disorder like that every truly goes away. I worry that, if something bad happens in her life, she will strat obsessing about her weight again since it is the only thing she feels she can “truly control”.

There is only so much sympathy and help you can offer and after 20 years, as bad as it sounds, you start to become numb to it. I don’t think I could be in a relationship with someone who had a serious eating disorder.

I do feel a great deal of sympathy for people struggling with an eating disorder, but it’s similar to how I feel about addicts. If you are indulging yourself in your destructive behavior and refuse to seek help or take help that is offered to you, my sympathy wanes quickly. In both cases, these people are often manipulative and very difficult to be around.

It would be difficult for me to justify letting someone with that kind of behavior get very close to me.

I don’t judge anorexics. I would hesitate to be in a relationship with an anorexic person ONLY because of MY own serious issues with overeating and body image. It wouldn’t help.

I feel like I understand anorexics. The one’s I’ve talked to use exactly the same reasoning for their behavior as I use in my bipolar behavior. I almost automatically love someone who shares my difficulties with life. I feel like we’d be able to help each other.

On the other hand, I might not be physically attracted to them if they were really sick at the time. Then I would feel empathy for them, and I might be friends with them, depending on the rest of their personality. But that would be as far as it went.

I wouldn’t choose to become involved with anyone with a problem. My feeling is that people with problems need to solve them first before they are ready for a relationship. Relationships are hard enough between two healthy people without dooming it from the start by bringing in mental disorders. If someone I was involved with developed a disorder, I would probably be supportive if I really thought the other person was doing all they could to get better. However, if they refused proper treatment and wanted me to enable their destructive behaviour, NO WAY.

Yes, I have gone skinny dipping.

Anorexia would be a symptom of “too many issues”. Sounds like a lot of work, and thus not my type.

@tedd You have dated several anorexics? What is it a type for you?

@JLeslie Hey man, don’t judge.

@likipie Not judging.

@likipie and @JLeslie I am :P

@JLeslie I’ve dated in some fashion almost 40 girls/women in my life (If we’re saying I dated every anorexic I’ve been with in some fashion). 3–4 of them were anorexics at some point in their life.

I think they need serious help.