Urban Sunrise

What’s your best friend’s name? Is it Ana or Mia? If it is, you might have a problem.

Back in 2001, when I first joined the ezBoard scene, there were tons of these sites operating quite openly. These girls were talking about their friends Ana and Mia, short for Anorexia and Bulimia, respectively.

I hated it for these people because they were basically wishing for death, though they didn’t see it that way. For them, it was just a lifestyle. I knew what it was like to want to hurt yourself, but I couldn’t imagine wanting to give other people tips on how to kill themselves.

I thought I’d investigate further and I was disgusted by what I saw. There were pictures, also known as “thinspiration”, of models and actresses whose bones were practically jutting out of their skin. It infuriated and sickened me to the point of tears. I would tell these girls how they weren’t fat and needed to seek help.

Arguing for reforms in websites didn’t do any good back then. No one at the hosting companies would listened. It shocked me.

Fast forward seven years and the sites are harder to find. One is still openly functioning with plenty of new posts. Girls were still talking about starvation and their first purging experience; some saying how happy it made them, while others were telling these new folks that purging ruined their digestive tracts.

It was sad to see that these girls had put their bodies through so much to look a certain way, only to harm themselves in the process. It’s good that they have learned what can happen, but it is horrible that they damaged their bodies. If their messages of problems can reach just one person, then maybe that will help.

It is encouraging to see that media outlets are coming out against the sites. It is also encouraging that these sites are being studied by doctors and therapists. The best thing is that they are, one-by-one, being shut down.

One day, hopefully, these girls will realize that though they have Freedom of Speech, they do not have the Freedom to Hurt Other People. The Bill of Rights does not grant people the right to slowly kill someone by suggesting ways to starve themselves. It does give them the right to talk about their problems, as long as they are not doing anything that promotes sickness.

Unfortunately, some services are still allowing these sites to exist, i.e. Facebook, MySpace, and LiveJournal, two of the most popular websites for young people today. Facebook says that they have plenty of controversial topics, and basically classifies this as just another one. MySpace decided to put banner advertisements in pro-anorexia members’ profiles for an eating disorder support group. A representative for LiveJournal was quoted as saying, “Suspending pro-anorexia communities will not make anyone suffering from the disorder become healthy again. Allowing them to exist, however, has several benefits. It reassures those who join them that they are not alone in the way they feel about their bodies. It increases the chance that the friends and loved ones of the individuals in the community will discover their disorders and assist them in seeking professional help.”

Of course, LiveJournal may be correct in their assumption since there are still people out there who feel that these girls are idiots. Some even say that these sites will just make one less idiot for them to deal with. Their attitudes may be hard for us to understand, but that does not make them idiots. It just means that they have fallen prey to the illness that they are trying so desperately to pretend is anything but a sickness.

Wanting to have these disorders is part of having them. That is something that most people don’t understand. Dying to be thin is something that these girls and guys have to put their bodies through in order to quench an urge that comes from deep within.

Perhaps, if these girls and guys would take the time to read stories such as the ones of Shanda Schaffer or Karen Carpenter, then they would realize how serious their disease really is. Shanda died a few years short of her thirtieth birthday, while Karen, an accomplished musician, was just shy of her 33rd birthday when she passed away. Would Karen have had a site? Chances are she would have visited one.

It’s hard to visit these sites, but at the same time, they have this disgusting pull that makes you want to come back. The pull may be there because you want to save someone from the disorder, or you may have problems of your own. Either way, these sites are designed to be like heroin. They fill a need, and that need will make you keep coming back for more. That’s part of the problem with the sites.