It’s true. And it’s the reason for my suicide. These feelings of hopelessness stem from being an imperfect human being. I have a poor memory, make lots of mistakes – but worst of all, I’m ugly. I am so unattractive. I look in the mirror and fall apart crying, I get violent visions of mutilating my body, hacking it to pieces until I disintergrate. Until I’m nothing anymore. Unrecognisable. Until I die from bloodloss, hopefully, and everybody can forget I ever existed. That’s all I want – to not exist, to never have existed. I wish I had never existed.
I go to bed and pray that I won’t wake up. I eat dinner and pray I choke. I walk down the street and pray a car or bus hits me and I die. These perfectionism issues, this BDD, it doesn’t leave. It makes it unbearable to live. CBT hasn’t worked, psychoanalysis hasn’t worked. I’m going in for EMDR next week, hopefully. If it doesn’t work, then I know what I have to do, I know I have to be dead.
And the worst part is, my problems are considered ridiculous. ‘You want to kill yourself because you’re not perfect?! Whaaat, are you crazy?’ Nobody understands. Nobody. Not even my partner, which has led to me pushing him away, to feeling angry with him.
This is possibly the worst I have ever felt. I have never wanted to be dead so badly. I want a quick and painless way out – but I don’t know which method will guarantee that. I’m just sure I don’t want to live anymore. I don’t feel in control of myself anymore, and my partner doesn’t understand that. I feel completely helpless – as well as worthless. I see beautiful, perfect-looking women everywhere I go, and it bothers me. I feel like nothing. I feel like I deserve to be dead because I look so imperfect, so ugly, just…spoiled. My looks spoil me, the good person I am, easy to get along with, smart, funny. My looks are my weakest trait. What man would want me when I look like this? People have always avoided complimenting me on my physical appearance – I was always ‘smart’, ‘funny’, ‘mature.’ But never beautiful. Never sexy. Never ‘hot.’ Never.
Well one man does, anyway. But it won’t last. I’ve pushed him away, or he’ll end up cheating on me/porn replacing me. Unsatisfied sexually. Looking at my body….you don’t understand the pain I feel, the sheer anger, the urge to rip myself apart, to tear into myself with my nails or a knife, hack myself away, punish myself, make myself suffer for how ugly I am.
I’m not the best looking girl that any man (or woman) has ever seen, and it really bothers me. Please don’t judge me for feeling this way, I can’t help it. I have to be perfect. My worth in society, as a woman, comes from how I look. If I don’t look attractive, I’m nothing. I will never be able to hold onto a man. My friends will always regard me as the fat, ugly friend.I’ve faced so much rejection from friends, so many insults from strangers and bullies telling me I’m fat, I’m a fat piece of shit, I’m unattractive. I can’t take it anymore.
And I’ve tried losing weight, truly, I have. And I never get past losing a few pounds. My weight doesn’t seem to drop any lower than that. Plus, my therapist told me I shouldn’t because of my BDD, that I should only exercise and eat well for health reasons. I do anyway. And if I start losing weight, I get obsessive. I count every calorie, weigh myself constantly, throw up my food, don’t eat for hours and hours. I completely lose control. I think I might have slight OCD tendencies (they say BDD is an off-shoot of OCD).
You might ask, ‘well how do you want to look, then? What is perfect? Looks are always subjective.’ When I say perfect, I mean I want the majority of people to find me attractive. And at the moment, they don’t. A minority would (and they’d be ugly or desperate guys that I’m not attracted to). I feel ashamed when my boyfriend looks at my body. Ashamed that I don’t look like the girls he watches in his porn videos. And yes, I’ve tried speaking to him about this – and he doesn’t understand where I’m coming from. He says I’m beautiful, but I’m not the best-looking girl he’s ever seen. And that isn’t good enough for me.
These perfectionism thoughts aren’t rational. I know I don’t look like a porn star, and it’s not my job to spend every waking minute looking great, I KNOW that. But thoughts and feelings are different. I can think something all I like, I can rationalise my thoughts, but I cannot control how I feel. I feel worthless knowing he looks at porn. I feel cheated. I feel like I’m not good enough. Like if he had the chance to swap my body for that of a porn star, he’d do it. And that he’d rather look like a certain celebrity he mentioned he likes (we discussed it the other day and he told me I’m not as good looking as she is). I know that, in fact, I agree with him. I don’t. I’m fucking repulsive looking. But I can’t help but feeling so upset that he thinks that about me, that I’m not the best looking to him, that he has to jerk off to other, better looking women on a screen. I am truly not good enough. And the things he said worry me. ‘Men aren’t naturally monogamous, they like variety. Porn is the best thing to happen to relationships, it stops men cheating.’ Am I supposed to feel honoured that instead of him having sex with other women he’s just jerking off to them instead? And I know I can’t change him, I can’t make him stop watching porn. But the way I feel….I can’t take it. I feel cheated and worthless and ugly, and just not good enough for him. Not perfect. Far from perfect.
And why is being perfect so important to me? I don’t know. I can’t explain why. It might stem from my childhood when I was always trying to impress my father (and he’s a tough guy to impress, he has high standards) and I could never do it. I never felt good enough. I was never praised enough by either of my parents. I wasn’t never made to feel good enough. And then I was bullied for three years at school, I didn’t have any friends (I still don’t).
I just can’t live knowing I’m not good enough. That I’m not perfect-looking. That my boyfriend wishes I looked like someone else, someone better. That my boyfriend also enjoys masturbating to lots of different women even though he’s with me. That he probably fantasises about them instead of me because I’m not good looking enough for him, because I don’t look like his ideal. I don’t have naturally huge rounded tits and a huge ass and I’m not slim. I don’t have long thin legs and small arms and a doll-face. I get spots sometimes, I have an ordinary looking face, not straight but not wavy hair, fat on my stomach, fat on my legs, arms, everywhere. It just doesn’t naturally go to my boobs very much. I’m only a B/C cup even though I’m quite curvy, I have wide hips and fat legs.The prospect of him looking at other girls and finding them more sexually appealing than me makes me feel physically sick.
I will never be good enough. I just look completely wrong, I am completely wrong-looking for this culture. It pains me to say I’ll never be good enough for him. I’ll never be good enough for me, either. Or anybody else. And I can’t take it anymore, I can’t live with that knowledge. I have to die. I have to.
And this is the main reason I want to kill myself. I’ve written other posts about existential depression, about just not wanting to live because death is easier. I hate my boyfriend for not thinking I’m the best looking girl he’s ever seen. And I know – it sounds so stupid and unreasonable. But you have to understand, I just can’t help it. It doesn’t even feel like it’s me that’s thinking this, it feels like it’s some poisonous part of me that wants me to suffer. I get this nasty voice in my head telling me I’m not good enough, it just randomly pops up. Like when I look in the mirror. ‘You know you’re ugly, right? Who the fuck would ever find you attractive? There’s a reason your boyfriend’s jerking off to porn, it’s because you’re not good enough for him. He’d happily exchange your body for one he finds appealing, for the girls in those movies he watches. How does that make you feel, you ugly *****? You should be dead by now.’
Or ‘too bad your boyfriend doesn’t fuck good character, you know he’d change your body in a heartbeat because your body isn’t attractive enough for him, your boobs are too small, your butt isn’t large enough, your legs aren’t thin enough.’
I’m sorry that this post is so long, to an outsider, I probably sound like a bratty whiny *****. ‘Oh waaa :'( nobody finds me hot, I want to kill myself.’ But it’s more than that. It’s deeper than that. It’s my quest to be perfect, to satisfy everyone, to not disappoint anybody, to be liked my many after years of not having that. And most of all, I just want to please my boyfriend – and obviously – me. There is nothing worse than being ordinary, and being an ordinary-looking person.And of course, my expectations are too high -expecting him to think I’m the hottest looking girl he’s ever seen, so naturally, when I get angry and frustrated that he doesn’t think this way, I push him away. He just won’t think how I want him to. Maybe that’s my problem – I want to be in control of everything – I want to control everyone’s thoughts of me, to make sure they are always positive?
I can’t take it anymore. I have to die. Please, somebody help me, show me a way out.
31 comments
@Melancholia, I UNDERSTAND YOU and want to help you but right now I have an appointment so PLEASE come back and read this post cause as soon as I am done I’ll write back to you. Don’t worry, I know what you are going through. I was in your shoes once and I can tell you that you can be that person you want to be. I swear to you. Just hear me out later. xoxo
I understand you, really a lot. I want to be perfect too, I do so much to seem like a perfect student in teachers’ eyes, I push myself to get only A:s from tests, I try to be the best and most perfect girlfriend to live with, I do most of the household choirs just so my bf would find me at least a little closer to perfect. He only calls me cute and sweet, but not hot or beautiful.I know it’s hard but have you told him that you feel like he’s cheating when he watches porn?I used to also every night pray that I wouldn’t wake up anymore. I used to think using chainsaw to cut all my bellyfat away. Nothing actually happened, maybe I started focusing more of my perfectionism to school.What I want to tell you, is that I know it’s hard to accept your looks. I’m, like, the furthest from perfect when it comes about my looks. And I know it’s so frustrating when someone comes and says ‘get deeper and get over it.’ But actually I think that this kind of insecurity may ‘grow out’ of us, because the more we get mature, the more we start to realize that the world doesn’t care a crap about how somebody looks.I’m always comparing myself to anyone else. Suddenly I just realized that in real life, it doesn’t matter who’s better than who. But I know it doesn’t count for me or you. I still compare, you still care about your looks. But I guess it comforts me a little to know that nobody is actually comparing me to someone else, they’re probably comparing themselves to someone else.Although in schoolworld the teachers must compare the students to know how to give the grades. It doesn’t make my life any easier.I guess I don’t have any point in my comment but I just wanted to tell you that you’re not alone. I want to be perfect too and I think that there’s no point in living if I can’t be perfect. But please, don’t kill yourself because of that. It counts for me, if no one else.(Also, if you’re in a mood of trying to get better, try listening the song “Loser like me”, because it sometimes makes me understand that in this whole wide world, nobody is actually better than somebody else. We’re all at the same line, if you get what I’m trying to say, I know I’m a mess.)
You might not believe your perfect, but someone that falls in love with you will,
The girl I have fallen for is perfect in every way for me,
She might not agree with me about that, but that’s what I truly believe,
I believe she is the best human in the world,
And I’m sure that there is someone out there that thinks that about you,
You have to just find them,
It took me almost 18 years to find her, but the wait was totally worth it.
I thought my boyfriend thought I was perfect, but he doesn’t. And I can’t take that, because he’s my everything. He is absolutely perfect for me, we’re so compatible, and I love him so much. He loves me too, he does say I’m beautiful, but he doesn’t make me desirable (esp. after finding out he watches porn). He never tells me he’s attracted to me or thinks I’m sexy/hot.
Rathernot, do you think your girl is the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen – talking strictly physically?
Annae, thank you for your words, is it okay if I contact you?
And you too, blackswan?
You do realize that if he calls you sexy/hot, all he’s looking at is your body and that he just wants sex. That’s all. If you’re building relationships based solely on physiology then they are NOT going to last very long. Or you’ll end up pregnant.
Yes I truly believe my girl is perfect in her beauty and in her personality,
If your boyfriend isn’t saying what you need to hear, maybe he’s not right for you, I try my best to explain how lovely I think my girl really is, but I suck with words, it’s hard to explain to her how amazing she is because there are no words to depict how much I love her, and how pretty she is.
Mel I think you should try to tell your boyfriend how you feel, he might not know what he’s doing to you,
and if you see that he doesn’t change after you told him how you feel, then he isn’t right for you, there’s probably someone better out there for you
I hope this helps
I’m not looking for him to always be complimenting my body. But you can strike a balance. And I know by now he’s not just after my body, we’ve been together nearly 3 years. I just want him to find my body attractive because I hate it – and the more he doesn’t say it – I take his silence as confirmation that my views are correct. He doesn’t say it because my body isn’t hot, the bodies of the porn girls he watches are hot, certain celebrities are hot. Me? No. I’m not hot or sexy.
I have told him that I don’t feel like I’m desirable to him, he just says he feels uncomfortable talking about it or he’s not really that sexual a person. Yet he’s masturbating to porn…..?
And it’s not that simple. I can’t just leave him. Whenever I’ve tried to break it off it never works out, I end up feeling worse and lonely. He’s like my emotional support system, even though he’s not even good at that since I told him all of this last night (how suicidal I feel) and now we’re not talking.
I don’t know what it is….it’s really weird. I just feel so sick thinking about him jerking off to porn, watching hot girls doing stuff to each other or to themselves or……another guy. It makes me feel ill. Why though? I think I have to go and be sick right now, actually…
Ofc it’s ok, more than ok if you contact me.
Is it possible to contact people privately on here? How do you do it?
I don’t think you can. You probably have to give eachother your emails
I don’t know if this helps at all, but the truth is your boyfriend was watching porn before he met you, your boyfriend will be watching porn after you. Your boyfriend will be watching porn even if you where a porn star or a Victoria secret runway model, it doesn’t have anything to do with you, or how attractive he finds you, it has to do with him and an over active sexual imagination.
Well then what if every time he’s wanted sex, I’ve given to him, and yet he still watches porn? Are men just never satisfied? Horny every second! It just makes me insecure, him watching hot women/naked women – they’re everywhere – and jerking off to them. Am the only person who consider it cheating? Sure, he’s not fucking them, but he’s wanking to them.
I know this sounds bad but it’s actually reassuring to hear someone who feels the same as me, I just can’t cope with my partners porn addiction and the lies and the content of what he is watching! It sickens me! And I absolutely believe it’s mental cheating. I’m expecting his baby but all I can think about is how I can’t trust him and how Hes going to turn to porn and God knows what else even more now. Why is it our men are enough for us but we arnt enough for them. I’Vw got a fat higher sex drive than my partner and I’m 11 years younger, he’s pretty boring in bed and yet I love sex with him but all he can do is sneak off and wank to skinny teenage porn!:(
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that it wasn’t wrong, just that it didn’t have to do with your appearances . If it bothers you which it obviously does he should stop or risk losing you.
He won’t stop. He’s the kind of guy that doesn’t like to be denied choice, it’s really weird. I guess the only option is to end it with him and be friends. Eventually learn to detach myself from his views if he won’t change them. He thinks two particular celebrities are more beautiful than me, obviously that I’m not perfect looking, and he watches porn. I think something has to be done, just to try and get myself well again. My mental health is suffering. God, it makes me feel sad though.
@Melancholia, sorry it took me this long to get back to you. I am not sure if the solution I found for myself will help you but it changed my life completely. I used to be an average looking girl that grew up hating herself for not being “Hollywood material”. I felt so inferior to the “popular” girls at my school so I decided to do something about it… I have undergone many different surgeries and cosmetics procedures… My nose, breast, body, teeth. Dressed up in the latest fashion and and learned many tricks to look “stunning”. In summery, I went from being an ok chubby girl to being a model in magazines like Maxim, Stuff and Playboy. It was a true miracle! I still feel like I am not pretty enough and the perfectionism will always hunt me. I don’t know how to fix that but I can tell you how to look good. I want to show you a before and after pic to for you to see that it is possible. I don’t know if you approve of my methods, lol, but fuck dieting if you’re not motivated, now there’s something called liposuction ;-)!
In the end, I am sure your boyfriend loves you. But I will tell you that no matter how beautiful you get to look, they will always look at other women. It’s something that I’ve had problems with all my life. You would think that the solution would be to look even more beautiful than every other girl, which is impossible, but even if you achieved that goal, men would still be looking else where. It’s their nature for some fucked up reason that I don’t understand and has made me as insecure as you are. All you can do is improve the way you look, which you can do, and be happy knowing that this man really loves you. He must! Most men I have learned about my mental issued have left me. Yours has stuck around. Anyways, I got to go. Hope to hear from you cause I see a happy ending to your story!
Nobody is perfect! And if they were, from someone’s point of view, they are not. You have set an unreachable goal for yourself.
You know…For a girl, beauty isn’t everything…And to be prank …you bring is just a jack-ass stray dog. I doubt if he really loves you…I am a boy myself. When I love someone, I don’t watch porn…Not when I am in love. You don’t need to be sad about that…Just push him away…You deserve someone better…Not like me…Well, I can ensure you this: the one who truely love you will not care about your beauty, your proportions, etc…
Your bf is just a jack-ass, sorry autocorrect failed …
Blackswan, thanks for the tip. I think I might in future have liposuction – I wouldn’t want to alter my face or breasts though. But thanks for the advice. Can I see a before and after section?
A lot of women feel this way so to a certain extent it’s normal. You could be the hottest babe in the world but your guy is always going to watch porn because that’s fantasy and not real life. It doesn’t mean your inadequate in any way and you shouldn’t feel insecure about it. You will never be able to change every aspect of yourself. It will become a psychological problem where no matter how much you modify yourself you will never reach the point where you are content because that’s not something that can be defined. It’s human nature to contingent seek out improvement and the problem is knowing where to draw the imaginary line. How we see ourselves is not always how others see us.
Continually not contingent
@Melancolia, Duke is right about this “syndrome” not being objective and becoming an endless obsession of continuous dissatisfaction. I’ve seen women that are not too pretty with guys that I would only dream of having. Charisma, CONFIDENCE, a good sense of humor and having an attractive personality in general; have proven to be much more powerful than looks when it comes down to a long lasting relationship. I think working on both aspects would be the ideal. In the end SELF-ESTEEM is the key to everything in life and it’s a shame that some of us have to struggle so hard in this area. Anyway, can you post your email here so I can send you the pix? I don’t have many “before” shots but I’ll try my best in finding them.
@genius.otaku, I’ve never caught a boyfriend of porn mine watching porn but they’ve all shared a “wondering eye” here and there, that some conceal better than others, and infatuations with celebrities have been common. When you’re in love do you find other women appealing or are you just referring to porn? I think it’s beautiful that you say that when you love someone you don’t care about their looks or money.
picture*
genius, what you said is so so helpful to me, thank you. I think you’re right, he IS a jack-ass. I still want him in my life, but I need to think of my mental health first, and he’s worsening it. We have to stop being romantically tied.
And black swan and duke, I can cope with the wandering eye from time to time, but it’s just porn….I feel like I’m being cheated on. Like he’s not fucking them, but he’s still jacking off to them? And if I ask him to stop, he won’t. He says he can’t have me telling him what to do because it leads to an unhealthy relationship. So I guess this is it. I know what I have to do – and it’s not suicide. Not yet, anyway.
@ melancholia lots of married guys watch it and women always feel the same way. It’s much better than going out and cheating on someone. Some people have a high sex drive that’s all. It’s not about you. It’s easy and accessible as opposed to getting sexual gratification from a real person. I think it’s he’s problem and not yours.
I am glad I could help! If anyone want to talk privately, my email : genius.otaki@Gmail.com
Btw, I suggest u should just break up with him. You shouldn’t love and respect a person that doesn’t respect you. There are a lot of better person for you. Don’t get involved with him anymore. I think he just treat u as a free Hooker.
@ genius otaku- What! Just because he watch a few naughty films.
This post is heartbreaking as i have said pretty much everything u have, my family and boyfriend think I’m pretty mental but I know im not, I just can’t live in this body in this world where vanity and aesthetics are number one priority. I never judge others on their looks Etc, sure some men may not be my type but I always think there is someone out there that they would be just perfect for. So I just think it’s unfair that womens looks are emphasised so greatly!! All you ever see in music vids, films etc is naked women with their tits out. It’s all for men. It’s come to the extent I can’t stand watching tv with my partner or even my dad or any male as I have to sit there and put up with them objectifying women and looking at them like a piece of meat. Men talk about the average looking women like they shouldnt even be on tv! It sickens me! What about all the old, bald and chubby men on there…how many women do u hear complaining about them!! We simply don’t have the right! I could talk about this for hours and hours but it would be one massive rant. Basically don’t feel alone, there is only one reason I’m still here now and that’s because I don’t want to cause my parents and siblings the heart break of losing me. When I was a teen I tried a few times, and I had a bad eating disorder. I’m 28 now and have gained quite abit of weight and all of a sudden it feels like I’m old and fat and just mean nothing to anyone. I feel like an empty shell, someone who is destined to have to live in this hell body which is just getting older and less perfect each year. My hair, my skin, absolutely everything bothers me. And now I’m going to be having a baby…what should be the happiest Time of my life and i can’t help thinking how that’s just the end of any chance I ever had to be young and beautiful again, it feels like I have to give up and dedicate my life to being a good mum. And just a frumpy, old woman to my partner. Yeh it feels horrible when all you want to be is perfect but are anything but. I wish I was one of those people who could just accept it and move on! Good luck to you all x
This is exactly how I feel although I’m on the thinner side, and it doesn’t matter who tells me I’m beautiful or pretty, I just never feel enough. I want surgery to fix myself, or I’m just going to end it. I’m sick of being imperfect and never enough. My boyfriend just got a new gun, so I hope I can sneak it away from him and use it.