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How old are you? 18
What kind of ED’s have you struggled with personally? When I first fell into my ED I behaved as an anorexic, although it never became extreme enough to bring me to a doctor or be diagnosed. I've been diagnosed bulimic by a psychiatrist with whom I spoke about my later behaviors, and diagnosed ED-NOS by a psychiatrist who I told "I think I'm ED-NOS". For the most part I think I've been a non-purging bulimic.
How long have you struggled with ED’s? A little over two years now.
Where are do you currently stand with your ED? (i.e. are you recovered? Relapsed? Disinterested in recovery?...) I've attempted recovery twice with a therapist and once or twice alone, each time relapsing. I'm not currently interested in recovery.
How long have you known about Pro-ED sites? About two years; I discovered them a couple months after my ED began.
How did you first find out they existed? I really can't remember... I guess it could have been from a magazine or something, there was a lot of media coverage around the time I started visiting.
When was the first time you visited one (year)? Spring 2002
What was the circumstance behind your first visit to a Pro-ED site? (i.e. what made you go there that day?)I first started severely restricting my food intake and exercising a lot in January-February 2002, and after I lost a little more than 20 pounds I felt "satisfied" and decided to stop pushing myself so hard. I started overeating and gained five or more pounds back and I wanted to start losing weight again. I honestly can't remember how I ended up at a pro-ED website, maybe I wanted a website that would encourage me to get back into my ED behaviors.
If you can remember, what was your first impression of Pro-ED sites? I was almost in awe... I admired these people who had so much control and molded themselves into who they wanted to be.
Which section of these sites interests you most, “thinspiration” or message forums? Initially the thinspiration was my favorite, but I didn't find any pro-ED forums until quite a while after I started visiting. Since I've discovered the forums, they have taken my interest and I spend most of my time at a forum rather than regular pro-ED sites.
Which other sections are you particularly interested in (i.e. ‘diet tips’, ‘celebrity pics’, etc.)I like looking at celebrity pics sometimes, mostly ones of celebrities who have gained or lost a deal of weight, or who have been rumoured or have admitted to having an eating disorder.
What it is about these sites that keeps you coming back? Could be that they're a materialization of the voice in my head... I think about food/eating/weight/etc constantly, and I spend all day doing unrelated things with ED buzzing in the back of my head, it's relieving to be able to focus on it and find others to talk to about it with. We (at the forum) can relate to eachother more than anyone else in real life, whether we have a problem or idea or a need to vent... whatever I have I can take it to the forum. If I didn't go to the forum I wouldn't go anywhere, all of it would stay with me because I can't talk to anyone in real life about this stuff.
How frequently do you visit Pro-ED sites? (i.e. daily, weekly, monthly, etc…) I visit one forum daily, other pro-ED sites monthly.
On average, how many hours do you spend on Pro-ed sites each week? 10 ?
Do you have just a few sites you visit regularly, or are you constantly looking for new ones? Every once in a while I'll look for new ones, but I mostly just go to the same ones.
What is your favorite thing about these sites? (and why)My favorite thing I think is that I feel like everyone at the forum really understands me. In real-life social situations I often feel awkward or I think "I don't have anything in common with this person, there's no reason to be with them" but even if I'm talking about non-ED-related things with people on the forum I think we understand eachother on a different level than people without EDs.
What is your least favorite thing about these sites? (and why) I really don't like the websites with things like "Ana's Rules" or "creed" or whatever... like when I first came to a pro-ED site that's what I saw, and I was like, "wow, I guess this is what I need to do to achieve perfection" and those websites tend to leave out a lot of the realistic aspects of an eating disorder.
Who, if anyone, have you told that you visit these sites? (i.e. family, parents, teachers, friends, counselors, etc.)I told my boyfriend when he was doing a project and researching pro-ED websites.
How long do you think you’ll continue visiting these sites? I have no idea.
Have you considered starting your own site? Why or why not? Yeah, I started my own site. I started it way back in the day, soon after I started visiting the websites regularly, because I thought a lot was left out of the other websites regarding maintaining health and I thought I could report about my own life. I think it was kind of a way for me to get some of the internalized thoughts/obsessions out instead of letting them run around and around in my mind.
What do you think about the groups who are trying to shut Pro-ED sites down? I don't agree with them completely. I wouldn't be upset if the "AnA'z cReEd" websites were shut down, I don't think they support any kind of growth or provide anything to the viewer besides an unrealistic view of anorexia. There are websites for so many different kinds of people, and there will always be opposition to one group or another. Who is to judge which ED sites are or aren't encouraging someone to starve but actually helping them understand their disorder and be exposed to different ideas, warnings, experiences...? I have found an incredible amount of support within the ED community, and since my website has grown I've gotten a plethora of e-mails from people who just feel relieved to know that they're not outcasts because they don't fit into the "AnA'z" websites or into other categories of life.
Do you think their efforts have helped or hindered the growth of more sites? Hindered, I guess, because a lot of the free servers will delete pro-ED content. I haven't heard of anyone being censored if they were paying for their space on the internet.
I have noticed on a few sites that there are somewhat pornographic images (such as on the home page of Fragile Innocence – the image titled ‘wasted’). What do you think is the connection between Pro-ED sites and pornographic imagery? I don't think there is any connection, and I think you should be aware of the line between nudity and pornography. I'm not sure why you think the photo of a nude woman lying on the floor on Fragile Innocence is pornographic - part of the definition of 'pornography' is that it is something erotic intended to arouse sexual excitement or an intense reaction. I don't see that picture as erotic; the nudity is rather expressing the stripped-nakedness of what appears to be a breakdown. As bodies are such an involved piece of eating disorders, I'm not surprised to see photographs of nude people such as the one on Fragile Innocence. I've also seen nude photos in thinspiration galleries (usually with warning) that are all tasteful modelling photos, rarely have I found anything to consider pornographic.
Would you consider a pro-ed site to be ‘harmless’, ‘somewhat harmful’ or ‘very harmful’ to someone struggling with an ED? Explain. Somewhat harmful. I haven't found that my behaviors change much when I've taken a break from visiting the sites... I spent about two months last summer without access to the pro-ED sites and my mentality and behaviors stayed the same. What I think could be harmful is if someone is having a successful recovery and is prone to a relapse, or if someone hasn't had extreme eating issues but is teetering on the line between dieting and obsession, they visit a pro-ED site to be pulled past the line into obsession. Kinda what happened to me I guess.
Do you think a pro-ed site could influence someone who has no eating issues to become a disordered eater? Explain. No, I don't think so. If they have no eating issues or body image issues, then no. I've witnessed a couple of girls who have dieted (nothing extreme) and stumbled across pro-ED sites. They clearly stated that they thought it was sick and they recognized that it was extreme. If a person has any issue or uncertainty, be it with self-image (body or personality) or eating or depression, I think they become more prone to being affected by an ED website.
What, in your opinion, is the most frustrating thing about people who write articles about pro-ana sites? (i.e. ‘they don’t know what they’re talking about,’ or ‘they don’t understand the appeal’) I haven't read a lot of articles about pro-ED sites... the ones I have read weren't extremely biased but more informative... I got the feeling that the author thought it was a really sad situation and wasn't attacking the pro-ED community or the webmistresses they were interviewing.
Is there anything else you’d like me (and the people reading this article) to know? Can't think of anything I haven't already said :-)
(Follow-up question) What are "AnA'z cReEd" sites?What I meant by "AnA'z cReEd" sites are websites that tend to convey an immature and trendy attitude towards eating disorders. They often have little content other than rules and regulations of anorexia (a.k.a. "Ana's Creed"), thinspiration, and negative calorie foods... all of which are unoriginal content found on a number of websites. The reason I put it in lowercase/capital type is because I've seen a lot of those websites with text like that... That's gained a reputation at the forum I visit - pretty much everyone there knows what you're talking about if you uSe tHiS tYpE. The stereotype for tHoSe PeOpLe are girls who come to the forum to ask for weight loss advice... e.g. "I've gained thirty pounds or so in the past year because I stopped exercising and overeat every day, but I need to lose forty pounds in the next two months for my school dance. What should I do?" The responses to those posts vary from warnings about mistaking a disorder for a diet to attacks, chastising the poster for being so "sTuPiD".I hope that gave a clear idea of what I meant... I don't like being so judgemental and stereotypical, but I have a mixture of both the warning and attack response to those kind of websites... I guess this is how I've indentified the people I want to warn/attack so far.