I have just been reading though this site and their forums…
…I will read more tomorrow… and probably try to write something if my head allows it…
In July last year I wrote an entry on this topic… (not really knowing all that much or understanding the concept of pro-anorexia)… But since then…and especially after a TV show was aired in the US about eating disorders with some mention of pro- eating disorders (I’m told)… I have noticed that the traffic to this site has increased enormously… Most of this traffic comes through search engines, like Google, AOL and Yahoo… Based on the comments, e-mail and other things (one of those things being the search stats for my journal) I have received on this post many of those visitors are looking for tips and/or tricks on how to be Anorexic… even on how to become Anorexic…. This makes me incredibly sad… and it hurts…
I have signed the petition on this site I mentioned above… I hope more people who read this will…
A definition of Pro-Anorexia according to this campaign:
“Pro-ana means, for the purpose of this campaign, anything that glamorizes, pushes, or otherwise promotes, anorexia, bulimia, and any other eating disorder, as a lifestyle choice, rather than a disease or illness. This includes images of dangerously thin women and men, classed as “Thinspiration”, this includes the sharing of “tips and tricks” to prolong the effects of an eating disorder.”
As someone who is already deep in my eating disorder I can not understand why anyone would actually want an eating disorder… There is no glory in having one… Eating disorders are and never will be a lifestyle… It is an illness… that makes your life a living hell
I know that the story of my eating disorder isn’t the most usual one… I have been under normal weight all my life? While growing up I was forced to purge… or I went for days where I didn’t get food… This wasn’t because there wasn’t enough food in the house… Instead it was a part of my mother’s delusion of needing to punish me… Also a part of this was being forced to eat all kinds of things that no one would ever consider eating… In her eyes I was evil… I didn’t deserve “normal” food… I didn’t deserve to be healthy… In her eyes…. I was taking up too much space… but yet at the same time I didn’t deserve to be dead… to her that was an easy way out….
I want to fight this… I do have a lot of issues… not only the ed… I don’t want her to be a part of my life anymore… not a part of my struggles with the eating disorder nor anything else…
Look…. I’m for pro-ana.. and I do have an eating disorder.. You don’t know what it is like to have those thoughts running through your head.. Don’t judge us… We don’t juge you.. I have seen more people come in to our websites and insult us for what “we” do… you don’t do it, so you don’t need to worry so freaken bad about us. It is “our” lifestyle, not yours. I am humans and I do have feelings, we all do. We just express them in different ways.. we call those lifestyles.. So leave us alone!! let us be… Do you not have any more of a life than to come across and insult our ways.. some words of advice… “Get A Life!”
Dear SecretEys
I didn’t mean my post to be an insult to people who agree with Pro-ana… and if it did I apologize… I also admit that when I first saw the “Stop Pro-Ana” site at Diaryland I got defensive about it… and though that they were out to get me somehow because I have an eating disorder and I write about it in my journal…
You are right, I don’t know the thoughts that are running though your head but I do however know the thoughts that I used to have on this matter…still do in a lot of ways… About 2 years ago, maybe more I first saw a pro-ED site… I loved it…although it didn’t have anything that I didn’t already know I loved it… I admired the webmaster…maybe envied her for having the guts to make a site like that… Today this person is a friend of mine…
I admit that I go to websites/forums that would be by many people considered pro-ED… I am a regular member of at least 5 forums like that where I get my support and am able to speak freely about my eating disorder as well as giving support… What I do not agree with however, and in the forums I go to many of the members do too… is that when people make eating disorders out to be something glamorous and the only true way towards happiness… I have had an eating disorder for a long time… and starving myself and/or purging has made me feel better about myself…but I know it only does that for a while… Anorexia is not a Goddess in my eyes… nor is it a friend… You may feel that it is… and or a lifestyle of choice… but once your organs start to fail… what then? Now you may feel that you want to die for your ed… and btw quite frankly I do feel that way myself sometimes… but that does not give me the right to go through with it… and it serenely doesn’t give me the right to share with other people how to slowly kill them selves… and i hope that you and many others will see that one day…
Thanks for signing the petition. It actually helps me in my understanding of EDs when I read journals such as yours. Thanks for the insight, and take care.
Freedom of Speech. . . yea, I am very glad that I am entitled to this along with you. It gives me the freedom to write whatever I want and for others to read it…Wait, I forgot about the little stipulations on my right to say what I want. Still, in America I would hope that the right to be pro-eating disorder and create sites on the topic remains legal because if that right is revoked then many others that anti pro ed people enjoy WILL, without doubt, follow ~ just remember that.