I adore your blogs.. I wish all those people would realize what they are doing will never make them lose the weight.. & if they do what a high cost it comes at... I once again recommended.

Great post. I hope some of those pro-anas will read this and realize what they're doing to themselves and others.

You've said it perfectly. I was actually quite pissed off early this morning about this very thing.

every time you post a new blog it makes me feel empowered and encouraged like you're saying what i feel like i can't because i'm so angry about how other people have shaped the perception of how people like me who SUFFER and are FUCKING MISERABLE with this disease are seen.

i look up to you and appreciate your harsh and needed honesty.

love,
caitlin

yes, i'm really scared that my friends will discover one day and they'll see me as this shallow vain bitch... ):

Extremely well put! Thanks Strawberryninja for reccommending this post to me!
I'm writing very similar things on my blog, I'm fed up with the proana crap. How would people react if someone said "I'm pro cancer! it's so cool, I hope I get it" That sounds moronic right? well same goes to those proana or wannabes or whatever.
In my mind anorexia is a cancer eating up my mind and brain. I've had cancer as a child and anorexia is WORSE than the cancer battle!! I'm not exaggerating.

Thank you for writing this, it's exactly what I'm feeling also.

Aw shucks, I want to give you a mini but the computer won't allow me to do so

Come visit my site if you have time, I'd like to be your friend

I love your passion! I am behind you 100%...and I totally agree with you. Most people crash diet and don't really understand the metabolic process. And I also agree the most sufferers of Anorexia know more about food that their nutritionists and the general population. Obsession always outdoes reason in an Anorexics mind..and they know it. So I totally agree...and I have seen some pretty disgusting things on the internet about fasting competitions, bulemic tips on how to not gain weight etc...so you are doing an awesome thing by making that post. I hope you are doing ok and maybe one of these days I will get another chance to chat with you. Take care!

great post..and site.

<3

Well said... I hope you are doing well. 

Your post is wonderful. Being the unfortunate host to several mental health issues, including major treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, ED-NOS, SIH, and scarring skin picking, I can attest to the serious lack of glamour these issues provide to me.

The thing that frustrates me the most is when, despite the diagnostic qualifiers in the DSM-IV for Anorexia Nervosa, these pro-ana girls proudly self-diagnose themselves without any knowledge of the real criteria for such a label. (Not to mention the consequences of actually suffering from Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia, or Compulsive Overeating.) Then, when it is brought to their attention that they are not, in fact, even close to fitting those unfortunate criteria, they have the audacity to feel they've been insulted, when, in fact, they've been informed that they don't actually have a life-threatening illness.

And the above comparison to being "pro-cancer" is spot on. Can you imagine the reaction if someone was parading themselves around, shaving their heads and brows, and making glittery avatars about how they have or wish they could get cancer?

It's just as insulting when the pro-ana girls make light of the real misery of others, most of whom wish they could be free of the spectre of their ED, even for a few days of peace.

Thanks for the post! <3 

mad kudos to you.

I totally agree with everything you've been ranting about.
there are a lot of fucking stupid girls on xanga.
a lot.
To play devil's advocate, however
you are so right about crash-dieters who have misappropriated the word anorexia to themselves when that is not in fact a disease they are suffering. and then the alarmist media jumping on with them and give credence to their ill-conceived choice of identifier only perpetuates it.
but even the stupid stupid girls are struggling with something......
i've seen very very few blogs belonging to wannarexics without any posts that describe major struggles with self-esteem and whatnot. and if otherwise healthy, non-anorexic young girls are acting out self-destructive, self-harming and often extreme behaviors....... i still feel for them. anorexic or not
i think it's a difference of degree. a major difference.
i just find myself hoping for those girls that the month they spend starving themselves because prom is approaching doesn't turn into a lifetime.
that the purging they do after meals for a week because a boyfriend left them doesn't turn into a lifetime.

though it is disturbing and twisted all the cheery, positive postings about starvation and the encouraging of it.....
ok maybe i can't explain that behavior fully. but still...... i find that i don't even write on xanga on the good days. i guess other people do.
i don't know if i wish i'd had xanga ten years ago or not, i don't know if it would have helped me or triggered me further.......
so many of these girls are 15 or younger. that's the other thing. how many of us weren't idiots at age 16? and while i also see the largest group of incredibly intelligent, articulate, poised high-school age girls on this xanga, there are a lot of dumbass girls too.... but they're still 15.

anorexic or not, they all seem to be hurting too, in some way. who am i to judge the degree of another's suffering based on the guidelines of some medical manual?

you are doing them a service being brave to speak of the true terrors of real disease. i'm not anorexic. i'm not bulimic. anymore. maybe. i don't know. it's not a word i chose for myself. it was chosen for me once. then taken away, then given again.....

i just feel sorry for the young girls who are unhappy and insecure enough that crash-diets seem like something to strive for. the problem is the people who equate anorexia with sexy. and if anything, the media created the glamorization of emaciation, not the 15 year olds. i think those that "dream" of finally "becoming" anorexic speak like that out a desperation that i sympathize with. i only hope for them that their dreams aren't realized. i hope that they remain free to "chose ana."

they just need to be taught the real harm they are doing themselves, and the harm they do others by clinging to their misnomer of "anorexic." taught to call it a fucking diet, not a disease. but it's sad when young girls feel so ugly that they diet in crazy ways. even if it's a "choice" not to eat for days..... does that make it any better for the choser? fasting isn't easy, some level of desperation and misery exists for someone to "chose" that.

educate but don't hate? could that be possible? this is a bile-filled cyber-world, no pun intended......

sorry for the rant. personally i can never decide whether i detest or pity the wannarexics.......

@lemonjuiceonair - 

(On my other account atm, owner of nonemorepessimistic)

I agree, actually, that you can't fully blame them for the way they think. With all the pressure put on young women to be thin and pretty, it's not wonder that many are willing to go to extreme lengths to get there. The do deserve some sympathy... after all, you don't have to suffer from a mental illness to feel pain. We all hurt in some way.

Honestly, I don't hate these girls. If I did, I'd probably just ignore them or bitch them out. I made this journal mainly because I want them to know the truth about eating disorders, and how dangerous crash dieting can be. If they still choose to starve themselves... well, at least it was an informed decision. What is scary is that someone who doesn't know any better might end up making themselves seriously ill through this kind of extreme dieting... and if I can prevent just one girl from doing that to herself, I suppose it'll be worth it.

Don't' get me wrong, I don't see myself as some kind of hero for putting this journal up... part of this is also about venting the frustration I get from seeing so many girls glamorizing the disorder... and it is upsetting to see people encouraging others to partake in this stuff. I think I detest AND pity them... as angry as it makes me to see them helping each other to kill themselves, I also feel some sympathy for them.

Of course, the adult pro-anas and wannarexics just plain piss me off. When you're 20+ years old, you should know better than to encourage someone to do this to themselves, and that so many of them hang out on these pro-ana forums with 14-year-old kids, telling them how to starve themselves... it sickens me. "Mandi", the woman I mentioned at the beginning of this entry, is one of those people. Her billions of websites are all full of 13-17 year olds... how can someone do that, and still sleep at night?

I just wish that pro-ana would go away. It's not helping anyone, regardless of what they think...

i'd like to say thank you very much for this blog and for thankyoulittlegirl for recommending it. i've had discussion with adults with their masters in social work and doctorine in pyschiatry who don't fucking understand any of this shit. you could say i'm kinda bipolar with my eating issues. some months its hardly eating a damn thing and losing 10lbs within two weeks and other months its eat everything on earth and overdosing on laxatives and purging the mess up.

but thank you, i really apperciate you taking your time to explain to all the dip shit that figure that eating disorder are the new trends of the year. i would never support anyone to have a life-threatening disease. its almost like being pro-cancer.

Strong post.  I appreciate words like this.  It really punches them in the gut (no pun intended).

-M

Are you kidding? Why are you enabling others? Do you really think you are helping? It seems to me like you are just flaunting your "disease" for no other reason to put others down and make yourself feel better, just because the are your perfect definition of "anorexic" doesn't mean that they don't have some sort of problem. If they are willing to fast as do these things, its something. When you post things like this it just make people want to do it in spite of you. Oh and your "definition" of anorexia is not entirly correct, "anorexia nervosa" is an extream fear of gaining weight or an emotional disorder characterized by and excessive disire to lose weight by refusing to eat. "Anorexia" is a medical symptom of reduced appetite which is not psychiatric. As for your "reason" you are wrong on that account as well, that may be your reason for it, but as much as you may think it, you are not the only one with problems, causes for it include: low self esteem, biochemical factors, psychiatric disorders (which encompases more than yours, a lot more) social and cultural pressures, family pressures, genetic predisposition. Other reasons include personality traits like perfectionism, obessiveness and withdrawal. As for the psycological disorders, those include things like: anxiety, depression, and ocd. As well as many social reasons, but I have wasted enough time on you. A tip, in the future, don't go rant about how you think you are better than people and give reason for things that only pertain to you, and try to pass it off as the definiton of the "disease" or whatever it may be. If your really afraid of it happening again, just talk with the person for 10 minutes and they will see how disgusting you really are.

@VashTheStamp - 

The people she has mentioned about DO have a problem, indeed, but it is not anorexia nervosa.

I will be quoting various texts to further explain, because I'm too damned lazy to type this all out myself right now.
--
As for the incorrect definition of anorexia nervosa, you are lacking some details. This is the diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa, including both it's subtypes (c/o DSM IV TR);

A. Refusal to maintain body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for age and height (e.g., weight loss leading to maintenance of body weight less than 85% of that expected; or failure to make expected weight gain during period of growth, leading to body weight less than 85% of that expected).

B. Intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even though underweight.

C. Disturbance in the way in which one's body weight or shape is experienced, undue influence of body shape on self-evaluation, or denial of the seriousness of the current low body weight.

D. In postmenarcheal females, amenorrhea, i.e., the absence of at least three consecutive menstrual cycles.

Type: Restricting Type vs. Binge-Eating/Purging Type.
--------------
Credit to: www.patient.co.uk

In the case of wannarexia, I agree, these people do have a problem and need to get help. In medical terms, wannarexia can be classified as either Munchausen Syndrome or Factitious Disorder. (Or both, Munchausen Syndrome being a subtype of Facticious Disorder).

Munchausen syndrome can be characterised by three features:

Simulated illness: either physical or psychiatric.
Pathological lying (pseudologia fantastica).
Wandering from place to place (peregrination): the patient typically presents to numerous different hospitals using different names.

In Munchausen syndrome:
Symptoms can be simulated, e.g. contamination of specimens to look like haematuria, haemoptysis, haematemesis.
A pre-existing illness can be aggravated.
Disease may even be self-induced, e.g. eating contaminated food to cause food poisoning.
People with Munchausen syndrome may go through unnecessary tests, operations, or uncomfortable investigations and procedures. They can cause themselves considerable injury. Costs incurred to health services for these repeated admissions and procedures can be huge.

Munchausen syndrome is not included as a discrete mental disorder in the World Health Organisation's International Statistical Classification of Diseases, 10th revision (ICD-10) or in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR). The official diagnosis in these classifications is Factitious Disorder.

However, many psychiatrists identify a subset of patients with factitious disorder and sub-classify them as having Munchausen syndrome. One way of looking at Munchausen syndrome is as an extreme variant of factitious disorder.

The DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for Factitious Disorder are:

The patient intentionally produces or feigns physical or psychological signs or symptoms.
Motivation for the behaviour is to assume the sick role.
External incentives for the behaviour are absent.
-----------------------------
Another possible syndrome that medically describes wannarexia is call Ganser Syndrome, which is a type of factitious disorder in which the person mimics behavior that is typical of a mental illness.

Credit to www.clevlandclinic.org

Ganser syndrome is a type of factitious disorder, a mental illness in which a person acts as if he or she has a physical or mental illness when in truth, he or she has caused the symptoms. People with factitious disorders act this way because of an inner need to be seen as ill or injured, not to achieve a concrete benefit, such as financial gain. They are even willing to undergo painful or risky tests and operations in order to obtain the sympathy and special attention given to people who are truly ill.
--------------------------------
Credit to Dr. Marc D. Feldman

Online Support for People with Illness

The Internet is a medium of choice for millions of people who need health-related information. Medical websites have multiplied exponentially over the past several years. Thousands of virtual support groups have sprung up for those suffering from particular illnesses. Whether formatted as chat rooms, as newsgroups, or in other ways, they offer patients and families the chance to share their hopes, fears, and knowledge with others experiencing life as they are. These online groups can counter isolation and serve as bastions of understanding, deep concern, and even affection.

Unfortunately, cyberspace resources are sometimes deliberately misused by people intent on deceiving others. False product claims in spam are perhaps the best-known example. But even in the relative intimacy of health support groups, individuals may choose to mislead others by pretending to have illnesses they do not. They divert the attention of the group toward their feigned battles with cancer, multiple sclerosis, anorexia nervosa, or other ailments. The eventual discovery of the deceptions can be devastating. One group member called it "emotional rape" to have cared so deeply about a person who lied to her and others from his first post on.

Munchausen by Internet

For decades, physicians have known about so-called factitious disorder, better known in its severe form as Munchausen syndrome (Feldman & Ford, 1995). Here, people willfully fake or produce illness to command attention, obtain lenience, act out anger, or control others. Though feeling well, they may bound into hospitals, crying out or clutching their chests with dramatic flair. Once admitted, they send the staff on one medical goose chase after another. If suspicions are raised or the ruse is uncovered, they quickly move on to a new hospital, town, state, or in the worst cases — country. Like traveling performers, they simply play their role again. I coined the terms "virtual factitious disorder" (Feldman, Bibby, & Crites, 1998) and "Munchausen by Internet" (Feldman, 2000) to refer to people who simplify this "real-life" process by carrying out their deceptions online. Instead of seeking care at numerous hospitals, they gain new audiences merely by clicking from one support group to another. Under the guise of illness, they can also join multiple groups simultaneously. Using different names and accounts, they can even sign on to one group as a stricken patient, his frantic mother, and his distraught son all to make the ruse utterly convincing.
-------------

As for nonemorepessimistic "flaunting her illness..."
Tell me where, exactly, you believe a post in this blog would depict her flaunting it?
Go through her entire blog and come back with some quote for me, please, I've been through the entire thing and have not found a single post I would deem as "flaunting."
I am also baffled when hearing you believe she claims that she is above everyone else. Obviously you seem to know so much about eating disorders that you would challenge her posts, and you've also confirmed that those suffering from eating disorders have low self-esteem.
"causes for it include: low self esteem" --- "don't go rant about how you think you are better than people"
You have contradicted your own comment, here. If she feels so horribly about herself, why would she believe she is better than everyone else?

If you have not the desire to do as I requested, I shall, then, assume you have just posted this idiocy to bother her, because you feel upset that she is speaking a truth that you are simply too ignorant to understand.
-------------
Another quote of yours;
"give reason for things that only pertain to you, and try to pass it off as the definiton of the "disease" or whatever it may be."
Take the time to read the comments above yours. There are a lot more people who agree, who aren't on Xanga, as well. You seem to be one of very few who have commented in disapproval.
------------------
On a last note, if I may quote something of yours again;
"Favorite Quotes: There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns"

Disregarding the fact that you are not a man, yet, you are a boy; You may as well pick up your gun and pay me a visit, you are neither logical or persuasive in any way. Although I highly doubt you can that far away from home without permission, or acquire a license to posses a firearm. (Perhaps you can steal one from an unsuspecting adult?)

Although I highly doubt you can that far away from home without permission

@TheStrawberryNinja - 

Although I highly doubt you can *get* that far away from home without permission.

Fucking typo, hahaha.