Mental Illness Isn't "Cute"

Anti-pro-ana and pro-recovery sideblog. I do not regularly post, but try to whenever I feel capable.

[seashells-and-bookshelves]

I’ve said it before, but I’m saying it again. Apologize to your children when you are in the wrong. The minuscule hit to your pride is nothing compared to the impact you will have on your children. You are not an all powerful supreme being. You are human. You’ll make mistakes occasionally, and you’ll have to apologize for them. It’s ok to own that. You’ll be teaching them how to register wrong doing, how to correctly apologize for it, that admitting fault is an ok and necessary life skill to have. Most importantly, you’re showing them that they can trust you to do the right thing. 

I will preach this to my dying breath. Apologize to your kids when you’re in the wrong. 

[gothgfs]

full offense but some of y'all don’t actually know what dissociation is

[gothgfs]

it’s not just “”“spacing out”“” really bad and when some of y'all talk about dissociation i can tell y'all have never actually dissociated

[dykebians]

this is literally like a #1 example of how tumblr glorifies mental illness. people want to have a mental illness because it makes them “”“cool”“”. like, yes, it’s fine if you have a mental illness and it’s okay to not hate yourself for it, that’s good. I know, I have three.

[dykebians]

but this culture of not hating yourself/others for having a mental illness has turned into a culture where if you don’t have a mental illness, you’re not in the “club” which is really fucking messed up

[thefrizzkid-deactivated20220425]

There is no perfect narrative for recovery.

[aseriesofcomebacks]

[alltheworld-willbeyours]

Do you ever notice yourself getting bad again…like, you know you’re not doing work that needs to be done, you know you’re not cleaning, you know you’re not taking care of yourself…you know all the things you need to do to start trying to feel better. But you just can’t. And you’re left feeling like shit bc you thought you were getting better but here we are

[edcynic]

“And yet, here are mine!” 🙄

[emaciationisnotafashionstatement]

Nope actually. These photos weren't even in chronological order. But sure. Cut out the rest of the post so it completely misses the point I was trying to make, and reiterated upon in the comments. They are just random, out-of-context selfies, and show absolutely nothing: which is exactly the point I was making. I even posted it on a goddamn anonymous side instagram I never intended to use again, but sure, I'm obviously trying to get attention for it. But it is funny that you suddenly went private after I responded back, because just before you did I happened to find a whole bunch of photos of you from years ago still up on your feed that were clearly posted and angled as thinspo. but whatever. People in glass houses. 🙄

[edrecoveryprobs]

Telling other people funny stories from my treatment stays

Expected reaction:

Actual reaction:

[edrecoveryprobs]

Sitting with a bunch of people out at lunch and they start comparing the nutritional content of their orders

and you’re just like

[edrecoveryprobs]

Trying to go from treatment back into real life responsibilities

(x)

[edrecoveryprobs]

Trying to keep track of the days in treatment

(x)

[edcynic]

As someone from the UK I feel that the self-recovery narrative is different here. Treatment centres are few and between (I got diagnosed put on a waitlist for three months for up to 20 sessions of therapy and saw my GP monthly and that was it) so we do have to do a lot more in the way of self-recovery and we have to make it work. We don't get residential/IOP/PHP or even day treatment in some areas (in my area there is no ED service at all). Just wanted to say context is important here.

Ok but just because that’s the way it is there doesn’t meant self-treatment is going to be any more successful. 🙄

[emaciationisnotafashionstatement]

Not to sound judgey but the fact that you only mentioned really intense services seems a bit off to me. If you really need them and either admit to it, or fall physically ill, or get sectioned, there is ALWAYS intensive help for you, even if that means moving you hours and hours away from home. If there is no ED service in your area you can actually apply to get funding for the nearest service that wouldn't otherwise be covered by the NHS. It's a long process: I came out of inpatient 2 months ago and am still waiting for my. GP to sort out my referral to the private service I'm trying to get funding for, but it is a possibility. If you go to inpatient, you'll get sent wherever they can find a bed or waitlisted, but even then if there's no NHS places available you can get treatment through exceptional funding and take a bed saved for private patients, which is again something both me and another girl I was in hospital with had to do. There are a lot of problems with lack of secialised MH services in UK, but theres also the fact that most ED patients aren't entirely inclined to want to seek out these other options, because there's a safety in self-recovery that if you don't like it you can just relapse. No one hands you this information on a silver platter (probably because the NHS don't really want to add to their expenses) but it is out there and if you do your research, go to your GP and say 'this is what I want and what I feel will help me', they usually can't say no to writing a referral if there's absolutely no service you can otherwise access. There's also a lot of charity-run 'services' that don't come under the NHS: I was with an excellent one a couple years ago, and there's one again just out of my area that offers groups. It's not usually the ideal but it's better than doing it all yourself. There are options, it just might not always be what you 'want' your ideal recovery to look like.

[elleroseblogs]

Things pro-ana bloggers don’t tell you:

Because so many people have latched onto this post and used it as a way of justifying the promotion of anorexia over bulimia, I thought I’d point out how full of crap pro anorexia is. People who have had anorexia, feel free to add anything I’ve missed. Oh, and if you reblog this to your pro ana blog… well, there’s the flag button, because yet again, it’s against Tumblr community guidelines. 

Most of them use the terms “ana” (short for anorexia) and “mia” (short for bulimia) interchangeably. It is actually impossible to be diagnosed with both at the same time; they are different eating disorders.

It makes your hair fall out. 

You won’t look like a model. Malnutrition makes your hair fall out.

It rots your teeth.

Malnutrition will do horrible things to your mouth. Everyone says “purging is so bad for your teeth never do it!” Well, it is bad, for a lot of reasons, but even if you never purge, you could be risking that beautiful smile.

It doesn’t stop at “X pounds”.

That’s the thing about actually having anorexia: it’s not a fucking diet. It’s not. A fucking. Diet. You don’t get to just say “Well I’m done when I reach 100 pounds!” because you won’t be satisfied.

Speaking of the last one, anorexia has one of the highest mortality rates of any psychiatric illness.

With a mortality rate of 4.0%, that’s pretty high. That’s thousands of people every year. Bet that “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” mantra feels pretty stupid now, doesn’t it?

Your family and friends will notice, and it won’t be good.

They’ll notice when they’re taking you to the E.R. for another heart episode. They’ll notice when you pass out. They’ll be horrified and angry, not sympathetic, that you want to starve yourself. 

You’re always cold.

All the time, because you need body fat to stay warm. It is normal to have some body fat. It is not normal to starve yourself into not having any body fat.

Anorexia eats your organs.

Yes, after anorexia eats your fat, then your muscle, it causes organ failure. Organ. Failure. Do you want to be 25 and in need of a new liver because you thought pro ana was cute? I sure don’t.

Many anorexics purge.

It is not uncommon for anorexics to intentionally make themselves vomit. There are subsets to the anorexia diagnosis.  

Atypical anorexia is still a valid eating disorder.

I see all the time “I’m too fat to have an eating disorder”. No. That isn’t possible. That literally is not possible. OSFED, or Otherwise Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder, is a valid, real, eating disorder. It kills; mortality rate is 5.2%. Pro ana bloggers perpetuate that the only eating disorders worth attention are anorexia and bulimia; this is simply not true. There is a whole world of eating disorders outside of them, and one of them is a subset of OSFED known as Atypical Anorexia. This means that someone meets most of the diagnostic criteria for anorexia, but may be missing a component, such as not being underweight. The eating disorder is just as serious as any other eating disorder.

Anorexia causes fainting.

Because it causes low blood pressure.

Anorexia can cause permanent heart damage.

Anorexia causes muscle loss, making you look sallow and dead, not pretty.

Anorexia makes you incredibly tired.

Anorexia causes osteoporosis, meaning your bones will shrink and break easily. Nothing sexy like a young woman with a broken hip.

Anorexia causes the growth of lanugo.

What’s that? Oh, it’s fur. All over your body. Fur. Yeah. 

Again, anorexia kills. 

It has a mortality rate of 4.0% as a direct result of the disorder. Many anorexics will take their own life because they don’t want to live in their bodies any more.

Pro ana doesn’t tell you this. It tells you that you will be pretty, and boys will want you. When you’re dying, you won’t care if boys want you. You’ll care about losing one. More. Pound.

Anorexia is a disease. It is not a diet. It is not “better than bulimia”. Additionally, people with eating disorders don’t get to just magically choose which one they have. A chemical imbalance has to already be in place, because eating disorders and mental illnesses are not choices. Stop promoting self harm and eating disorders. 

[emaciationisnotafashionstatement]

Some additional points as I'm on mobile: -one of the first muscles to go is your bladder. There is nothing glamorous about wetting yourself. Trust me, I've done it on so many occasions. I've had to run off the school bus hoping no one could notice the streak of piss soaking through my school tights down my legs. -Your face just wrinkles. So bad. Around your mouth, around your eyes... -your skin turns blue/red/white. Think foundation will cover it? it won't. -You lose so much of your memory. You only realise how much it has effected it when you're healthy again and trying to look back, and you realise you can't pinpoint anything except random numbers like weight and calories eaten. -When you start recovering, your digestive system is in such shit that gaining weight becomes an awful, but necessary, process. You only end up back at the weight you 'started' at, but with a bunch of health problems, a ton of your life wasted, a dozen missed opportunities and a painful recovery experience. Even worse if you get tube fed. -Binging and purging can cause your stomach to rupture. This is especially likely in people that also restrict, as the constant shrinking and stretching of your stomach makes it susceptible to tearing. It's a very painful and unglamorous way to go.

[restoringsunshine]

I am very tired of body dysmorphic disorder being lumped in with eating disorders.

Not everyone with BDD has an ED, and (more importantly NOT EVERYONE WITH AN ED HAS BDD.

You disliking your body DOES NOT equal BDD. You having bad body image OR even seeing yourself larger than you are DOES NOT EQUAL BDD.

In order to have diagnostically significant BDD, the body image distress cannot be “better accounted for by another mental illness.” The same criteria goes on to list anorexia nervosa as the example.

STOP CALLING IT BDD WHEN IT IS NOT.

STOP SELF-DIAGNOSING.

[tpyriformis1988-deactivated2018]

[emaciationisnotafashionstatement]

After years of compulsively wishing for my weight to drop, today I caught 11:11 on the clock. Eleven times, I wished for things to all turn out okay.

Maybe this is what recovery is

[edlogic]

"Ew! Brussel sprouts? I would never eat something so gross!"

*eats food from trash can*

[edrecoveryprobs]

When the staff randomly decides to start enforcing a rule they haven’t cared about in weeks