Pro-ana communities are not supportive. Statistically, those that use them stay ill longer, and require more intensive treatment than those that don't. And I can't say I'm surprised. I've seen girls told not to go into treatment because it'll make them fat. I've seen girls be told not to take their medication because it'll make them fat (If you stop taking your insulin it'll help you lose weight!). Advice on abusing prescription drugs (ADHD medication, for example) in order to lose weight goes on ALL THE TIME. Girls are taught how to fake doctors tests in order to be prescribed medication that has a side effect of weight loss.
To treat anorexia as anything less than the slow suicide that it is, is to seriously minimise this illness. Pro anorexic communties are the equivilant of giving a suicidal person a gun and telling them to shoot it. There is a huge difference between dripping candle wax on your body, and telling someone how to induce a heart attack - which is essentially what teaching someone how to purge is.
I call bollocks on your last point. A real support community, that does not allow the swapping of tips and tricks, that does not encourage emaciated girls to lose even more weight, can just as easily allow people to feel less alone as those communties that do allow these things. People have reported these communities, and individual posts, and LJ has time and time again done nothing.
If I were in an ED unit, and was teaching another girl how to purge, watching the corridor in case a nurse came along, you would not say that was support. LJ is, by allowing these communities to remain, effectively encouraging such behaviour. As someone who has known people die from their eating disorders, and has come close to death herself from her own, this absolutely sickens me.
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zvi and
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Date: 2007-08-09 11:55 am (UTC)To treat anorexia as anything less than the slow suicide that it is, is to seriously minimise this illness. Pro anorexic communties are the equivilant of giving a suicidal person a gun and telling them to shoot it. There is a huge difference between dripping candle wax on your body, and telling someone how to induce a heart attack - which is essentially what teaching someone how to purge is.
I call bollocks on your last point. A real support community, that does not allow the swapping of tips and tricks, that does not encourage emaciated girls to lose even more weight, can just as easily allow people to feel less alone as those communties that do allow these things. People have reported these communities, and individual posts, and LJ has time and time again done nothing.
If I were in an ED unit, and was teaching another girl how to purge, watching the corridor in case a nurse came along, you would not say that was support. LJ is, by allowing these communities to remain, effectively encouraging such behaviour. As someone who has known people die from their eating disorders, and has come close to death herself from her own, this absolutely sickens me.