Some more of God's greatest mistakes

moving to wordpress

2008-01-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

well, it's finally happened. i've resisted change for a long time but i've heard that wordpress is better than blogger since before i started this blog and was still just a number poet over on my original blog, girl in back.

blameful.wordpress.com is my new blog. here's hoping it proves to chronicle a more hopeful period of my life than this one has.

one last thing. i got an anonymous comment on my last anti-mamavision rant that mentioned my links section. the person seemed to misinterpret my links section as being somehow negative. now, i titled my links section "places you can fuck off to" because i was being ornery and attempting humor. all it is is a normal list of links i like, a few blogs of friends, and i linked to twisted sister just because, well, i thought it would be a nice thing to do. so, regardless of the fact that i titled it in a weird way the links themselves are links i like not links to people i hate.

for instance, you'll notice that i've never linked to mamaVISION, even though i talk about her constantly. thats because i don't see any reason to add to her popularity in any way by linking to her. so things i don't like i don't link to, wheras even though the title for the section is bitchy, the links are things i actually like.

i would have thought most people could understand that but apparently the anonymous commenter didn't.

see you all on wordpress.

blameful.wordpress.com bitches. learn to love it.

oh crap now i'll have to explain why i just called everyone reading this "bitches".

70 pounds lost

2008-01-09T16:44:00.000-08:00

i've been thinking about writing this post all day and finally decided to do it after finding myself saying aloud "stupid fat fucking disgusting FAT piece of shit" after i saw that although my weight tonight was the same as this morning and i will certainly see some additional loss tomorrow it wasn't quite the number i was hoping for, ie, .2 or .4 pounds less than it was in the morning.

i've lost 70 pounds, so far, this time around. when i started i said i had about 60 pounds to lose, and my goal weight was 57 pounds less than my weight at the time. the plan, if you'll remember, was to lose it quick and dirty, then jump back into recovery. but *shocker* here i am, 13 pounds below my original goal and i'm so upset over my percieved "fatness" that i start berating myself OUT LOUD for not losing weight quite fast enough.

this is insanity. people on my forum are congratulating me, they're jealous of me for god's sake... and i just feel like crying. it's never going to be good enough, and i've lost everything in my life to this disease and i honestly wish i'd stayed 220+ pounds and functional, back before the very first time i lost weight, with a job and a girlfriend and a future. no, i wasn't happy, i had low self esteem, i had problems with depression and self injury. but i wasn't as unhappy and hopeless as i have been since my ed took over (with the brief reprise of my wonderful OA recovery experience) either.

but, look, before you say anything- i can't go back to recovery. not today, not this week probably. i wont say beyond that, i don't know what it would take at this point to push me over. sometimes i feel so far away, others i feel right on the edge of being able to try again. i don't know if it will be weeks, months, or never. but i know right now it ain't happening.

musical chairs

2008-01-08T11:07:00.000-08:00

this analogy was partly inspired by rio iriri's lovely fuel efficiency blog where she talked about cars as an analogy for people having different metabolisms.

imagine if you will, a game of musical chairs. at the beginning of the game there is only one chair less than there are children going round in a circle. an adult is playing music, and when the music stops all but one child finds a seat.

the adult berates this one left out child saying "why weren't you faster? why weren't you stronger? why weren't you smarter? you are clearly the stupidest, laziest child of the whole bunch!" while the other children look on.

then the adult has the children stand up again, and plays the music, and takes away another chair, again berating the child who is left over for not being smart/strong/fast enough. and then the music starts again, and this time two or three chairs are taken away. again the children that fail to find a seat are berated for not being as smart and strong and fast as the children in the seats. at the end of the game a very small number of children are seated.

are the children seated at the end smarter, stronger, and faster on average than the ones left without chairs? it's possible, to some extent. but the number of children with a seat is clearly dependant on how many seats there are. and if there were no seats at all it wouldn't matter how smart or strong or fast or lucky a child was, they would be unable to find a seat.

the well off conservative is a child in the seats. she says "i don't see the problem, i worked hard and i found a seat. the people without seats are just whiners, they're jealous, they don't deserve a seat. oh, another chair for my feet? thank you soooo much, that's lovely. as i was saying, i don't see why they should have one of my two seats, or the seat i have my laptop resting on, or the seats i've reserved for my children..."

the poor or working class conservative is a child who doesn't have a seat. he says "i just wasn't good enough. oh, a footstool? for me? thank you sooooo much!"

the liberal is generally a child in the seats. she says "um... do you think we might stop taking seats away now? because, well, my seat might be next. and, er, the people who don't have any seats look awfully angry..."

the radical may be seated or unseated. he says "give us back our fucking SEATS! oh, is that too angry? i meant to say, PLEASE give us back our fucking SEATS!!!"

and a communist or anarchist also may be seated or unseated, but is someone who says not only should we have enough seats for everyone, but the table we sit around should be round and no one should have a better seat or position at the table than anyone else.

now, i'm willing to admit there may not be enough seats to have one for absolutely everyone, and maybe it would never be possible to have a completely round table. but i think the government and the corporations should please give us back our fucking seats.

mamaVISION is more pro-ana than i am

2008-01-07T04:33:00.000-08:00

dude, i'm once again pissed off at mamavision. if you've read her latest, a 16 year old wrote in saying he'd been picked up by a modelling agency that told him to lose weight from a healthy weight to a much lower and unhealthy one and put him on a 200 calorie a day starvation diet, he had passed out a few times already, and was wondering what to do.

mamaV's caring response? oh, it's your choice, there's good and bad in both ways. far be it from me to tell someone not to model.

what is THAT? i mean, i don't think people should be storming fashion shows prothseletyzing to the models that they leave the business, or kidnapping models to deprogram them. but if someone actually asks your honest opinion is it too much to say "don't do it"???

i mean, i never talk about the fashion industry because it's never really interested me. i tend to comment less when mamaV talks about fashion for the same reason (hint to heather: want to get rid of me? talk about nothing but the eeeevil fashion industry and what they've done lately). but when it comes to a young man who is at a crossroads asking, should i do what they tell me and starve and risk all my health and happiness or should i pull out now? it just seems so abundantly obvious to me that you say "don't do it!" or if you must you could add the redundant "its your decision, but" obviously it's his decision, he asked your advice, give him some!

so, i've come to the conclusion that mamaV is way way more pro-ana than i am. look at the facts! she won't tell someone asking for advice not to starve themselves, despite their having passed out a bunch of times. me? happily tell them starving isn't a smart idea, don't do it. she posts pictures of "thinsperation" on her site practically once a week and is many people's only exposure to thinspo, while i don't like it, look for it, or see it apart from on her site. and in her desire to expose the eeevils of pro-ana she will inevitably end up adding to its strength.

mamaV? she's a proana. definitely. even fits her own criteria since she never had a real eating disorder, just was looking for attention by modelling.

(edit: "zoe" who i assumed to be a she, turned out to be the male "zach". doesn't change anything about my opinion, but i did go back and change my gender pronouns from hers to hims)

irrational greeks

2008-01-02T05:49:00.000-08:00

chapter one, so far so good. i'm able to follow Euclid, at least, and understand the proof of the pythagorean theorem.

when i was in high school we were definitely taught the pythagorean theorem, but i don't think we were taught the proof of that theorem. i wish we had been! i had the problem too often in math class that i wanted to understand why something was true, to really understand how it worked and why it applied as a rule to all situations not just the example in the texbook, but i was only taught what the rule was and how to apply it. as an adult i think, no wonder i hated math! they didn't actually teach me mathematics, they just taught how to solve certain problems and pass their tests.

i think the most interesting story in the chapter was about pythagoras and hippasus. the story goes like this:

pythagoras is at the head of a school of philosophy that holds that all things in the universe can be expressed through integers. this is something that seems beautiful and right to them, a proper ordering of the universe. but then hippasus discovers that the square root of 2 cannot be expressed by any ratio of two integers- it is what's called an irrational number. the pythagoreans can't accept that their religious views are wrong, so they react by throwing hippasus off a boat.

now, before you go and scoff at those greeks for this behavior, think about your own life. for instance, with my eating disorder i have often had the experience of having had something proven to me conclusively (for instance, how my perceptions are distorted causing me to think i'm fatter than i really am) that i couldn't or wouldn't accept. sometimes i even get angry at the person bringing these things to my attention. and don't think eating disorders are a special case! everyone has beliefs that they hold so dear that it is only with great difficulty that they can give them up, regardless of the level of proof that is offered.

what beliefs do you cling to even after seeing evidence against them?

new year, new book

2008-01-01T06:04:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite christmas gifts this year was a book, edited by Stephen Hawking, entitled God Created the Integers. This book is about the big ideas in mathematics that enabled our current understanding of the world, and it collects excerpts from important works in the history of mathematics.

I never got as far as calculus in high school and in college my math requirement was satisfied by a statistics course I found quite unchallenging (although I probably don't remember a thing from it). Since leaving school I've often wished to have more of an understanding of mathematics, particularly where it applies to physics. I'm fascinated by quantum physics, relativity, and cosmology, and I read everything i can get my hands on that is written with the lay person in mind, but when it comes to the actual mathematics I'm left completely behind. So for me this book will hopefully provide the kind of window into mathematical thought I feel I've been missing out on.

I think I'll try posting my thoughts as I read, since one of the things I find most helpful in understanding something is to try and explain it to other people. It's a really big, long, equation heavy book and I don't really do "resolutions" but I figured that reading it is the type of overly ambitious project people choose to make resolutions about and while I hope I won't fail at reading it I thought it fit the whole spirit of the new year to declare my intentions vis a vis this uite intimidating book on the first day of the year, 2008.

happy new year, everyone.

don't blame me, i voted for kodos!

2007-12-30T08:17:00.000-08:00

The Iowa caucuses are this Thursday! Since i am a total politics-nerd (among other areas of my nerdiness) I am totally excited. I can't wait to find out what happens- it feels like this really long novel I've been reading for the past year or so is finally getting to the exciting final chapters. So even though my readers don't seem to be as excited by politics as I am, I'm still subjecting you to another political post.

I'm hoping that on the republican side the eeeeevil Mitt Romney will somehow be stopped in time. It's such a nail biter! This guy used to be the governor of my home state so you can trust me when I say he is totally awful. He's such a manipulator- he doesn't seem to have a single actual belief that he holds dear, just a series of calculated political positions. In MA you can't be pro-life and get elected, so he was pro-choice. Now that the situation is reversed and he couldn't get elected as pro-choice, he's magically converted to pro-lifedom. Now, it was bad enough when he was our governor that he used every action he took as governor as part of his future presidential campaign. He didn't care about the state at all, just how things would look to the republican primary voters when it was time for the presidential run he'd been planning all along. But now that presidential run looks like it actually has a chance of succeeding! Why voters reward politicians for this type of behavior is beyond me. what on earth would he do if he actually became president??? No one knows. I have a theory that he is actually Kang and Hillary Clinton is Kodos.

no guarantees

2007-12-27T13:27:00.000-08:00

when people suggest i recover, i feel sometimes like we're talking a different language. they seem to be suggesting that i try living a happy ed free life and that i should do the hard work it takes to secure that. wheras in reality i feel what they're suggesting is that i do something insanely painful and difficult that i've already tried and failed at 3 times with absolutely no guarantee that i will have any different results on try number 4.

my "relapse" which i may or may not have mentioned before, happened like this:

vanessa has been in recovery for one year. she is on her third try but her first using the overeaters anonymous program to recover post-hospitalization. vanessa is happier and more productive than she has ever been. she has friends, her life seems to be getting back on track, she has nothing but optimism for her future.

vanessa gets a new job, a job with hours that make it very difficult to follow her extremely rigid food plan or make it to her 3 times weekly meetings. the job is great, vanessa loves it! but she's more tired than usual and starts taking shortcuts with food. 2 weeks later the binging starts. 2 weeks after that she has lost all contact with OA, stopped going to all meetings, and is binging daily. vanessa is still happy and enjoying her new job, but somehow her eating has gone completely haywire in what feels like no time at all. when election day comes several months later and the job ends she is in full relapse, has gained 15 pounds, and still has 6 or 7 months of straight binging and weight gain before, magically, she wakes up one morning able to restrict and lose weight again. about 4 months later a cycle of binging and purging is in place and vanessa has no real concept of when the b/ping started or how it got so out of control. this continues to the present day when vanessa has now lost 60 pounds and purges anything that passes her lips.

now, you can say what you like but i felt blindsided by the relapse. it came so fast and i fell so far and hard i can't even figure out how it could be prevented from happening next time. because it seems to literally have been a matter of missing 2 weeks of OA meetings and not eating an absolutely rigid pre-planned meal plan. i went from happy and optimistic to depressed and out of control. i never wanted to leave recovery, i never wanted to relapse, and i had been doing consistently well for 12 fucking MONTHS in a row! longer than i'd ever gone before. and it all just fell away as if it were nothing.

so, go ahead. tell me i should choose recovery. tell me i just need to want it enough. give me a guarantee. but if you can't? then don't judge me for not choosing to put myself through it a fourth time with no way of knowing whether i'm just killing time until my next relapse.

what do i get out of it?

2007-12-27T05:22:00.001-08:00

it's laughably easy to explain what i get from my ed that makes it hard to give it up. do i have doubts, fears, reservations? of course. i used to be a recovery poster child- i know better than this. but on a day to day basis my ed gives my mind something to do instead of dwelling on how useless and purposeless my life is. i can avoid thoughts of failing at life and fears about that or how i could come back after falling so far. i can avoid responsibility for finding a new career path after losing my old one. i get a false feeling of progress and accomplishment when the numbers on the scale go down. but i also get a chance to put myself down for the small stuff, substituting thoughts about how i'm such a fat pig for thoughts about how i've ruined my life and lost everything i cared about.

it's identity, too. especially since i'm part of a pro-ana forum and now even a moderator, my ed gives me self-esteem and a sense of place and belonging. in real life i'm a mess, but on my forum i'm a star. on my forum i'm sensible, caring, helpful, knowledgable, and good at the one thing that matters which is losing weight. on my forum i feel valued and respected. in real life? not.

i'm not scared of anything

2007-12-26T00:07:00.000-08:00

the best christmas present?

2007-12-23T09:28:00.000-08:00

well, here i am in my parents' home going crazy because of my ed. it's nuts, i'm spending way way too much time scheming to purge what they feed me, and scheming to binge and purge once they're asleep.

the thing is, i've lost tons of weight and obviously my parents know it was through my eating disorder. i've even confirmed it for them. i've been hospitalized before, there's no secrecy left in this area- in the details everything is secretive, but not in the broad outlines. my mom told me they'd talked it over and decided not to intervene unless i become emaciated.

i've been purging a lot, like i mentioned. purging is a new thing for me, i used to restrict and maybe purge in an emergency but it was very rare. i figure they must know, they must have heard or noticed something.

the nice thing, and also the thing i'm feeling conflicted over, is that they've completely avoided any comment about my weight or eating habits. and, it's been soooo nice. because i don't want to ruin christmas with my ed but i'm so out of control right now i can't just eat some huge family dinner and then not purge. and i might be able to restrict completely but it would be so obvious and embarassing to sit there picking at a few veggies and refuse dessert.

so, in a way i am so greatful that they're carefully avoiding any comment about these things. but... i have to admit i'm scared of how off the rails i've gone. and it worries me that there isn't a safety net anyplace close. i mean, if i wait till i'm emaciated and they step in for medical reasons i have months and months and maybe 30 more pounds to lose before anyone besides myself will intervene to halt this bullshit. and i worry i may go too far someday, and no one will know in time to bring me back.

wake up!

2007-12-20T05:47:00.000-08:00

when i began this blog i was medically obese, and i had recently decided to lose weight in an unhealthy way. i'd done it before, and i'd also had a period in recovery where i was happier than i had ever been, until the binging started. my plan was simple- lose weight the quick, unhealthy way. then jump back into recovery as quickly as possible. no harm, no foul.

i didn't really and truly believe things would be that easy even back at the beginning, but i didn't care. i told myself i'd fix it when the time came. and the thing is, i still stand by my thinking. because i was so desperately unhappy with my weight at the time and losing in a more healthy way or re-entering recovery before losing any weight was just impossible. because of embarassment and because without restricting i always fell into binging no matter how hard i tried to eat healthily. i'd still rather be eating disordered, crazy, depressed, and thin instead of eating disordered, crazy, depressed and fat.

but the thing is, i reached my goal weight. i'm 8 pounds below it with no plans whatever to stop losing weight. i don't even really have a new goal weight, i just don't care. and i really feel like there's a problem here but i can't make myself feel urgently about it! when i was approaching my goal i made a modest goal to go to one little OA meeting when i reached my goal weight (this was when i'd already decided my goal wasn't going to cut it) and i haven't even done that. and when i look at myself in the mirror all i can feel is horror and disgust at my fatness. which doesn't lend itself to stopping any time soon...

i just wish i could shake myself and scream WAKE UP!!!! but i'm in a fog and it seems i've lost any idea of how to find the way out.

i'm a size 0 and i think...

2007-12-13T07:37:00.000-08:00

just a quick post to point out the favorite opening line on what seems like every single comment on mamaVISION. i admit i fell prey to it myself, most recently with a comment that implied that you can too be fat and wear a size 2. (ooops!)

it's not a criticism of mamaVISION herself of course- but it's just too hilarious to let it go without comment. josie's the one who brought it to the forefront of my mind- but i've noticed before that mamaVISION with its population of eating disordered idiots as readers attracts soooo much ed speak. the people reading don't seem to understand the points she's trying to make at all! their replies are completely focused on situating themselves on the reverse totem pole of size status. because everyone knows that your opinion doesn't matter unless you're a size 0, right? or maybe its just that if you're going to say something about body image and you're small it's vitally important that people understand that just because you said this it doesn't mean you're fat yourself.

and don't think the fatties are immune either! "i'm a size 14 and i think..." seems almost as common as the infamous "i'm a size 00 and i still have celulite" type comment. why do these women feel driven to confess the shame of their fatness before continuing to comment? search me, man, i'm currently in the normal weight range, so i got no idea how those fat people think.

you gotta laugh, otherwise you might start crying.

ATTENTION!

2007-12-05T10:34:00.000-08:00

why is it that saying someone is doing something "for attention" has such intense negative overtones? for instance, i agreed with someone that said Heather from mamaVISION says controversial things on her blog to get more attention. now, to me that seems completely obvious. from heather's other comments she clearly seems to understand that many things she portrays as black and white have many shades of grey. why does she then go back to portraying them as black and white? because it makes for a punchier blog that is easy to read and is controversial- in other words, it brings in the readers. mamaV does TONS of things that seem to me to be intended to bring in the readers.

heather's reaction was to scoff at the very idea- she has a husband and child and a job, so how could she possibly be interested in getting attention for herself through her blog? in fact, she often portrays herself as a martyr to all the emails and comments. does that ring seriously false for anyone else but me?

but what on earth is wrong with people admitting that they like attention? everyone does- everyone wants to be listened to and validated. i was just accused to going and causing trouble on heathers' blog "for attention" by an anonymous commenter. well, i totally cop to it. i feel STRONGLY about my criticisms, i believe them, and i think them through. but i state things in outrageous ways and make a big deal out of them because i'd rather people pay attention than just have them slip by unnoticed. i enjoy attention. so does heather from mamaVISION. and if you claim to be different then i say you're a liar.

i'm all for a woman president

2007-12-03T07:50:00.000-08:00

JUST NOT HILARY CLINTON!

i like hilary about as much as i like mamavision.com. i wasn't a huge fan of her husband, and i'm a little concerned about the dynastic trend of american politics (jeb for prez in 2016! then how does chelsea '24 sound? ummm... are you getting nervous yet, america?)

but the real reasons i don't like her are that she's too far on the right while being hard to elect because the right thinks she's borderline socialist! take it from a borderline socialist- nuh uh, no how, no way. i mean, if we want to fight against charges of hyper-leftism or socialism we should at least have the benefit of fighting for an actual fucking socialist, right? (kucinich starts to look more appealing...)

also, she's icky. she's the mitt romney, say or do anything to be elected of the democrats.

so, i'm a reluctant obama supporter who could jump to edwards in a second if he was the anti-clinton consensus candidate. why reluctant on obama? because i'm from massachusetts and we just elected new governor patrick last year. deval patrick was a hopeful, idealistic african american candidate who was new to the game of politics. sound familiar? people were pretty excited about electing him, and while i was as usual bemoaning the lack of progressive alternatives, i was excited too. but since he's been elected he seems to have struggled, mostly because he hasn't know how to get along with our legislature (full to the brim of democratic party hacks and a nightmare by any standards).

so yeah, i kindof buy the questions about barack obama's lack of experience, but i'm for him anyway because i don't want to have to drit my teeth, close my eyes, and cast a vote for hilary clinton.

flowers for algernon

2007-11-28T07:20:00.001-08:00

remember all those times i mentioned how ed =/= good brain health? well, until now i haven't noticed too many effects. maybe it was because i was overweight or maybe just because you get stuck in a daily routine, but i didn't feel too impaired until recently.

i saw my family for thanksgiving, and it mostly went well. but at the very end something happened to upset me and instead of having slightly hurt feelings i was a total basketcase! seriously, i had to leave the room after someone said something hurtful, started crying, and literally stayed near tears the whole rest of the day and had to ask to be driven home early.

my ability to think and to write has badly deteriorated as well. i wonder how this blog will fare, because i don't know if i'll be able to critique mamaVISION at my usual high level of scathingness.

it's weird to notice yourself going off the rails, and extra unpleasant when you know you're not going to do anything about it.

more evidence that everything you know is wrong

2007-11-08T08:29:00.000-08:00

i was listening to npr and heard a story about the possible health benefits of being overweight.

yes you idiot, i said health benefit of being overweight. as in- fatness=good. although i don't practice what i preach i'm actually a big believer in many of the claims of the fat acceptance movement, including the belief that the hysteria over the so-called "obesity epidemic" is totally ridiculous, overblown, and often untrue and the belief that in terms of health, being a bit overweight is in no way bad for you. i don't actually care much about my own health, i find being overweight about as much fun as being waterboarded and will do whatever it takes to avoid that condition, showing total disregard for my health in the process. but i do think on a theoretical level that if people care about their health they should eat a healthy diet and have a moderate level of excersize/physcial activity, but weight shouldn't enter into things much if at all.

here's a couple of links to the two stories about studies that show overweight people may actually be healthier than normal weight, underweight, or obese individuals.

2005: overweight people live longer

2007: some diseases less common in overweight people

what happened to mamaVISION's foundation?

2007-10-31T05:55:00.000-07:00

anyone else notice the disappearance of the section on mamaVISION asking for donations?

i think one of my very first arguments with mamaVISION was over this section. she started asking for donations and i was horrified- her readership is young and impressionable, and there's no reason they should be paying for her blog. she claimed to have a lot of big ideas past just paying for the upkeep of her blog, claimed she was starting some kind of movement, and i just thought the whole thing was ludicrous.

recently, she made some changes to the style of her blog, and with those changes came the disappearance of the "mamasFOUNDATION" section. she didn't say anything about removing the section, and i don't know how many people apart from myself even noticed.

as soon as i noticed the disappearance of the section i considered posting a blog, a sort of victory dance, pretending i had personally killed the section and beaten mamaVISION in some way. but instead i did the mature thing and tried emailing Heather and asking what happened to the section. i gave her a long time to reply, but now that it's been a couple weeks i think it's safe to say i won't get one. that's not a criticism- i do believe she gets a ton of email and could easily have innocently missed mine or put off replying and forgotten.

however, i did want to pose the questions here on my blog: what happened to the foundation? what happened to the money? is mamaV gonna give in and pay for her own blog like a normal mortal, rather than expecting her readers to subsidize her?

i know from something she wrote on her forum that she's in the process of changing jobs- perhaps with her new job will come a reduced focus on mamaVISION and all her overblown ideas about starting a "movement"? even though it's not as dramatic as my having vanquished her, i'd still welcome it if that's the case. hopefully the book deal is dead and the blog will stay just a blog. hell, if that's the case then i might not even feel the need to keep my dissent up over there. if it's just a blog then no real harm done, right?

update: for those of us hoping the foundation and book deal were dead, no such luck. the button is back, and the book is forthcoming. ah well, if mamaVISION gets huge i'll get way more attention as her #1 critic so i should be all for it! oh, and as a moderator on a pro-ana forum, i should be even MORE all for it, because my forum will have all sorts of new people coming in if her hysteria gets more attention in the media. (oh, and thanks to my anonymous commenter for reminding me this post needed an update)

mamaVISION: tough love or cheap shots?

2007-10-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

why don't we really think about this question. this claim of mamaV that she is trying to use "tough love" on proana.

i took a quick look on wikipedia for their definition of tough love. It's a very short entry, but it says that tough love is when one individual treats another individual harshly in order to help them over the long term, as with parents of a drug addict that withold financial support until their son or daughter agrees to enter treatment.

How, exactly does that term apply to mamaVISION being on a crusade against pro-anorexia in general and everyone that participates in pro-ana in particular? I'll give you a hint- it doesn't. This tough love thing is complete and utter bullshit. A smokescreen. An excuse for mamaV to say and do things that are completely out of line, showing absolutely no compassion or understanding, and not caring who she hurts. "Tough Love!" she cries, as if the phrase alone excuses any offense. An offense, like (for instance) in her most recent post where she reposted a cry for help from a bulimic mother who couldn't stop puking and went on to call her and any other mom like her selfish, vain, and unconcerned about her children.

Now, the concept of tough love isn't proven- there's no evidence tough love is an effective way of helping someone even if you're using the original definition of tough love. However, I think we do have some evidence of how well the tough love approach works for mamaVISION because some of the moms from the livejournal group found mamaV's post. As of yet, none of them have seen the light and repented after reading her blog. Quite the contrary- they have reacted with profanity and threats. One way of seeing this would be that they were bad people and bad moms all along- but that's not what I think. I think when you attack people they get angry and defensive and become all the more extreme in their positions. That's what I would expect to happen when most anas see mamaVISION and that's what actually does happen as far as I can tell- proanas threaten and swear and accuse mamaV of jealousy. Not because they're necessarily bad people, but because she's attacked them and they counter attack in the only way they can think of.

and remember people: eds = bad brain health. thinking and intelligence are very much effected leading perfectly nice people to sound way more irrational and dumber than they would if they were eating normally. it even makes them start thinking things like "there's nothing wrong with me, you're just jealous" even if that is a completely ridiculous idea. i'm sure reading my blog you can't imagine my being even smarter and more rational when my eating is healthy but trust me- it's true. even for me.

mamaV is one judgemental motherfucker

2007-10-21T05:06:00.000-07:00

ok, here's the latest over at mamaVISION: she has a problem with anorexic moms.

what a surprise. as usual, she pretends a distinction between "proana" and anorexic, so i suppose i should have said she's against proana moms. but that's utter bullshit. read her latest (and no, i refuse to link to the woman, if you don't read her don't bother) and you can see for yourself- her real problem is with mom's who have emotional issues.

according to mamaV moms with eating disorders are vain, selfish, and care nothing for the welfare of their children. they will horribly warp their children and are entirely to blame for their own problems and their childrens' problems.

now, to be completely honest, moms with eds make me uncomfortable. some part of me cries out that they ought to be in recovery and doing whatever it takes to be well, for the sake of their children. but the TRUTH is that having children doesn't magically fix people's eating disorders! if you can get over the initial predjudice (and i have it too, believe me) you'll see that women with eating disorders are going to marry and have children, and once they do they aren't all going to be able to kick their eating disorders. they'll probably try to recover, or they'll convince themselves they can hide it from their kids.

alcoholics (the non-sober kind) make lousy parents too. as do people with mental illness, quite often. some people do a better job than others. but to just stand up and say "you're a bad, selfish person for having children and being bulimic" is just so blind and insensitive. sure i think moms with eds should be in recovery, but if they aren't i don't think it's because they don't care about their children. it's because they, like all of us with eds, are scared of recovery, stuck in their habits, and able to delude themselves that their problems aren't hurting anyone but themselves.

dumbledore is gay

2007-10-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

well, this is a weird one. apparently, according to jk rowling (and she would know) the wizard Dumbledore from Harry Potter, is gay.

gay dumbledore story on msnbc

dude, this reminds me of how i feel when people suggest that ernie and bert on sesame are gay- why cheapen these beloved childhood characters by giving them a sperfluous sexual orientation? so, my first reaction was annoyance and anger because honestly, why on earth should we care if dumbledore is gay?

on reading the article it seems that the back story of dumbledore's character is actually a little bit enriched by the explanation that he was in love with a certain dark wizard. which might help change things if i had more respect for jk rowling as an author and for her depth of characterization. but i don't. the harry potter books are fine for kids, but they aren't as good as the really great children's books from my own childhood. the harry potter series is no chronicals of narnia or "little house" set. none of the potter books compares to alice in wonderland or wrinkle in time, either. so since jk isn't really all that as a writer i don't give her the respect i would if a really great writer came out with a bit of background that enriched a character and made him come more fully alive.

i'm gay, so i suppose i should be all for this. but to me childhood was a time before these things mattered, and i don't see why there's this need to give characters a sexual orientation. obviously, if two characters are married and have children then they must be straight. and having teen characters dating members of the opposite sex and having their first kiss or whatever is fine. having gay teen characters would be fine too, or gay adults, gay parents. but to go and tack on gayness to a character when it isn't part of ANY of the action makes no sense to me. let dumbledore stay a monk, if it didn't hurt the story in the original what can it possibly add now?

confessions of a pro ana moderator

2007-10-15T15:15:00.000-07:00

on my old pro ana forum our admin disappeared, so the majority of the regular members decided to create a new place with new admin and moderators, in order to escape the problems that went with having a completely unregulated site. i was asked to moderate by the girl who created the new forum, and i accepted. on the old site i guess i was a fairly influential member (i was asked to moderate, afterall) and on the new site i am probably the most influential person there right now. that's not to say people don't or can't disagree with me, but i think it would be hard to name someone whose opinion carried more weight on the new site- especially since my opinion can be backed up with the moderator's power to lock, delete, and move anything anyone posts at any time.

this leads to some uncomfortable questions in my own mind...

what are my responsibilities to the people who use the forum? is it just to do my best as a moderator to deal with conflicts and rule breaking, while sharing my personal opinions and my own struggles with my eating disorder how ever i choose to do so? or do i have a larger responsibility to the members who use my site?

there are girls on my forum who are quite young. since the group was made up of people from someone else's forum i obviously didn't deliberately do anything to bring in these 13 or 14 year olds, but would that comfort their parents if something were to happen to them? if i share something true about myself, for example if i share the fact that before yesterday i had thrown up every single thing i'd eaten for 3 weeks straight, how will reading this impact a 14 year old reader? as an ordinary member, it wasn't hard to tell myself that i wasn't responsible for any body else's problems. the site would exist without me- and besides, i was often a voice of moderation, common sense, and health compared to some of the other members. but now that i'm a mod it isn't the same equation. i have a choice about whether or how to make the forum grow. i'm torn between wanting it to be successful and not really believing that ANY pro ana site, even the milder type, are harmless.

since that 14 year old girl can also read how i've lost about 15 pounds in that 3 week period, will they pay attention to the fact that i'm a bit worried about how out of control things have gotten lately? or will that girl just see that puking = weightloss? i can't help but think that if i was the mother of a child that was on this forum i'd be horrified to find a 29 year old woman who clearly knew better standing idly by while my child discussed her plans to, say, acheive a bmi of 13 or restrict her intake to 200 calories a day or less.

i don't think it's my responsibility to end the proana movement. i couldn't if i wanted to- and there are sites these children could be visiting that are so much worse than mine. but it is probably my responsibility to watch what i say and think about who might be reading it and looking up to me as someone who is in a position of authority and has lost a very large amount of weight in a fairly short time. it is probably my responsibility to make it clear what my views are about anorexia and proana. i don't think i've been living up to this responsibility and i'm not so sure i'm going to start now. but the responsibility is probably mine, nonetheless. if not me, who?

finding fatness intolerable

2007-10-13T07:35:00.000-07:00

When I was on the phone with my brother, he said that if there's a way for me to be healthy and be thin, he thinks it's a good thing. In response, I said that I can't be happy when I'm overweight, and if he ever sees me and I'm overweight he can know that inside I am miserable. He said "well, you know, that's really a problem in itself, I think."

I guess I just don't really know anymore. I said it without really thinking I was saying anything too surprising or important- I actually thought it was absurd that he or anyone else wouldn't realise that being fat = being unhappy. My dad seems to see things the same way my brother does- back before I'd started losing the weight he got very frutstrated with me for refusing to take care of my appearance, and he said stuff about how if I looked nicer I'd feel better and how he hated seeing me unhappy but I couldn't just put everything on hold until I lost weight. To me it was, again, totally incomprehensible. How could I look nice while being fat? Wearing nice clothing would be like putting a pretty red bow on a nasty old garbage can or something. It wouldn't change how I looked (fat and awful) or how I felt about myself (bad).

I don't really know what I think, now. For me, being overweight means that I have been compulsively overeating for a long time to get that way. Overeating to me is just terrible- a bleak trap of buying and eating food and thinking of nothing else beyond what I will eat or how disgusting and fat I am. If that is the case, then I don't see how I could ever be expected to feel good while that's going on, right?

So, maybe in a way I am right to equate fatness with unhappiness because it is directly connected to binging and binging = unhappiness. On the other hand, when I began losing weight and restricting I didn't feel much better- slightly better, because I had hopes of weight loss, but I was still absolutely obsessed with how fat I was and how badly I looked. During those first few weeks was actually when my dad and I had the argument about my appearance, actually.

So, I guess in so far as being overweight = binge eating for me, it's understandable that I think of my being fat as automatically meaning I'm also miserably unhappy at all times. But below that level I have way too much of my self esteem tied to what my weight is, and it's gotten a lot worse from how things were when I was in OA. When I was last in OA I was way happier and less concerned with how I looked, I was just starting to have trouble with binging, and my weight was the same it is now.

stalker-tech

2007-10-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

has anyone else noticed how many mainstream products and services seem to be most useful for abusive partners or stalkers? i just saw an add for ADT home security that mentioned their new service that installs cameras and allows you to remotely view your home while you're away, which is what made me think of it.

isn't that creepy? i mean, think about this service for a second- sure maybe it is a remote possibility that you could see a burglar in your home and call the police, or see signs that your house had been broken into. but practically speaking, wouldn't it be more likely used by a parent that wants to see what their children are doing at all times or an abusive spouse that wants to watch his/her partner's every move?

another example is the cell phone service that allows you to see exactly where someone is when they're calling you. i sure wouldn't sign up for that one unless i was under duress! it seems almost completely useless unless you're trying to check up on someone or catch them in a lie or something. otherwise you could just call and ask where someone is, no need for a dot on a map to show you!

as a survivor of domestic violence i have to say i find this trend disturbing. our society is overly surveilled already (different issue) but to have products marketed at the individual stalker seems realllllly scary!

torn

2007-10-09T06:36:00.001-07:00

well, i was feeling absolutely certain that my original goal of 120 would just be the beginning and that i was going to throw the idea of returning to recovery out the window- until my brother called yesterday.

and, well, basically i didnt want my weight loss to be a surprise to him so i told him what was going on, along with the usual assurances that it was only temporary and i was going back to OA as soon as i reached my goal weight.

either on purpose or by accident he completely reminded me how hard it is on my family when i'm doing badly. they worry, and they talk behind my back and try and figure out whats going on and what they should do about it and then they worry some more. i hate putting them through all that just because being thin isn't good enough for me and i have to be teeny-tiny.

but mostly, i'm not ready to stop. and since i am under 130 pounds now and my goal weight will be reached in a month or less, this is a problem. i've set a new goal weight already, 120 is history for sure. i'm not aiming for an unhealthy weight or anything (yet) but its much more about not wanting to stop than it is about wanting to look a certain way or weigh a certain amount, unfortunately.

on the other hand i have made myself three promises to fulfill when i reach my original goal weight of 120:

1) i will buy myself some new clothes, so i have clothes that fit. conveniently this should be just in time for thanksgiving!

2) i will make every effort to cut down and then stop purging. i have been absolutely out of control with b/ping for the first time in my life, and it's too hard to stop before i reach my gw. but when i do reach gw i will do whatever it takes to end this cycle. the only reason i got into it was because i was having such good results weight-loss wise but once i reach 120 i am just going to have to accept a little short term weight gain followed by a slower rate of weight loss. no matter how hard, i will force myself to accept it.

3) i will go to an OA meeting. absolute minimum of once, but hopefully i can start going more regularly. not because i'm ready to do recovery, but because hopefully being there will affect me so that i'll become ready.

so thats the news. i've lost 50 pounds and now i'm close to my goal i don't want to stop. hmmm... i think i've heard this tune before, somewhere.

a different kind of numbers game

2007-10-06T07:38:00.000-07:00

let's talk about most american's least favorite topic (and one of my favorites) social class.

my old boss once said there are 5 social classes in america- and we (he and i) are a number 4. i was thinking about it and i think he under-counted. i'm gonna say there are 7:

1 - unbelievably poor or disadvantaged. these people are on the street, in jail, or in state mental hospitals

2 - underclass - jobless, on state aid, or working minimum wage jobs permanently. whoever you think of as "the poor"

3 - working poor/lower middle - always on the edge, trying to make ends meet. nowadays mostly low-skilled service industry jobs

4 - middle class - nowadays often holding a 4 year degree, office workers, teachers, professionals of all types

5 - upper middle - if you have more than one home (and you aren't rich) you are upper middle. higher level professionals, mostly educate their children in private schools, hold degrees beyond a bachelors, sometimes also are owners of a small business or otherwise participate in "ownership".

6 - upper class - most politicians are in this class. mostly anyone you think of as rich fits into this category. they are owners of businesses and members of the executive classes.

7 - unbelievably wealthy - people so rich you can't even imagine. people with long family lines of wealth. people so rich you've never heard of them.

So, what number are you? Do you think our society makes it easy for people to change the number they are born with? According to my old boss, no matter how hard either of us tried, we'd probably not slip more than one number. And he seems to have been correct- I'm jobless and with slim to no prospects, but my family wouldn't tolerate my homelessness and hospitalizations for more than a couple years, so now i get a cushy apartment and enough money to keep myself comfortable. If I didn't come from a 5 family, I'd probably be a 2 or a 1. Instead I'm more of a 4 even though I'm not currently working.

I imagine some of you are thinking that someone born a 2 can work hard and grow up to be a 6. That's a myth, and if you believe it then you believe exactly what the 6 and 7s want you to believe. Nowadays the ranks of the 3s are swelling- and the 5-6-7s are becoming fewer.

good luck, america.

our lovely president

2007-10-05T06:51:00.000-07:00

ok, i'm a few days late but i'm going to post about something that really ticked me off.

a few days ago our president, George W. Bush, made a speech in which he spoke about his veto of SCHIP funding. For anyone who doesn't know, SCHIP was designed to provide insurance for children whose parents worked and were not so poor that the kids could qualify for medicaid, but were still too poor to afford health insurance for their children. The Democrats would like to expand SCHIP so that it covers as many ninsured children as possible- and maybe even cover their parents too, while they're at it. The Republicans would prefer to stick to insuring children, and to make sure people who have access to or ability to afford other forms of health insurance don't get on to SCHIP because it's cheaper or better coverage. Now, I agree with one of those sides, but both seem reasonable to me and what happened was that the Democrats and the Republicans got together and enough of them agreed to pass a bill that was a compromise between the two sides.

So far, so good, right?

Only, for some reason George W. Bush decided to veto the bill. As far as I can tell, he wants to look like he's controlling spending and he wants only the absolute poorest children to be covered by SCHIP, and if it means some children who are lower middle class whose parents can't afford coverage will have to be uninsured, too bad. Anyway, obviously I'm ticked off by the whole veto thing, and I hope very much that congress will be able to override (call your congressman! get involved! look this stuff up, because your state may be important!). But what really stood out to me was this quote, from his speech:

"here's the thing, just so you know, this program expands coverage, federal coverage up to families earning $83,000 a year. That doesn't sound poor to me."

ok, first off this was a lie. families earning that much aren't covered by the bill, and the only possible way they could be would be if a particular state wanted to cover these families and asked the Bush administration for special permission to do so. Since he doesn't want to give permission, he wouldn't, and they wouldn't be covered.

But, dude. I can't stand the cheek of this elite, to the manor born, ivy-league legacy educated son of a President standing there in his folksy way sayin "aw, shucks, that don't sound poor to me!" WHAT? dude, a millionaire seems poor to you. My parents (who are reasonably wealthy, and even have a summer home in Maine) seem poor to you. This fantasy that he is some regular guy thinking hey, $83,000 is a lot of money is just horribly insulting.

I mean, don't get me wrong, $83,000 doesn't sound poor to me- but I happen to live on less than $15,000 a year!!! The nerve of this guy to stand there and talk as if he's a hardworking stiff just really gets me all worked up. I sooooo can't wait till he's gone, seriously.

btw this is the speech:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/10/20071003-3.html

and this is about the efforts to override his veto:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2007/10/democrats_begin_schip_veto_ove.html?hpid=topnews

pro or no?

2007-10-01T13:19:00.001-07:00

there are a lot of different definitions out there as to what constitutes "proana". so, i thought i'd do a post explaining my criteria and where i feel i fit into the larger world of proana.

i consider myself proana, because i am a member of a couple of forums where we discuss eating disorder stuff, and those forums are not actively pro-recovery and don't censor very much. however, both forums forbid tips, and one of them has no thinsperation section.

i consider myself proana because i am not in recovery for my eating disorder and have no interest in entering recovery at this time.

i consider myself proana because i do not go out of my way to censor myself to keep from triggering others. i openly post my stats, i talk about what i eat, i post my weight goals, and i even particiate in proana competitions on occasions.

on the other hand, i don't directly post tips, i try to avoid even indirectly teaching people things that aren't common sense, i'm careful about what i post about purging since i do believe there are things people can learn about how to purge and i'm not eager to have anyone learn these things from me. i don't think anorexia is a lifestyle, i think recovery is a good thing for everyone, myself included, and i have a pretty low opinion of my own behavior (i think if i were smart i would have stayed in recovery no matter what).

i also think that proana in general is a negative thing, it's bad for people, it helps people stay sick longer, and it can sometimes contribute to the development of an ed in some people.

i think of myself as being about as far to the pro-recovery/anti-ana end of proana as you can get while still considering yourself part of the whole proana spectrum. i guess many people would say "hey! you're not proana!" but i'm more realistic. if i participate in forums and share things about myself that are likely to trigger others, if i talk about how many calories i eat per day and how fast i want to lose weight, then i'm part of proana.

on the waaaay other side of the proana spectrum are people who actively give out tips and encourage people who are not anorexic to become anorexic. people who not only think anorexia is a lifestyle choice, but a good lifestyle choice more people should make. i do not really understand those people, to be honest.

then there are anti-anas. i think most of them are just totally fear mongering and over reacting, to be honest. however, i think the hysterical anti-ana sentiment has probably helped by being a moderating influence on the proana community. so even though i often disgree with them, i think they do sometimes have a positive influence.

well, thats the spectrum, as i see it. where do you think you fall?

want to cry

2007-09-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

i just got a phone call from someone from OA- a woman i knew when i was in recovery, as it happens. she was calling to ask if i wanted to be taken off the phone list... she must have been going through all the numbers on the list. and i haven't been to a meeting in over a year.

i told her not to take me off the list. so she asked if i was still in OA. and i said i was hoping to go back, eventually, maybe in the next few months.

i want to cry. i miss how things were when i was in program. i hate my life now. i hate my eating disorder. but i'm stuck and i won't even consider returning to program before i reach 120 pounds. hopefully that will be no longer than 2 months from now. (i have 15 pounds left). but even then, i don't know if i'll go back. maybe go back and hang around at meetings- but i don't think i'll be ready to stop losing weight in 15 pounds.

i hate myself. i wish i'd never left the program. its a program for fucking fat people, why the hell did i feel like once i reached a certain weight due to binging then i couldn't go back? if i'd stayed even when my relapse started and committed to losing the weight healthily, maybe things would be different. maybe i'd have a job, a life, friends, still. maybe i wouldn't be crying right now.

old school proana

2007-09-25T18:19:00.000-07:00

so, according to something i read today, i am a member of the elite club of old school proana. meaning that my first experience with proana was back in early 2002.

i found out about pro-ana because i had an eating disorder and i was on opendiary. the eating disorder section of opendiary at the time was heavily influenced by pro-ana. tips were traded openly and very few people in recovery went anywhere near the ed group, every once in a while someone would post something condemning the "pro" tone of things, but mostly pro was just the norm.

i was nearing the end of my initial 100 pound weightloss (i lost 100 pounds in a year to reach my first goal weight), and i had yet to experience any negative effects of my ed. to the contrary, i thought i'd found the secret of life! so i fit in with the pro mentality very easily, in spite of my bachelors in psych, my year and a half working with teenage girls, and my plan to become a social worker.

from OD i joined the Ruby's Gloomy Place pro ana forum. RGP was the mildest of all pro-ana forums at the time- it didn't discourage recovery or encourage eating disorders in people that didn't already have one. it advocated choice when it came to treatment, and there was an active tips section. to my shame i posted in this area several times, explaining my methods of restricting and hiding my restriction from others. and i learned a lot i hadn't known about how to purge more effectively. there was also a thinspiration section that was almost entirely devoted to pictures of emaciated girls and extremely thin models. as time went on i experienced more and more of the negative side of anorexia, i "accidentally" lost 20 pounds beyond my initial goal weight, and i relied on my friends at rgp as i went through the fear and depression that comes when you realize your disorder is entirely out of your control. then eventually i entered recovery for the first time in late 2003/early 2004. i've been part of proana on and off since- i tend to drop out when i'm in recovery and re-join after i'm in full relapse. but i've come a long way from where i was in the beginning- writing triggering fiction staring "ana" and long manifestos that, again to my shame, i have seen borrowed from in many places that describe the pro-ana mentality.

when i relapsed this time, i hadn't been near a proana forum in a couple years, and i have to say i am impressed by the changes. i don't kid myself that proana is or will ever be a positive force in the world- but tips are no longer the norm, people who clearly don't have eating disorders are heavily discouraged from sticking around, and most people i know in the proana community would not have been described as pro-ana at all back in the day.

i don't mean this as a defense of proana, exactly. i'm not someone who considers todays ana-lite forums harmless, or entirely about support. but when i see the changes that have taken place, (including places like we bite back and even the community that's grown around my arch enemy mamavision) i can't help but feel a little bit proud of the direction things have gone in. it's my belief that with the right types of pressure, proana may outgro the pro part of its name and really embody the "support" model that many sites now claim they embody. i think it would be nice to have places that were relatively small and mostly free of wannas that supported people regardless of their recovery status and self-censored enough to prevent people sharing methods with one another, but not so much that members felt unable to express themselves. if they gently encouraged recovery that would be even better.

the recovery industry

2007-09-19T05:59:00.000-07:00

ok, get ready for some cynical shit, kids.

i was never a fan of something fishy, because it was totally over censored. but i didn't leave the forums for good until they were bought by a company that owns drug and eating disorder treatment centers.

The recovery industry does not have our best interests at heart.

I've been in treatment, IP and OP, more than once. In particular, I've been to one IP ed treatment place in my area twice, and the stays were a bit over a year apart. In my second stay I saw about 5 people whom had been there in my first stay. Frequent fliers, of which I suppose I am one myself. People who leave treatment, fall off the wagon, become ill, and re-enter treatment.

Now, IP treatment centres are incredibly expensive. They're run by for-profit companies, though. Think about it for a second. If perhaps about half of their business is treating frequent fliers- what POSSIBLE incentive do they have to develop effective treatment methods? They'd put themselves right out of business if they did that! No, their profit incentive is to treat a few people with very mild cases of ED, while giving the appearance of treatment to everyone else. Their profit incentive is to give people false hope that this time will be different, while blaming them for their inevitable relapses.

I believe this goes for the drug addiction treatment centres too. If you look at it from an economics standpoint, these places literally can't afford to make people better. They are parasites, and as long as we have life-threatening illnesses we have very little we can do about it. Instead we just keep grasping at the straws they give us and refusing to see the truth- that they are preying on us, not helping us to recover.

Perhaps Vampires is a Bit Strong, But...

2007-09-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

well, my last post was so annoying, depressing, and self-absorbed i decided to listen to the arctic monkeys, and post some song lyrics while i'm at it.

perhaps vampires is a bit strong, but...

i've seen your eyes as they fix on me what is he doing?
what on earth's the Plan has he got one?
you better give me some pointers since you are the big rocket launcher and
i'm just the shot gun.
i aint got no dollar signs in my eyes that might be a surprise but its true, see
i'm not like you and i don't want your advice or your praise, or to move in the ways you do-
and I never will.

'cause all you people are vampires and
all your stories are stale
and though you pretend to stand by us
i know you're certain we'll fail

i've seen you're eyes as they fix on me full of confusion
your snarl is just so condescending
try to explain that we're on to a win if the fee we get in near recoups what we're spending
he said I can't believe that you drove all that way well how much did they pay ya?
how much did they pay ya?
you'd have been better to stay round our way
thinking about things but not actually doing a thing

staying still feels like gaining, losing feels like staying still

2007-09-17T04:23:00.000-07:00

the good news is, my weight's down. the bad news is, i'm ahead of my usual progression right now. even though i'm still 18 pounds above my goal weight i've reached the phase where not losing weight feels like absolute torture- as if i'm gaining and growing bigger and fatter by the second. meanwhile losing weight no longer even feels good- it feels as if i'm staying the same, or the weight loss isn't real, or my scale is broken. anything but feeling actual pride in my accomplishment.

maybe it's just because i've lost 3 pounds quite quickly over the past few days. it's hard to believe that its real, but the thought of it not being real terrifies me. i'm now within 3 pounds of the "normal" weight range. i feel so conflicted over that. on the one hand i am desperate to be in the normal range and no longer over weight. but on the other hand, 3 pounds is not a visible amount of weight. and i am disgusted and horrified by how fat i am- 3 pounds isn't going to change that feeling. so it seems like being in the normal range is all downsides- when i'm in the normal range i'll no longer have the protection of defending my behavior because "i'm overweight, lots of overweight people go on crash diets, this is completely normal apart from my history of eating disorder". i will no longer have the comfort of looking in the mirror and seeing fatness and knowing the my bmi backs that up 100%, that any doctor would tell me to lose weight, etc.

ho hum. 18 more pounds of this to go. and then the real fun begins. how shall i play it? should i enter recovery and pretend to be "trying" while i allow my weight to slowly slip down another 20 pounds. should i go full out pro-ana? kill myself? that last one's a joke since i have a fear of leaving too fat a corpse. only thing that keeps me breathing sometimes, lol.

one thing is for sure, i'm going on a major clothes shopping spree when i hit 120. so what if i'll have to buy size 2s instead of size 0s? i am already swimming in the clothes i have and 20 more pounds is not going to improve things. so i solemnly swear that when i am 120 i will not consider myself too fat to buy new clothes, however fat i may still be.

ah this post is crap.

this is your false messiah

2007-09-11T05:55:00.000-07:00

Well, over at mamaVISION today we got some "inspiration" in the form of a plug for "The Foundation for a Better Life". Apparently they put up cute bilboards with little messages on them encouraging people to better themselves. So far, so good, right?

ah, but wait! you read their mission statement (helpfully provided by mamaV) and it had some words that immediately leaped out at me. things like "values" and "personal responsibility".

but Vanessa, are you against values and personal responsibility?

glad you asked! no, i'm completely in favor of both of those things. it's just that anyone with half a brain knows that the people who are most likely to use those words in the public sphere are right-wing conservative christian nutcases. the sorts of people who try really hard not to be racists, and fail miserably. the sorts of people who hold signs complaining that "god made adam and eve, not adam and steve!" - and seem to miss the point that any of us "steves" out there were certainly made by god too. so i called foul and looked into this Foundation and lo and behold- i was completely right. the person behind it all is a conservative christian billionaire named Philip Anschutz. (if you're me then the words conservative christian billionaire basically are the same as saying evil incarnate. everything i'm for, this guy is against)

check it out for yourself if you like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foundation_for_a_Better_Life

and the person behind the Foundation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Anschutz

ANYWAY. This brings me to my point. I'm so ticked off! MamaV supposedly has a background in journalism for Christ's sake! She is supposed to be the fucking voice of Reason who sees through the fashion world and the proana world??? And she can't google the Foundation and click on its fucking wikipedia link before praising it to the skies? It literally took me less than a minute to confirm my suspicions. Meanwhile, mamaV doesn't even realize that "quality values" is code for "no gay people". Meanwhile, mamaV who is a functional adult with a background in J-school (as compared to a crazy basketcase former social worker like yours truly) doesn't even know to google the Foundation just in case they aren't what they seem? Instead she reprints their publicity crap off their website. This woman is in marketing? Are you kidding me???

So. either mamaV is lazy and naive as fuck, or she's actually a conservative christian anti-gay nutjob herself. I don't know which is worse. At this point I think I'd respect her more for having a secret anti-gay agenda.

i want to be little

2007-09-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

so cliche. i want to by little, tiny, disappear. but i really really do right now. i just cant lose the weight fast enough, i'm so tired of being huge.

my old scale was wrong, so i'm only down to 142. i just want to get this fucking weight off. i don't care about my health, i don't care about anything. i don't have anything in my life to care about, anyway. i just need to get small, and then... who knows? i have no plan. if anything i'll be worse off when i reach my goal than i am now, because at least now i have something i'm working towards.

i'm so hiiiiigh

2007-09-04T17:19:00.000-07:00

haha, ok, maybe that's an exageration.

but honestly, sometimes i wonder why everyone who has a bit of weight to lose doesn't starve themselves. i've been restricting without any purging for 2 days and i've got this wonderful floaty euphoric feeling. sure, it doesn't last forever. but i wonder if it's something about my brain chemistry that makes restricting feel so amazingly good, or if it happens to everyone that tries it. because if it does i'd just think more people would try it, especially people who have weight to lose.

i mean, people have life endangering surgery to lose weight- why on earth would they draw the line at a starvation diet? and once people start a starvation diet why on earth don't more people get hooked. for me, once i've been going a while it gets harder and harder to stop. which is exactly why it was so unintelligent of me to start, regardless of my weight at the time. because if it feels this good when i reach my goal i'll find an excuse to keep going... going... gone.

thin

2007-09-04T06:03:00.000-07:00

when i was obese thin was something magical and unknown. something i'd never had and barely even allowed myself to wish for. until i started restricting the first time i never really thought thin was attainable.

when i first lost weight everything changed for the better. briefly i was more popular, more successful, happier- it coincided with a time of my life when everything was going well, but the way people reacted me also changed completely. people say it had more to do with my attitude, my confidence, and there's something to that. but people are nicer to thin people. they listen when they speak. it's hard to explain but people are just more open to getting to know you if you're thin. they find you more intelligent, more interesting, funnier. certainly this all gives you more confidence and it reinforces those characteristics. but the initial reaction people give you is very different if you're thin.

for me being thin became everything. and it still is, even though it won't do me any good at this point. even though my life won't get better since i'll still be on disability, have no friends, have no prospects. at least i'll be thin.

the romance of it all

2007-08-30T17:13:00.000-07:00

i strongly suspect that most anorexics romanticize their disorders to some extent. i can think of a million reasons why doing so is a load of crap... and yet i'm definitely guilty myself.

proana talks about "perfection" a lot, which leaves me cold. nothing perfect about losing your mind and looking like a freak. then there are the stupid slogans, the most annoying to me is the one about walking in the snow and not leaving any footprints. i mean, cmon.

instead of that ana stuff for me the romance often comes in the form of a picture in my head of a tiny waiflike girl with long hair wistfully staring out a window, slowly fading away. i guess it's a variant of the princess in the tower, waiting to be rescued that i used to imagine as a child. kinda like if rapunzel was being starved to death by the witch.

in recovery i used to combat this image by changing the waif into a truer picture of anorexia, emaciated, losing hair, and acting like a crazy person because her brain isn't functioning too well anymore. i met enough of those when i was in treatment so that i know what it looks like. it worked really well to prevent me from skipping meals or snacks while i was in recovery.

so, if there are any eating disorder types reading this, how do you romanticize anorexia?

Keep Going

2007-08-30T13:33:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like as of tomorrow I will have lost 10 pounds in 2 weeks which is about as fast as I could ever hope for. I'll be back to where I was before my vacation where I lost the plot completely.

It's unpleasant enough being fat in our society, but a formerly anorexic person has got to be the saddest thing on the planet. Here's an excerpt from my day- keep in mind that this is all after having lost 37 pounds in the past few months and 5 pounds just this week.

looking in the mirror before leaving the house, thinking

ok, my stomach looks a little better. if i stand on my tiptoes and suck in it looks a little better. this shirt doesn't make me look that bad, more chubby than fat if you don't count my upper arms, maybe i don't look too bad... NO! you look terrible. don't you dare start thinking you look ok. you look fat you fat stupid piece of shit. you look worse than ever. you should be ashamed to leave the house. how dare you even try and pretend it isn't so bad that sort of thinking will make you fat. that sort of thinking will make you binge. stupid fat person thinking pretending its not so bad. if anything you look fatter than ever.

while walking to the store

she's thinner than you. everyone's thinner than you. you look terrible. you look like shit. look at your reflection in that store window, you look awful. you're disgusting. etc. etc. etc.

Once I'm at a "normal" bmi maybe i'll feel better. Except I know that I won't. Once I reach 120 lbs I will feel a little better I think, since I was okay for a while at that weight while I was in recovery. Won't be enough though, it never is.

will mamaVISION save the children?

2007-08-29T04:56:00.000-07:00

as we all know, parents are all powerful gods of their childrens' lives, able to stop any and all harmful behavior if it starts or prevent it from happening.

oh wait, that was in fantasy-land, wasn't it. i forgot i was supposed to be talking about the real world, because i've been reading mamaV too long.

mamaV is the mother of a young girl, and she's probably a decent mom. it's only natural for her to want to believe that parents are the solutions to their childrens' problems. so in her simplistic thinking if more moms like her knew about proana they would be able to stop the young girls from participating in it.

i know, i know. it's ludicrous, right? but she seems to believe this.

reality check: first off, even decent parents can't prevent their children from experimenting with risky behaviors. and even decent parents that hear about a specific risky behavior probably won't have any way to know if their child is participating in it.

but also let's think about the types of girls who are attracted to proana or who are at risk for developing a serious eating disorder. i think it's pretty fair to say that these girls are less likely than most to have great parents. one major factor behind the sort of borderline wannarexia/mini-eating disorder behavior that goes along with proana is almost always looking for love or attention, and that means these girls aren't getting enough of it. not always, but often. and i would suggest that the ones who are truly at risk, as opposed to harmlessly flirting with a rebellious persona, are the ones with troubled family and social lives.

mamaV herself is an excellent example of why healthy people with good family lives aren't at risk. sure, she dabbled in anorexia. but she did it for a job, and she came to her senses and went back to her priviledged life after a little while. that's what happens when healthy people with good families dabble in eating disorders. they don't get sick, they just go through a slight rough patch and come through just fine.

so, if mamaVISION is intended to inform parents and thus quell the rising tide of proana i'm telling you right now it ain't gonna happen. as i said in my previous post more publicity will only strengthen proana, and more parents knowing about it won't change that.

PROANA and PUBLICITY

2007-08-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

two things that should never go together, in my opinion.

well, i've had another debate over at mamaVISION, this time over whether mamaV will help or hurt the situation if she brings more publicity to pro ana by denouncing it in the mainstream media.

it seems so self-evidently obvious to me that the pro ana movement will only grow the more publicity it gets. but who knows, i figured, i could be wrong (never happened yet but always possible). so i asked the question over at my home forum and so far everyone seems to agree, and i've found one person who originally found pro ana after seeing something about it on oprah. negative publicity will bring a few people with eating disorders to proana forums and it will bring in a shitload of wannarexics seems to be the consensus so far. honestly, i think people who are against proana and most people who are themselves proana would prefer that not to happen. but mamaV has her ego and she wants to lead a revolution, so it's likely that she won't listen or will dismiss this argument.

i can just see it now. pro ana growing stronger and stronger, while a counter group of anti anas led by mamaV goes all over the media screaming about how this trend must be stopped and sharing horror stories. meanwhile they're feeding the very trend they supposedly want to have stopped!

ridiculous.

if you're not angry...

2007-08-26T19:10:00.000-07:00

Back when I used to be a person I worked with troubled teenage girls and I always preferred to see an angry girl, rather than a depressed or withdrawn one. Sure, angry kids were hard to take, they fought, swore, rebelled, broke rules, and made a staff members life difficult in a million ways. In contrast a sad, withdrawn girl would often be a favorite among other staff members. So easy, so polite, poor thing.

Thing is, though, when I saw an angry girl I knew they hadn't given up. They had energy, they had life left in them. Deep down somewhere they must have hope, I figured. If only I could convince them to fight for themselves instead of fighting against everyone else then their own strength would carry them through.

So, here we are in the present day and I am a complete and utter fuckup. Near the end of that job, my first after college, I began losing weight for the very first time. It wasn't exactly the start of my eating disorder, since I was over 200 pounds and I didn't get that heavy by not already having some form of disordered eating, believe me. However, it was the start of my first anorexic phase. I left the job, applied for a masters program in social work, and screwed it up both years because of my anorexia. The second time I had to leave school and I haven't had a real job since (that is, a job that fits my experience and educational background). Right now I'm on disability and unemployed.

Still, I'm angry. This blog is proof. I'm not typical of eating disordered types. I'm not meek. I don't try to hide my opinions, I don't follow others. So I guess by my own logic it means I haven't given up.

i miss recovery/i hate recovery

2007-08-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

i miss recovery so much sometimes. right this second i'm back to plan A, which is lose about 30 more pounds and then go back to OA. i was so happy the year i participated in the program, my life was coming back together, i had friends, i was starting to like myself. it was wonderful.

but damnit if it isn't a fucking crock! ok, the 12 step format worked for me, but i'm not sure i could go back after seeing it more critically. back when i was part of the program i was able to just shrug of the things that bugged me or turn a blind eye. could i give myself over to the program again after leaving though? there's a lot wrong with OA.

and don't even get me started on any form of traditional recovery. therapy, inpatient, outpatient day treatment, groups. absolutely none of it worked for me or stood any chance of working for me long term.

see, the way i figure it there are two types of eating disordered people in recovery. one type is able to recover, one type is resistant to treatment. the able to recover type has a struggle but can make it out of their ed completely. the resistant type might not be able to fully commit to recovering or like me they might throw themselves into it and desperately want it but find themselves relapsing the second they let their guard down. for us resistant types the eating disorder is an enemy that just lies in wait for years if necessary and the least thing cvan be enough to tip us back into ed hell. which was why i liked OA, constant vigilance for the rest of your life was the plan there and it made sense to me. but so few OAers struggled with anorexia and bulimia, and there were lots of other issues. sigh. i do wish i'd just kept going to meetings when i first began to relapse, that i'd done anything necessary to stay strong in my program rather than prioritizing my job instead. if only if only if only.

i hate anorexics

2007-08-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

obviously, i top the list of anorexics i hate. even though right now i don't fit the criteria for anorexia by any stretch of the imagination, of course.

all the other ones though, i also hate. we are such a shallow, stupid bunch of mean, competitive bitches. acting like being anal retentive is a good thing by saying we want "perfection". and don't give me any bullshit about our high IQs either, because by the time your brain's been starved a while you have the IQ of a mushroom. give us half a chance and we'll talk about nothing but calories and goal weights and what we ate today. we are selfish too, refusing treatment or trying to get around treatment when we are in it, no matter who it hurts. we are liars, and worse we lie to ourselves. and most anorexics have about as much self-awareness as a squid.

decent day today. my weight is going in the right direction again. i've been restricting well despite my fears that all my binging while on vaction would have formed too much of a habit for me to get back into things. haven't even been sticking my finger down my throat too often. i've decided to scrap my goal weight of 120, unofficially for now, but in my minds 120 is now just a starting point.

see? see how boring and fucking self obsessed we all are? even me, and i consider myself intelligent, my brain isn't starved (yet), but the thing i most want to discuss is my weight and my calories. and i want to whine about how fucking fat i am. i am just dying to get below 140- i was 140 before i went on vaction and gained 10 pounds in 3 weeks. stupid weak piece of shit. but the important thing is that my weight is going in the right direction. and when i finally make it back into the normal weight range it will be an awesome victory. after that, 120. the weight i maintained in recovery all of last year. the weight i thought i'd get to and go right back to the 12 steps. but not anymore, fuck all 12 of them, i want to be maybe 104 or so before i even think more about "recovery" also known as bullshit to those of us with the resistant-to-treatment type of eating disorders (or what i like to call the "real" eating disorders).

rant over. kisses to my nonexistant audience.

i love my eating disorder

2007-08-19T17:06:00.000-07:00

ok first off let me say i am in an absolutely awful mood right now. i spent about 3 weeks with my brother and had an awesome time- but now i'm home, i've gained back 10 pounds i had lost, and my brother is going back to school in a few days.

but, honestly, once i'm back into the swing of restricting things will be ok again. sort of a numbed angry scared ok, but way better than feeling like absolute shit, like i do now. and that's been the story of my life... except for when i was in OA of course... but apart from that it's been either restricting and mostly happy, things crashing completely because of restricting and losing too much weight, or eating too much and being COMPLETELY depressed and hopeless and miserable. there's nothing worse than overeating- which is why i'd oined OA of course. but i can't go back until i lose all the weight i gained since leaving. and unfortunately that's a bit of a problem too, because by the time i've lost the 60 pounds i'd wanted to lose i'll just keep going.

BECAUSE I'M FUCKING HAPPIER RESTRICTING. alright? what part of that is so hard to understand? and isn't trying to recover and failing 3 times enough? can't i just fucking die this time? i'd rather leave a skinny corpse than live fat and miserable or cycle this way forever.

well, i warned you i was in a shit mood.

the aquarium- the only racially divirse place in boston?

2007-08-19T09:31:00.000-07:00

in case anyone was wondering where all the black people are, apparently they all go to the aquarium on the weekend. ok, seriously, who knew that the aquarium was such a brilliant tapestry of racial and cultural diversity??? i went twice in the past two weeks with my brother- the first time we went with one of his friends and got high off cookies made with marijuana, the second time we went back sober just to see the fish. both times i noticed how much more diverse it seemed than everywhere else. i used to live in dochester and before then in mattapan, and that's where all the black folks are, in case anyone was wondering. then recently i moved to cambridge and i can't leave my apartment without being reminded of how i now am fitting in nicely with the rich white people and their college age offspring. but at the aquarium you had it all, from rich to lower middle class (i assume poor people can't afford $20 per person to gape at sharks), white, black, asian, indian, foreign, american, bostonian, tourists... i saw a woman in a burqua for allah's sake!!!

why on earth the aquarium would be the one small point of cultural convergence i can't imagine. i guess because it's both "educational" and has sharks. but my goodness more types of people go to the aquarium than i could have imagined. couples on dates? who knew. if i ever have a girlfriend again we are SO going to the aquarium.

a novel method of childrearing

2007-07-30T03:21:00.000-07:00

i was brought up Unitarian Universalist, which is a fancy way of saying i was pretty much brought up with no religion. there are a lot of things i like about UU beliefs, but i don't think it's a great way of raising children.

it seems to me that some cultures do a better job of raising children in this crazy dangerous modern american world than others. the amish, orthodox jews, and muslims, for example. oh, and mormons. it seems to me that all these cultures raise children that are smart, hard working, and able to resist the excesses of our culture.

but what on earth do you do if you were raised UU and don't believe all the outlandish crap that goes along with those cultures? if converting is unthinkable? i have found a solution!

make up a culture to bring your kids up in. call it whatever you like. "blueish" for instance. then you can make up all sorts of crazy rules, things like no television, no alcohol, no barbie dolls. you can tell your children what a hard working studious people you belong to. if they want to know where the other blueish are, make up an "old country" and maybe throw in a genocide to explain how few of you there are. for a laugh you can even come up with some ridiculous traditional costume and then laugh to yourself as you send your son to school in a long dress, or force your daughter to wear a silly hat at all times. and unlike any of the pre-existing cultures you can sneak in progressive values, like equality of the sexes and independant thought.

now, certainly one downside is that you'll have to follow all the rules you come up with yourself. but the beauty of the scheme is that rather than being a strict and unfair parent you can blame all your rules and requirements on your culture. you can bring your child up with a feeling of pride in their non-existent heritage, and if you construct your story carefully enough they may never figure out that their "culture" was a total fantasy from the beginning!

yups, it's genius i know. too bad i'm not planning on ever having kids, huh?

so why, exactly, does mamavision bug the hell outta me?

2007-07-28T04:13:00.000-07:00

got a reply from mamavision, which was nice i guess. its weird in these sorts of situations where i know i was sort of acting-out. is it better for it to just fade away or to at least be acknowledged? on the one hand, everone wants to be acknowledged. on the other i can't help but be embarassed at my need to pick fights with well-meaning people. if only i were content to rail at the bush administration for the iraq war!

so, i went back and read enough to be sure i have my facts straight. ms. mamavision has a degree in broadcast journalism, and she works in sales (raking in the big bucks- but she still needs her teenage readers allowance money, natch). no wonder she's so good at getting attention! she's not just some well meaning, wholesome mom- she's a pro. i'm not saying that her being a pro makes her a bad person, but she isn't unskilled in the ways of all things media.

so why does her blog rub me the wrong way?

1. i feel talked down to. when i read her blog i feel like women in general and anorexics in particular are patronised. for instance, she implies that women are mindless zombie victims of the fashion world. as a former model perhaps she has an inflated view of how influential models are in the wider world?

2. she takes and uses pictures from pro-ana sites. once you post your pictures they're out there for anyone to use however they like, sure. that doesn't make it RIGHT for someone to take them and use them without the person's knowledge or permission. she only takes pictures of the sickest girls, which are a tiny minority, and she often subtly mocks the pictures and puts down the people in them. i can't help wondering, is she trying to help heal girls involved in pro-ana? or just to make fun of them? if you're victimising the very community you turn around and claim to want to help i think you're suspect.

3. people fawn over her. i made a small criticism in a comment on her blog post about "child" models and like 5 people immediately responded to contradict me, one of them casting aspersions on my intelligence! you read comments from people who are suffering with eds on her blog and they're like hi mamav this is my very sad story please help me please respond! it isn't her fault that people leave those sorts of comments, but the thought that they could find some sort of help from this woman, that this chick has any kind of wisdom or answers for them, it makes my stomach crawl a bit. go to your friends, your family, a doctor, a minister, a therapist, anything for gods' sake but not some random blogger who makes fairly obvious points about modern culture and claims to care about people with eds.

4. she doesn't know shit about a real eating disorder. ok, i admit this one is partly speculation. but for her to say "i've been there" seems like a HUGE stretch to me. as far as i can tell she got into modelling, had a fairly brief period of eating disordered behavior in furtherance of her career, and was able to leave that behavior behind without too much trouble. as someone who has lost jobs, friends, lovers, and educational opportunities to my eating disorder that sure seems like ED-lite to me. i make an informal distinction between hardcore eds which are resistant to treatment, and light eds which go away after the first round of treatment, or without any treatment at all. one of the reasons i don't worry overly much about the impact of pro-ana is that i think most people have ed-lite, which means that they'll soon come to their senses and be fine. as opposed to hardcore eds which will exist regardless of whatever is or isn't on the internet.

so, do i think this chick is a bad person? probably not. but i think she is self-promoting, opportunistic, and patronising, and i don't think she ever had an ed the way i have an ed. i don't think she thinks through her arguments most of the time, and i think her use of pictures off pro-ana sites is a low blow.

***UPDATE!!!***
looks like mamavision plans to use her donations to market her book and speaking tour! dude, this is pretty hilarious, isn't it? when i put in the stuff about her being self-promoting i felt like i was going out on a bit of a limb, but i thought what the hell, it's a blog no one reads, who cares? but now that she's suggested using the money to promote herself i can't help but consider myself prescient!

here at some more of god's biggest mistakes we spot your character flaws before you even exhibit them!

why do i always have to go and have opinions

2007-07-27T18:33:00.000-07:00

i guess i'm just a complete asshole. i mean, what's next, my deciding that i am morally opposed to motherhood and apple pie?

i HATE somethingfishy.org. Somethingfishy is an eating disorder recovery website, and it has a forum on it. i was a member of the forum after i left my first pro-ana forum, and i HATED it. it was moderated and censored beyond belief. my specific problem at the time was that i had come to feel very comfortable in my pro-ana forum and i had made a lot of friends there, but i was trying to recover. could i discuss this on somethingfishy? nope. the site forbade any mention whatsoever of pro-ana websites, lest some innocent young thing be led to them by the mere mention of their existence. so my post was locked when i simply tried describing my problem, without mentioning a specific site, or even the actual phrase "pro-ana". during my time there i had several clashes with the mods, not for violating rules but because if i disagreed with something one of them said i made my case and didn't back down. this didn't go over well, and to my knowledge no one else on the site at the time ever disagreed with a mod over anything.

then eventually, after i had mostly stopped going to the forum, somethingfishy was bought out by some corporation that owned a bunch of ed recovery and addiction recovery hospitals. ok, i'm sorry, but that is something DAMN fishy. creepy and unwholesome, for an ed recovery forum to be owned by a for-profit business.

and while we are on the subject of those in the "recovery" business. dont they make their money on us ed sufferers or alchoholics or drug addicts going back into them over and over and over again? wouldnt they lose like half their business if everyone actually got better and never went back after treatment? so what possible incentive is there for them to create a truly effective program???? no wonder relapse rates are so high, out treaters get PAID for our relapses.

anywaysie what brings this little rant on was that i've now just picked a fight with this mamavision chick twice. the first i had a sort of point, but i was partly being an asshole. but the second time i was honestly pissed off. this chick has a blog that is part anti-fashion indstry and part anti-ana. which is fine. she claims to want to be some sort of voice of reason to the pro-ana community, which i think is bullshit since i'm perfectly capable of reason on my own- but seeing as most of pro-ana are 13 year old wannabe morons i'm sure they could use a voice of reason.

no, what pissed me off is that this chick is asking for donations to keep her blog going. why does this bother me? well, from what i've read she is a journalist. and in the post where she asked for donations she also mentioned that she's been approached about writing a book based on her blog. she is obviously a pro and perfectly capable of taking her anti-pro-ana bullshit and turning it into financial opportunities for herself. sure, she might have to pay to keep her website going, but aren't there startup costs associated with any small business? but no, instead of writing her little book and using the money to support the website she goes and asks her 13 year old anorexic moron readership for the money. wtf? what do they get out of it, while she gets fame and fortune by being the "voice of reason" for the pro-ana movement.

on behalf of the pro-ana movement (which i have absolutely no right to speak for) i say: screw you, lady.

***EDIT: ok, when i wrote this i had never had a comment on my blog, but now that it's gotten a teeny bit of attention i wanted to go back and just say that i don't think most people on pro-ana are morons, and i don't think all 13 or 14 year olds are morons. i do think pro-ana has more than its share of morons (and 13 year olds) but certainly it isnt everyone or every 13 year old. also, from what i can tell of mamavision's readership, she has fewer morons and 13 year olds than pro-ana does, but she still has more than her fair share of anorexic morons, and at least half her readers are under 20***

argh!

2007-07-19T15:18:00.000-07:00

i have totally failed at keeping this blog up! but i have lost quite a bit of weight, about 30 pounds or so. now i'm 144. but i started throwing up my food a couple months ago and i've gotten stuck on that bulimic thing, trying to get back to pure restricting but so far its only half the time that i can make it through the day with no purge

five

2007-05-04T14:45:00.000-07:00

well, i've finally started losing some weight. five pounds, to be exact. i have a long way to go, but i have officially begun.

i'm at my parents house, alone, for this week. i'm glad because i can eat as i like and not worry about them. but being home has meant having more types of food available which means TEMPTATION. i wasn't tempted before, when i had only the food i was eating every day available. but now i have a fridge full of stuff and it's harder to stick to my 400-450 calories a day regimen.

it's weird because when i'm most at risk isn't when i am truly hungry. when my stomach hurts or growls it just makes me feel good, strong, on track. but soon after i've already eaten, before i have a chance to get hungry, that's when i feel the most temptation.

i've been wanting a binge, but purging has no attraction for me so i've been holding off. i went through a phase of purging quite often a few years ago, but i think when i straight up restrict i feel better. i don't think i want a binge if i'm not going to purge- so i'm hoping that will stop me from doing it. still, fingers crossed, because it's hard to resist and i'm worried if i give in once it will be months of binging again before i get my restricting ability back...

losing my f*cking mind!

2007-04-24T17:23:00.000-07:00

i feel like i'm gonna lose it, dude. it feels like things just aren't working, i'm not losing any weight, it's hopeless and i'm stuck being fat forever!

seriously. i know i barely leave my house lately (i'm unemployed since last november) much less excersize. and i never weighed myself when i first first started restricting- i waited a few days. but it's been close to two weeks now and i've eaten less than 800 calories (and the past week or so around 600) and i don't seem to be budging the numbers on my scale.

i'm getting fucking paranoid about this, dude. i have a LOT of weight to lose. sure i could reduce my calories a little more, and i could definitely start walking/excersizing. but you'd think eating 600 calories (down from like 6000 or more when i was binging!) would be enough to make me LOSE some FUCKING weight!!!!

another day another 600 calories

2007-04-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

i reduced my food intake today, i had animal crackers and a protein bar which added up to between 500 and 600 calories instead of my 800 usual. tomorrow i'm going to try and go to the supermarket, maybe get started on a new regimen. i weighed myself yesterday and again today, bad bad news and i feel awful. i've gained like 60 lbs in the past year. i can't believe i let it go that far.

i am unbelievably fat and gross. it's so hard to stay strong and stay positive when my goals are so far away...

right now I'm aroung 175 lbs. My goal is to get back below 120. anything past that i won't think about until i make it.

it's going to be a long long slog. i'm thinking 6 months, even if i work hard. averaging more than 10 lbs a month has always been near impossible for me no matter how much i restrict. but maybe if i start excercising i could shorten that time.

the only thing worse than this is binging

2007-04-18T19:13:00.000-07:00

I'm down today. I keep remembering all the bad times when I was sick and unable to eat even if I wanted to. And here I am trying to do it all again. I wish there was another way.

Then I think about how unhappy I am when I am binging, how fat and disgusting and hopeless I feel. And that is way worse, period. So I have to keep going and when I get thin again I'll deal with any problems that causes. For now I may not like it but it's this or binging and gaining weight and hating myself and wanting to die because of it.

I'm too old for this shit.

what i eat

2007-04-17T16:48:00.000-07:00

my usual pattern of restriction has me eating the same thing every day for weeks or sometimes months at a time. that way i never have any temptation. i binged for a months on crap, so my current diet is a restricted version of the same crap. specifically, i've been eating one toll house ice cream sandwich cookie (500 cal) and one bottle of strawberry milk (290 cal). which makes 800 calories total (rounded up, or course). i expect this to change once i move at the end of this month, but until then it's a good rut.

my last time around i used to eat a protein bar and a bowl of cereal every day, and the time before that i had my least healthy diet ever, when i ate one pint of fat free frozen yogurt each day. the first time around i had more variety, but i remember almost every day eating half a microwaveable chicken cordon bleu almost every night.

i tend to prioritize having a low calorie total over everything, and it's easier for me to only eat once or twice a day so that i don't have any temptation to stray. usually once i get going i have around 550 calories a day, right now i'm over that but at least i'm under 1200, so hopefully i'll make a change in a month or so and reduce my total.

i haven't weighed myself for a long time (too scared!!) but eventually i'll face the scale again. i miss my scale. but if i see my weight right now it might freak me out so badly that i give up and start binging again. better not to know.

2 days later, still in the game

2007-04-16T22:31:00.000-07:00

my fingers are crossed that i'm getting that momentum back. it's about a week since i started restricting, and it'll take a good while till i'm out of the danger zone. when eating normally is impossible and unthinkable and restricting is easy. i'm not there yet, but i have been and i will be again.

i was thinking about my first time. my first diet. i was so hopeful and innocent and sure i'd found the secret of life or something. i had a good thing going... wish i'd never let them talk me into recovery. i wouldn't be fat and miserable, i'd be thin. or dead. either way, it would be better than all the shit i;ve gone through.

but noooooo, i had to go and let them drag me back from the fucking brink. and then i went around a second time, and a third. that make's this my third relapse and i hope i've learned my lesson. "recovery" doesn't work for me. it just makes me fat and unhappy.

Welcome back my old friend

2007-04-15T14:37:00.000-07:00

Dare I hope that my beloved anorexia has at last returned to me? Is it possible that at last my peace of mind will return and the weight will fall off my body once again?

See, I made a terrible mistake. I tried to recover and leave it behind me. I tried to lead a "normal" life. Well, that's all over with, fingers crossed.

The only way to go from here is down.