Dear Anxious Irish, you said “What if she perceives me to be the fat and ugly person I see despite my efforts?”. So what if she does? She’s a bully, that’s what she does. What’s so wrong with being fat or ugly anyway? If you look at real couples and not the ones on tv, everyone has got their flaws and you will see some really “fat” or “ugly” people having a life with no problem.

Your empathy and your sensitivity make you a wonderful person. You don’t have to look like a supermodel to be loved, and even if you did look like one, no one can be universally liked. No one. This might be hard, but I think you need to learn how to love yourself more. You can find some great articles in here that are about self-love and self-acceptance. You don’t have to be perfect. And you don’t have to be liked by everyone. (And you don’t have to prove anything to anyone by going to this wedding.) Also you are clearly an HSP (highy sensitive person) so articles about that will help you as well.

If that still doesn’t help you, a more practical piece of advice I have for you is to down a couple of glasses of wine at the wedding and tell that b*tch a comeback. Something along the lines of “I’d rather be fat than a horrible human being”, or “You’re not looking so hot yourself, sister”, or “don’t you have somewhere else to f*ck off to?” (I do hope my suggested insults make you giggle a bit.)

More importantly, if that male best friend of yours is also going, it would help if you were with him all the time and asking him to be your anchoring point for the night. It’s not shameful to ask for help.