Pro Ana Messed Up



About five years ago, I realised that there was a following online called "pro ana"

I joined as many websites as I could, as I already had an eating disorder, and when I first started joining them the "pro ana" websites were all to do with tips and tricks, how to avoid eating in front of family and friends, how to throw up safely, you know, things like that.

I stopped joining them after a while, I started focussing on recovery, joining forums that were recovery based and so on. All was well, until I had a relapse. My dad called me fat in an argument, and told me I'd never get a boyfriend being so tubby. So I looked up some of my old proana sites

All of the pro ana websites I had joined in the beginning had gone. It happens, websites of that genre get shut down all the time. So I decided to try and find some more.

I joined a few, and they were mostly not so much pro ana as pro acceptance, as in these were websites that allowed eating disordered behaviour, but not any tips and tricks- like they'd support you in your starving yourself, but they'd suggest the right vitamins and such, eating vegetables that gave you the right amount of nutrients, suggesting good vitamin tablets.

But it wasn't good enough for me, I had been on all of those recovery websites, where they encourage you to indulge yourself every so often, they'd not slag you off if you'd eaten three cakes in a row- instead they'd ask if there was a reason behind it and if it was an indulgence or a binge- in other words, they'd encourage recovery. But the pro ana websites and the pro recovery websites were kinda close together- both wanted you to be looking after yourself, albeit in different ways

I typed "pro anorexia" into google, knowing that some of the sites that classed themselves by that name allowed tips and tricks, didn't judge if you hadn't eaten in over two weeks, didn't tell you that you needed to see a doctor if you had stuck your toothbrush down your throat to be sick.

At least, that was my impression

There was one site, I joined, because they seemed kinda cool with everything. I posted on there for a couple of months, until I was invited to an area of the site I hadn't been able to access before, because I didn't have enough posts.

The main admin sent me a PM to say that because I'd reached 550 posts, I was allowed into the new area. She called it "the ward"

I said "sure", and she let me have access.

Even as a new member, apparently I didn't have access to everything. There were journals and photo areas, but there was an area that my access wouldn't allow me into, even though it appeared on my screen

It was called "the curtain" and try as I might, I couldn't get past the link. Every time I clicked on it, a screen came up saying "you do not have access to this area"

Until one day, I logged in, and tried it again. When I clicked on the link to the curtain there was a PM, saying "Are You Sure?"

I said "I guess"

I tried clicking on the link, and what I saw there I never want to see again. The threads didn't have names I'd associate with anything much, but the first said "this is me", and it contained pictures of a girl being fed through the nose via a tube.

I understood why the pic was there- it was to show that there isn't any beauty in an eating disorder. I knew that then...and I know it now...

I decided to skip a few and clicked on another link. This thread showed a girl in who was severely underweight, with nobody around her. It was horrifying. I wish I had stopped clicking then, but my eating disordered mind was still saying I could be like that, even as I found the pictures terrifying

But I continued...there was one more thread I clicked on, it was entitled "clare" and what I saw scared me half to death. The girl, who I assumed was clare given the name of the thread, was emaciated beyond anything I'd seen before, but it wasn't the last picture in the thread, as was the case with the other threads. This one showed the girl lying on the bed, skinnier than I' d ever seen anybody, but there were other pictures further down, first with a nose tube, then with a tube into her belly, and finally hooked up to a full life support machine. By this time she looked like a skeleton. There was one last picture- the same girl lying in a coffin, obviously dead. The writing with the post said "this is clare, she started off reading proanorexia websites four years ago. Those websites encouraged her not to eat, told her that food was evil. There was one person, simpsonsgrrl, who told her she was ugly. She told my beautiful Clare that she needed to lose weight, because she would never get a boyfriend otherwise. Clare was a good girl, but she didn't understand how beautiful she was. She believed that food was evil, because the pro anorexia sites told her so. She starved to death because of the people on these sites, and we're certain it all started because of the user on her first pro anorexia site who went by the name of simpsongrrl. We forgive her, but we hope that she realises what she did"

As I read that, tears filled my eyes. I decided that pro anorexia wasn't for me. But I needed to know who simpsongrrl was. I needed to make sure she knew what she'd done, and I wanted her to suffer the way that Clare had

I looked up simpsongrrl, and found an email address. It pinged back an auto response when I sent it an email from a new address I'd set up purely to find out who it was.

It said

"Do you think you're ever going to get a boyfriend when you're so tubby"