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Anonymous
I'm embarassed by the fact I used to believe this shit. I've gone through three eating disorders since I started college-- anorexia, bulimia and now compulsive overeating. (Though I guess it could still be my body going "FEED ME, SEYMOUR!") I'm more or less on the road to recovery now, and pretty level-headed about what an idiot I was throughout the course of the ana/mia experience. I still look like a freak, I've had a lot of health problems and probably fucked up my metabolism for the rest of my life, but I think I've come out it all a lot wiser. It is pretty humiliating to have people think of it as a retarded choice or a diet gone awry, though.
It's easy to forget that in spite of all the creepy "HEIL ANA!!!" mentality, eating disorders are mental illnesses, not subcultures or concious choices you psyche yourself into. I think if you don't already have the kind of painful, delusional vulnerability that would lead you to view this image as anything but the height of bullshit, then all the pro-ana faggotry in the world isn't going to make you that way. And if you get caught up in the cycle of an eating disorder, your levels of hormones and neurotransmitters get more and fucked up until it becomes self-perpetuating. Ultimately, everyone is responsible for their own actions, and no-one's forcing you to starve yourself, but that said, it's easy to be too hard on those with EDs.
>>19426 I don't know about that. They're both bad, but I think anorexia actually has the greater mortality rate. The amount of nutrients and energy actually lost through vomiting is smaller than you'd imagine, especially if it was preceded by a genuine binge, so most bulimics are at least able to maintain a weight within a few kilos of what's healthy. Also, so many anorexics purge and overexcercise that it's kind of a moot point.
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