They just took my breath away!

[kambuckta]

Tonight I had the experience of casting my eyes upon two of the most amazing young women I have ever seen.

The first was an anorexic in (I would guess) the last stages before involuntary hospitalization. She was painfully thin and profoundly grotesque, like a walking cadaver with every bone and every (wasted) muscle movement evident, even with her breathing. Her hair was thinned and brittle, and her teeth had mostly rotted away. While my brain was telling me it’s an illness and not to be condemned, my instinct was revolted by the sight, and like me, I could see others gasping in utter awe at the vision before us.

A few minutes later, a young woman of profound beauty got on the tram too. She sat directly opposite, so it was hard to ignore her and her absolutely stunningly beautiful boyfriend. His handsomeness was more commonplace and ‘conventional’ if you like…tall, dark and handsome with a firm jaw and designer clothes. Pretty normal stuff, and nothing really to write home about.

She on the other hand, had looks that I can only describe as breathtaking. Not blonde-bimbo pretty, not model-material at all really. Just a perfectly symmetrical face with a perfect nose, perfect chin and perfect teeth with the darkest of brown/black eyes I have ever been swallowed up in in my life. She had not a trace of make-up on, and she slouched on the seat in a pair of baggy trackie-dacks, a sweatshirt and a cap which bundled up her hair. And she looked absolutely perfect. (It’s really not fucking fair how some people get all the ‘good looking’ genes, whilst the rest of us have to make do with the scraps and leftovers all chucked into a mish-mash together. )

But anyway, it got me thinking about not only how lucky she was to be born so freakingly beautiful, but that she has managed to avoid a psych illness like anorexia nervosa in her life. The young lady I saw first might well have been beautiful too: she may have had a face and body to kill for once upon a time, but she wasn’t quite so fortunate in other realms of her being. Looking at her now, there was no way of knowing…and it just made me incredibly sad.

Life has a way of taking your breath away AND sucking dingo-dongers at the very same time it seems.

Not complaining, just passing on some mundane and pointless stuff I experienced tonight.

[elbows]

Do you have any way of knowing if the anorexic was not, in fact, anorexic but ill or recovering from some illness?

I have to say that part comes off as a little judgmental.

I was painfull thin for much of my life and often accused of being anorexic, even by doctors. It wasn’t true, I was just stick thin and possessed the metabolism of a squirrel. Didn’t ask for it and didn’t appreciate being judged for it.

You do understand that average weights are reached by combining the overweight and underweight, right?

[kambuckta]

@elbows

Do you have any way of knowing if the anorexic was not, in fact, anorexic but ill or recovering from some illness?

I have to say that part comes off as a little judgmental.

I was painfull thin for much of my life and often accused of being anorexic, even by doctors. It wasn’t true, I was just stick thin and possessed the metabolism of a squirrel. Didn’t ask for it and didn’t appreciate being judged for it.

You do understand that average weights are reached by combining the overweight and underweight, right?

Had the woman I saw been ill or ‘recovering’ from an illness (as you suggest), she would still have been in hospital on an intravenous drip to recuperate her bodyweight. No way known she would have been released from medical care.

Sure, I understand where you’re coming from…shit, not even ten years ago I had people worrying about whether I was a candidate for an anorexia nervosa diagnosis: I weighed 49kg at 176cm (I’ve hit middle age now and gotten fat and slovenly so they don’t bother anymore ) but there is a big difference between people with a superhigh metabolic thingy and those who are killing themselves via starvation: the young woman I saw was but a few steps away from death. And hey, I wasn’t judging her, merely commenting on the way life turns out for some people, and how it really seems to be the luck of the draw mostly.

[Lightray]

Long time ago, the girl whom I carpooled with to swim practice had developed anorexia. Since we were all athletes, and pretty focused on being “in shape” thsoe of us who saw her every day really didn’t notice how bad she was getting.

Until we were at an out-of-town swim meet. She was a backstroker, and when she pulled herself up to the blocks for the start… her flesh drew so tight around her bones that her face looked like a skull. Everyone in the audience just gasped in shock. It was horrific.

Fortunately, she got help and last I’d heard (years ago), she’d been in recovery for a good many years.

She was a nice girl, regardless of her appearance. And… well, I guess there was really no moral to that little story; this is MPSIMS, after all.

[Sunspace]

@kambuckta

I weighed 49kg at 176cm…

:eek: Same height by half my mass…

[TroubleAgain]

@kambukta

The first was an anorexic in (I would guess) the last stages before involuntary hospitalization. She was painfully thin and profoundly grotesque, like a walking cadaver with every bone and every (wasted) muscle movement evident, even with her breathing. Her hair was thinned and brittle, and her teeth had mostly rotted away. While my brain was telling me it’s an illness and not to be condemned, my instinct was revolted by the sight, and like me, I could see others gasping in utter awe at the vision before us.

Wonder if she might have been a meth-head rather than anorexic–the teeth of a meth-head are horrific. Either way, what a contrast that would have been!

[kambuckta]

@TroubleAgain

Wonder if she might have been a meth-head rather than anorexic–the teeth of a meth-head are horrific. Either way, what a contrast that would have been!

I’d say both actually. Meth addicts are normally pretty scrawny, but this young lady went waaaaay beyond scrawny to literally skin and bones. Unfortunately, when one loses so much weight, the lips tend to draw back to make the teeth more prominent, and in her case it was not to reveal a row of pearly whites you might say.

Yeah, an interesting experience and much food for thought even today Trouble!

[elbows]

I don’t see how you can possibly know this;

“Had the woman I saw been ill or ‘recovering’ from an illness (as you suggest), she would still have been in hospital on an intravenous drip to recuperate her bodyweight. No way known she would have been released from medical care.”

You’d rather judge her than consider that she may be ill?

[Baldwin]

@kambuckta

Had the woman I saw been ill or ‘recovering’ from an illness (as you suggest), she would still have been in hospital on an intravenous drip to recuperate her bodyweight. No way known she would have been released from medical care.

I assume, then, you’re a medical professional?

[kambuckta]

@elbows

I don’t see how you can possibly know this;

“Had the woman I saw been ill or ‘recovering’ from an illness (as you suggest), she would still have been in hospital on an intravenous drip to recuperate her bodyweight. No way known she would have been released from medical care.”

You’d rather judge her than consider that she may be ill?

Are you really that dense as to not even** try** to comprehend my post?? Fer’ fuck’s sake…learn to READ you stupid git, sheesh!

I’ll try again, just 'cos I’m a sucker:

The woman I saw was so vastly underweight as to be at serious medical risk. Now, had she been diagnosed as physically ‘ill’ she would have been hospitalised for her condition. In Australia we have a universal health scheme, and someone who presented with an ‘illness’ that involved the loss of such bodyweight would have immediately been put into an acute or intensive care setting to determine the cause and help with treatment of the malady.

The fact that she was out in public indicated to me that her problems were more likely psychological in origin, and thereby not able to be addressed or treated WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE PATIENT…unless the person is ‘sectioned’ under the Mental Health Act as being an immediate danger or threat to themselves or others. Apart from that, inpatient psychiatric services are dreadfully under-resourced and underfunded so that, even presenting with an acute psych episode, chances are you won’t necessarily get a bed.

Yeah, I judged her. I judged her as a young woman who got the short end of the straw, and how rottenly unfair that is.

And you have a problem with me, why?

[tdn]

@elbows

You’d rather judge her than consider that she may be ill?

Since when is an educated guess the same as a moral judgement? I read nothing in the OP to suggest that she was a bad person. On top of that, anorexia is a medical condition, not a moral failing.

[kambuckta]

@Baldwin

I assume, then, you’re a medical professional?

Sure I am…I can tell when someone is morbidly obese, I can diagnose on sight a case of cystic acne, I can sure as hell affirm when someone has fluid-retention problems when their ankles are swelled to the size of footballs.

Why should it be an issue about recognising someone who suffers from a life-threatening eating disorder??

[What_Exit]

@elbows

I don’t see how you can possibly know this;

“Had the woman I saw been ill or ‘recovering’ from an illness (as you suggest), she would still have been in hospital on an intravenous drip to recuperate her bodyweight. No way known she would have been released from medical care.”

You’d rather judge her than consider that she may be ill?

Could you possibly be overly sensitive and lashing out for no reason in this case?

[tdn]

@kambuckta

Why should it be an issue about recognising someone who suffers from a life-threatening eating disorder??

To be fair, it could be any one of a number of medical conditions. Your guess is, at best, a guess. That does not, of course, invalidate your feeling sorry for the bad lot she got in life, nor does it invalidate your larger observation.

[kambuckta]

@Sunspace

:eek: Same height by half my mass…

That was some time ago Sunspace. I worked then in a physically demanding job and had kids to runaround after. The kilos just dropped off me like sweat, literally.

Now I’m just a slackarsed ol’ office worker with a menopausal appetite …last time I weighed myself I was 74kg…5kg more than I weighed when I was pregnant with my biggest kid!! :eek:

[kambuckta]

@tdn

To be fair, it could be any one of a number of medical conditions. Your guess is, at best, a guess. That does not, of course, invalidate your feeling sorry for the bad lot she got in life, nor does it invalidate your larger observation.

As I noted before, it is incredibly and statistically UNLIKELY to be any sort of physically-based medical conditon. I will concede that it’s not impossible, but people who suffer dramatic weight losses, who get to the point where they are unwilling walking skeletons generally try to avail themselves of medical services UNLIKE those who suffer from anorexia-nervosa who actually don’t recognise that there is anything wrong with them at all and are at best reluctant patients in the medical system.

[Marley23]

@kambuckta

Are you really that dense as to not even** try** to comprehend my post?? Fer’ fuck’s sake…learn to READ you stupid git, sheesh!

[Mod Note]Kambuckta, personal insults aren’t allowed outside of the Pit.[/Mod Note]

[tdn]

You’re probably right, but I can imagine various other possibilities. It could be that she was just released from the hospital for some other illness, for example.

[Bites_When_Provoked]

@kambuckta

The woman I saw was so vastly underweight as to be at serious medical risk. Now, had she been diagnosed as physically ‘ill’ she would have been hospitalised for her condition. In Australia we have a universal health scheme, and someone who presented with an ‘illness’ that involved the loss of such bodyweight would have immediately been put into an acute or intensive care setting to determine the cause and help with treatment of the malady.

I’d just like to step up and support this statement: **kumbuckta **is right, our hospitals would not allow someone who was literally skin and bones (through illness) to wander at will. Our basic medical coverage is excellent.

Our psych care, on the other hand, is (IME) totally craptastic, and we have practically zero support for folks with any kind of mental illness (which would include anorexia). Even if she wanted help, good luck to her finding someone who’d make her wait any less than about 2 months for her first appointment. (It’s my opinion that if you’re that unwell through *any *kind of illness, you should be seen immediately. But that’s not generally how it works for psych stuff here.)

But yeah, back to topic - I’d say the only reasonable, likely and considered reason that an Australian citizen would be on the street instead of in a hospital at that level of illness - taking it as described, that she is a walking skeleton to the point of having her teeth exposed through lack of flesh on her face - would be if her sickness was psychologically-based (or, as some have noted, meth - meaning she’s avoiding hospitals) rather than a physical illness.

[lizardling]

@Sunspace

:eek: Same height by half my mass…

I had to translate to imperial.

My sister is five foot nine, and weighs probably 110 pounds.

My brother is five eleventyannachange (he insists he’s not six foot, but he would be if he stood up straight) and probably 120, I’ll have to check with him.

I’m five four and currently trying to claw my way back up to 110. The biggest I’ve ever been was 118 when I got out of university, thanks to not using a bike to get around, just power walking EVERYWHERE, and eating lots of cafeteria food and Cheezits.

We’re all pretty lightly built and have the squirrel metabolism thing going.