Maelstrom In A Mirror:
The Search For A Middle Ground
I don't think that anyone who has struggled with eating disorders for a lengthy period of time can honestly claim that they have everything in their lives under control, with an emphasis on the word CONTROL. I know for a fact that it applies to me. Even though I crave desperately to reach my ultimate goal weight of 90 pounds, there's always an irritating voice in my head saying, repeatedly, "So you think you have mastery over ME? HAH! That's just too funny for words. You starve, purge, exercise like a mad fool and for what? To reach some random "magic number" on the scale? You know, that hateful little machine in your bathrooms that is constantly taunting you and torturing you with its horrid digits that stubbornly refuse to land in the middle digits. I don't have to tell you how important it is to control the number of pounds that choke our bodies and make us weak, pitiable and consummate losers. That's the reality, whether we wish to acknowledge it or not. When I awaken in the early hours, early enough to get in four hours of running per day, I find myself gravitating toward that dictatorial scale, with which I have had a love/hate relationship forever it seems.
I regularly visit pro ana message boards and scan the posts from like-minded people who support and encourage one another to stick to their weight goals, hide their anorexia from their families and friends and look to others for a special kind of love and understanding that cannot be found anywhere else in their lives. Many messages are literally dripping with self-loathing, as people who have either not met their weekly weight-loss goals or who have somehow gained weight while restricting and exercising manically. And can I ever relate! So markedly.
Some of you visiting this site may be a bit put off with the pro-recovery parts. It is most assuredly not my intention to label people and put them in little cubbyholes that are marked with a sign saying either, "Come and embrace your ana", or, "recovery is the only legitimate way too go with eating disorders." No, I want to provide a safe place for those embracing either philosophy. Most of us waft back and forth anyway. How many of you feel that you are sometimes pulled in both directions and feel as though your symbolic limbs were being torn one way or the other. There is no right way or wrong way to deal with eating disorders. They are such an incredibly complex and mysterious, not only for those who care about us and worry for our physical and mental health, but for ourselves too.
So where does this leave us? Prior to Internet access, people struggled in silence with eating disorders. In the former low-tech world, where sufferers and survivors were literally on their own and had no access to any kind of support, anorexia seemed always to be presented as the enemy. A person with anorexia and/or bulimia had to struggle alone in a frightening vacuum. There were no other like-minded people and these lonely people were quite often overwhelmed.
Now that the world is online, everything has changed. Even if troubled anas are wide awake at 3 AM, there are many others with whom to chat and obtain encouragement and friendship. The dramatic rise in pro-ana websites has led to an angry backlash by experts in eating disorders and speedy actions to shut down many of these sites. Aside from being a blatant smack in the face for free speech, these so-called rescuers are often misenformed and sometimes react emotionally, thus making the problem infinitely more toxic.
Many of us are overwhelmed with anxiety if the scale number is deemed too high and, conversely, can be fearful that the weight is coming off too fast. Thus we are never truly happy or satisfied with our ana lives. The problem is far too complex to talk in terms of all black or white. When and if mutual understanding and a healthy dose of reality are to occur, then we can emerge from the darkness and be embraced by a less hostile world. And to be frank, that just isn't happening anytime soon.
What interpretation of these two pictures do you find positive and like-minded? The trio before their weight loss, or the same girls after losing a major amount of weight? It can be a very difficult decision. I know I cannot say with any certainty come to either conclusion. The problem is far too complex for pat answers.
