Ana Speaks

I was to be asked to contribute to Silentio when Brad's first and second choices flaked out. My folks couldn't be prouder! The task of coming up with an original thought that I believed was interesting or important enough for anyone else to want to read about was daunting, to say the least.

Living deep in the heart o' Texas, I briefly considered writing about the huge backlash in response to Natalie Maines' comments from the Dixie Chicks' recent London concert. The local radio and television stations here were obsessed, as if there's nothing else going on in the world. You would have thought that she literally took a shot at W. I figured I could start there and move into censorship, or maybe just take my own figurative shots at George; but then I was told about something so deeply disturbing that I knew it was the only topic I could write about. Do you know that feeling you get after learning details of child or spousal abuse, or the way you feel after visiting the Holocaust Museum? The feeling where the world just doesn't seem right and you know something inside you changed? It was that disturbing.

I'm talking about what The New York Times magazine calls, "The Secret Society of the Starving". I'm talking about Pro-Anorexia web sites:

"Pro-ana, the basic premise of which is that an eating disorder is not a disorder but a lifestyle choice, is very much an ideology of the 21st century, one that could not exist absent the anonymity and accessibility of the Internet, without which, the only place large numbers of anorexics would find themselves together is inpatient treatment. Primarily the sites reinforce the secretiveness of the disorder."

So secretive, in fact, that I had no idea they existed until yesterday. From the research I've done in that short amount of time I've learned how many fingers to shove down my throat, how to move them around and how long to leave them there to vomit properly. I've found foods that come up easily and those that don't. I've found pages and pages of women so thin that not only can you see their bones, but some you can see the shape of their organs as lumps under the skin. These pictures are considered "Thinspiration." I've learned how you can manipulate friends and family to make them think you're eating.

"If your parents are suspicious tell them that you love them and wouldn't do any thing like that because you love them and wouldn't want to hurt them."

"While being made to eat, take an [empty] mug that u CAN NOT see-through and after taking a bite go to 'Have a drink' and spit it out again, regularly 'refill' your mug [empty it in the bin]."

"Clean something. Cleaning something dirty can make you lose your appetite. The toilet, the litter box, under the kitchen sink, scrubbing out the garbage bin, anything grimy or smelly. The mess, along with the smell of the cleaner, can put you off food for a while."

"Different sleeping habits. Go to bed later than everyone else, so you can exercise while they're sleeping."

There are pro-anorexia chants, songs, message boards. One site has its own "Thin Commandments." Here are a few:

1. If you aren't thin you aren't attractive.

2. Being thin is more important than being healthy.

4. Thou shall not eat without feeling guilty.

5. Thou shall not eat fattening food without punishing oneself afterwards.

7. What the scale says is the most important thing.

9. You can never be too thin.

This same site has a Creed and code of Beliefs. The latter reads

"I believe in Control, the only force mighty enough to bring order to the chaos that is my world. I believe that I am the most vile, worthless and useless person ever to have existed on this planet, and that I am totally unworthy of anyone's time and attention. I believe that other people who tell me differently must be idiots. If they could see how I really am, then they would hate me almost as much as I do. I believe in oughts, musts and shoulds as unbreakable laws to determine my daily behavior. I believe in perfection and strive to attain it. I believe in salvation through trying just a bit harder than I did yesterday. I believe in calorie counters as the inspired word of god, and memorize them accordingly. I believe in bathroom scales as an indicator of my daily successes and failures. I believe in hell, because I sometimes think that I'm living in it. I believe in a wholly black and white world, the losing of weight, recrimination for sins, the abnegation of the body and a life ever fasting."

I feel a little like that person who smells something awful and then says, "This smells like shit. Smell it," or, "This coffee tastes like bile. Taste it." I haven't decided exactly what I hope to accomplish by sharing all of this, but I know, without any doubt, that "pro-ana" is even worse when it remains a secret while people are dying -- about one in 200 American women suffer from Anorexia; two or three in 100 suffer from Bulimia. Arguably, these disorders have the highest fatality rate of any mental illness, through suicide as well as the obvious health problems involved. With this in mind, you be the judge of Ana's moral ambivalence.