12 April 2003 Hating pro-ana It was recently stated as fact, by someone who should know better, that I have no sympathy for anyone who suffers from an eating disorder. They have made this assumption because I have very limited patience for the scum who create and publish pro-ana web sites. There's a big difference between someone who wants to encourage other people to indulge in a dangerous lifestyle and someone who suffers from an illness such as anorexia and bulimia. But this entry isn't another rant about pro-ana, rather it's an explanation of why I find these sites so distasteful. I mean, isn't that what everyone's been wanting me to explain since I first mentioned the subject? Well, sorry to disappoint the critics, but I don't have a difficult relationship with food myself. I'm pretty average in that food is just food. I eat better now I'm no longer working in the taxi business and I do feel better for it. It's no biggie. Hell I don't even do the cooking in our house. So I'm not projecting my own problems - I don't even have any close friends or relatives with eating disorders. However, I have had an encounter with anorexia, so to speak. About four years ago I had to take a mother and daughter on quite a long journey. They were going to visit their teenage daughter/sister in a mental hospital. She had been admitted because she had almost died from anorexia. Now people talk to their taxi drivers so during the course of the journey I was filled in on the entire story. The girl had began a course in hairdressing at a local college and began to feel she wasn't as attractive as the other people taking the course. I attended the same college and the hairdressing students always were a seperate crowd - and the girls did look good. I mean, have you ever seen an untidy or scruffy looking hairdressers? But this girl was convinced she needed to lose weight and it progressed from there. She became so ill she left college and eventually ended up in the mental hospital where I was taking her family to visit her. It certainly wasn't the best place for her. Northern Ireland doesn't have specialist units for people with eating disorders so she was placed in amongst drug addicts and alcoholics. Her family were clinging to the hope they could manage to get her into a clinic in England. Now if you feel sorry for the girl with the eating disorder, try and think about how her family were suffering - and they were. I heard a young girl talking about how much she cared about her sister and didn't want her to die. I heard a mother who was heartbroken and couldn't stop blaming herself, who was wondering if the fact she carried a bit of weight herself had anything to do with it. When I dropped them off at the hospital, the girl was waiting to meet them and I got one hell of a shock. Seeing the pictures of anorexics and bulimics doesn't prepare you for the shock of seeing someone who's little more than a walking skeleton in real life. Trust me on that. The gaunt face, the dull hair, jeans that hung loose and arms that were no more than bone covered with skin appearing from the sleeves of her t-shirt. I know plenty of skinny people and they sure as hell don't look like that. Now I don't know what the outcome of the story was. I don't know if the girl recovered or got treatment or if her family ended up burying her. I hope things turned out all right. But that's why I get so damned angry when I see the irresponsible and selfish assholes who witter on about free speech and proudly advertise their pro-ana sites where you can go and learn all the tips and tricks; where you're repeatedly told that your eating disorder is a good thing and to avoid recovery at all costs. I'd like those scumfucks to take their heads of their selfish asses and think about the damage they are trying to do. If I didn't care I'd never have spoken out against what they're doing in the first place.
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