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11:15 a.m. - 03/13/03
\"when we all want to seem like we've got it all figured out.::
[Rated C for Controversial.]

My head is messy as my room, confused and cluttered and I can't find my glasses through this, can't see clearly. Metaphorically speaking, everything is out of focus; more to the point, my heart feels swollen. It beats painfully to remind me it exists. And I love my heart, and this is absolutely not cool. All of this is absolutely not worth putting a girl through...

Yesterday, my morning thoughts were spiraling around the pro-ed issue once again. I think that's partly why I was so upset before even seeing the doc; I was running myself ragged trying to know what's right when it comes to this. I joined the stop-pro-ana diaryring, and in doing so, increased the intensity of my mixed feelings regarding that compaign. There are very few things I know for sure. I know that I, personally, hate the term ana and mia almost as much as I hate the terms anas and mias. I hate the latter two terms because I prefer adjectives, or something that separates- to some degree- illness frm identity. I would rather say I have bulimarexia than I am bulimarexic, and I would rather say I am bulimarexic, than I am bulimarexia. To me, those terms sound like naming yourself the illness, and I don't like that at all. It hurts me. So even the use of those terms on the anti-glorification sites hurts.

Also, I don't like the two-camp scene that this, like every other issue, is being collapsed into. A whole continuum of opinions about the war with Iraq has been collapsed into "pro-war or pro-peace?" A whole continuum of opinions on rights of women and fetuses has been collapsed into "pro-life or pro-choice?" And a whole, huge continuum of understandings on this wider than we know issue of ed-support has been collapsed to, "pro-ana/mia or against?" I don't like that. I don't like it at all. I think it's important that people take the stands they believe in, and I understand the intention of people who run anti-pro-ed sites, but at the same time, I don't think it does any good to attack each other. I think we need to understand each other. I still don't know why someone would be involved in the pro-ed culture, though I have my "theories"- and the way this course is running, I *can't* know. I just want to take the stakes out temporarily, the stakes we all feel in defending whether or not we're right. I just want to be educated. Why? Why are people involved in this subculture? Why are they protecting it? There is no part of anorexia or bulimia that isn't somehow wired to a valid human need, and I don't believe that this culture is purely the product of disease. I think there are needs that must be met, and I can't believe they're being met by an attack. At the same time, how hard is it for me, as a person in recovery, to come across all of this pro-ed material? How heartbreaking is it to have people holding up a banner that supports what killed my roommate, what threatens a girl who I will call my sister, that took away my life in all but the last way? And how fully could I accept someone's story, if it were given to me, when I'm so easily triggered by it. I need to understand this culture, but I can't enter it. I can't look at the sites safely. I know I'll shut down if I see them; I'm not to a point where I could do that, so how do I understand? What is the good- the true and human good- in this culture? I believe that the pro-ed subculture exists the way that eating disorders individually exist- to serve the needs of the sufferer, in a skewed and dangerous way. I believe that the, "Stop this right now!" response to the culture (shut the sites down) is similar to the "Stop this right now!" response to the individual (why won't you just *eat?*) Entirely understandable and void of understanding. If we approach a culture like missionaries, attempting to convert the members, how are we ever going to understand each other? If we don't understand, how can we ever *truly* help? And could I suspend my need, my desperate need, to help long enough to *just listen* to someone? Could I manage to sit with them, focus on them, not interrupt them with, "but" and "what about" and "well, you could just as easily say." These are people and this is a real subculture, and we can hate it with everything in us but what good does that do? What good does it do, truly, to shove it all underground? I suppose it does the anti-ed camp some good. It means I will never stumble across one of those sites and feel like breaking. It means I will never hear that rhetoric and have to fight for breath. It means those of us who don't live in that world won't be forced to look at it. But if the camps are our own construct, something we've created to separate ourselves, if in reality we're all so similar it's scary, then what good does it do *us*- all of us- to suffocate this? I had plenty of people try and push my illness out of their line of vision, to shake or shame in out of me. That wasn't a solution for me, personally, and I don't think it's a solution for the larger group. I think we need to set our armor down, which is scary; it's terrifying to me. I think we need to set our titles down, our quick-fix slogans and names. I think we need to go back to being people who just listen to each other and don't assume the other person doesn't have every reason in the world to be exactly where they are. How scared am I to associate with that culture? How scared am I that there's a part of me that will understand, and therfore connect to, the group that brings on so much of my pain? How scared am I to relate to pro-ana/mia culture, to say, "That makes so much sense" when for so long, their logic has left me bruised and sore and without voice...? I'm terrified, of course. I'm terrified to go near anything that could bring up more pain than I already feel about my eating disorder. I'm terrified to go near anything that could look support what killed Tracy, what's trying to kill Sara, and me, and a thousand other people. I'm terrified. But pushed underground, not given voice, not ever heard or understood, I can't believe it will grow less powerful. I can't believe that the needs which the world continues to not meet, continues to proclaim ill simply because their guised in illness, won't still create a world there in the dark. I think if I really want to help, I have to put that aside for a moment. I have to want to understand, instead. And to say that, to say, "I want to understand" terrifies me. It's risky. It could put me into pain I cannot take. So I don't know yet, if I do...of if I'm just another pro-recovery individual in the stop-pro-ana camp.

All I know is, I talked to a girl who may as well be my sister last night, about basically two things: herself and her illness. She knows very little about the former, which is the one I love. She knows a great deal about the latter, which scares me sleepless...And what of her, and me, and all the rest of the Rogers girls, if we hadn't been given that place? If we hadn't been heard, been healed, been understood so unconditionally. The people who saved my life (and the people who continue to save my life) made a strong distinction between who I am and how I was sick. They challenged the thoughts of my sickness while enforcing and affirming and empowering me (at a time when I knew her barely and as poison.) I guess I don't see the stop-pro-ana culture as knowing who the members of it are. And if we don't know them and their stories, how can we keep from challenging them? I don't want to challenge them, force them into a place of defense. I want to know them, which requires their separation from illness; it's nearly impossible to see someone through their ed. Identity is one of the first things you're stripped of, one of the first things it replaces...I'm just so confused. They say they don't want help; it seems like they need it as much as anyone. I say I need to understand, but am scared of what it will take for me to do so. I hate this illness, and I'm not completely sure it didn't save my life. What would have happened if I hadn't gotten sick? What would have happened if I hadn't coped that way? Would help have come sooner, better, more complete? I don't know that. I know what would have happened if I hadn't started recovery. I know that fully and without mistake. I know how much I love Sara and how scared I am and how evil insurance companies are and how much I miss Tracy and wish I could touch her and hate myself over the guilt of that loss.

I wonder what would happen if we were brave enough to be vulnerable, to share with each other our confusion.

chord

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