Could we please stop referring to that creepy pedophile as the “King of Pop”? Let us stop enabling his raging megalomaniacal ego. He’s the King of the Freaks. The King of Monsters. There are a thousand better musicians/singers/entertainers in this world. At least.
Speaking of freaks, yesterday while wandering in the wild woods of LiveJournal (latest LJ posts!) I happened upon a pro-anorexia community. Let me preface this with: I know anorexia is a mental illness. I know anorexia is a neurological disorder. I know what body dysmorphism is — it’s what the King of Monsters has.
So why does reading what these girls (inevitably, all girls) write make me so mad? It’s like getting mad at someone with Alzheimer’s for forgetting where they live. Like getting mad at an alcoholic for drinking.
I guess what makes me mad is that this is a known disease — and not only are they not treating it, they are embracing this slow and certain suicide with open, bony arms. And no one is intervening. And their friends praise their loss of weight and their ability to refuse food. Women are congratulated on this forum for their five-day fasts, for slipping away to 85, 81, 79 pounds. Good job.
And the journals all scream about feeling “so fat! I am SO FAT!” at the shrinking weight of 87 pounds. It’s obscene, it’s pathological. These girls are deep in a river of denial so vast that to critique their starving and masochism is to somehow “discriminate” against them. To be “jealous” of their “success.”
It’s fucking insane.
I know, it is a mental illness. These people need to be hospitalized. But a part of me wishes I could take a few of these dying suburban American girls to Afghanistan, where starving people put stones in their stomachs to make them feel full, to places in the world where famines exist, to look at people who would give anything to eat the food these girls push away. Get some perspective. Shame on them.
But I know. It’s a mental illness. A very strange, uniquely Western mental illness.
THEN you have all the American teens who are obese and diabetic before they reach adulthood.
Our culture’s relationship with food is seriously fucked.
It’s a bizarre thing. Is it because our lives are so easy in the west, that we have to invent problems? I have heard of previously suicidal people, who have come down with a disease, like cancer, and end up fighting it like anyone else does. It’s like, the cancer gives their life meaning again. I guess when you spend every minute of your day trying to finding food and water you don’t have much free time to worry about whether you are thin or popular enough.
Well, I think it’s a uniquely Western psychological disorder related to low self-worth. Many times it is a control issue (eating is one thing people have sole control over in a chaotic family). Many times the victim feels as though no one will like their personality, so their body must be “perfect” to compensate for that insecurity. It’s vanity mixed with a lasting depression.
But I doubt you see anything like it in non-wealthy cultures.
I know what LJ pro-anorexia group you’re talking about (unless there is more than one, which is a frightening thought in itself), and I, for one, am for the dismantling of said community. I feel the girls on that group fuel each other, pass along unsafe, potentially life-threatening “tips” on how to lose weight, it’s scary!
I agree. I don’t know if they are violating the Terms of Use… that would be the only way to dismantle the community, then they would just form another one under a more ambiguous name. And there are pro-anorexia sites all over the internet. It’s really disturbing.
These girls are some of the most pathetic creatures I’ve seen on LJ. I could only read two of the journals. It’s just too hard to read someone posting that they are “huge” and “fat” when they weigh 87 pounds, and berate their mother for forcing them to eat.
Obviously that mother isn’t doing enough. The girl in question was on the cheerleading squad and complained that she was too weak to hold up her teammates in the pyramid, and thus must lose more weight to be a “flyer.” What the fucking fuck? Later posts were one-liners about purging, followed by things like “maybe I’ll die.” Oh my god, get thee to a hospital! Why is no one calling 911?
Etc.
There are also lj communities for people who cut themselves. Yes, plural: communities.
I don’t know that shutting these girls down would do anything except move them elsewhere. I wouldn’t do it. I’d be more interested in shutting down hate groups or — I mean aren’t there lots of teen lj communitites where they egg each other on in suicidal thoughts? Where they’re all about depressed, morbid gothic stuff? Once you start silencing communities that seem dangerous to the people in them, where do you stop?
LJ Drama is a site where you can find links to lots and lots of fucked-up LJs. It’s not a sensitive guide, it’s very snarky.
oh, I came across some of those communities on Diaryland. It freaked.me.out. It still does. Yes, disease, but GOD. It just boggles my mind and renders me speechless, pretty much.
amen.
thank you for saying that.