#protalk

[recoveryfriend]

I used to think my secret pro ana side blog was "one of the okay ones" because i mainly used it to keep recipes and had the "not pro for anyone but me" line and warnings for people not to read it if they didnt already have an ED

And then i found out that tumblr will recommend liked posts to your followers and i have a fandom blog with tons of followers, a lot of whom are minors, and i hardcore panicked because i didnt want to be putting it on non-sick peoples dashes and possibly dragging them in

So i deleted the blog and purged my likes. I still end up lurking sometimes on bad days but it made me more aware that people like my sisters or my little cousins might see what im doing and emulate it, so its easier to force myself to do the right stuff and eat as like, an example for them. Which is maybe not the healthiest reason but it helps

but any reason is a good reason! and i think a selfless reason like that where you’re thinking about the well-being of others is always a good start. i think going the step of cleaning out your likes and deleting is a step further then a lot of people take, and it’s definitely a positive thing! i’m proud of you for doing it 💛

anonymously tell me your experiences in leaving pro-ed/thinspo communities: what helped you leave, the hardest parts of letting go, or any advice you have for others trying to do the same!

[recoveryfriend]

I saw in the replies on your post something about the allure of feeling like you were "good at having an eating disorder." For me the reason I was ultimately able to recover was that i never felt that way. Even when I followed the like "instructions" I found in these pro-ana spaces perfectly for months or years at a time I never looked the way I was "supposed to" and I eventually got sick of trying my best and still "failing" so I left. Weirdly it was the very pro-ana that fueled my disorder that helped me choose recovery because it forced me to come to terms with the fact that I'm never going to look like anyone but myself. Obviously it would've been better if I just never looked at pro-ana in the first place, but I thought you might find this interesting.

i do find it interesting! this is very similar to the ways i felt back in my pro-ed forum days too. i think this really shines a light, because these spaces exist for the express purpose of shaming others into meeting ideals that are impossible for most people to achieve. after a while of sticking around and failing, you really only have two options: you can either make peace with its unobtainabilty or convince yourself that you deserve the misery. pro-ed spaces are really good at making you choose the latter, but after a while of failing and convincing yourself over and over again that you deserve or even want that suffering, you can’t help but notice what a scam it all is. and how UNFAIR it all is! that’s why i chose recovery too, and i’m glad you never “succeeded” in hurting yourself. it’s a good thing to fail at!

tell me your experiences in leaving pro-ed/thinspo communities: what helped you leave, the hardest parts of letting go, or any advice you have for others trying to do the same!

[recoveryfriend]

I used to look at tons of pro-ana content on Pinterest and tumblr. In hindsight I'm glad I was just sort of a lurker because having friends in those spaces would've made it even harder to leave. Idk if this is how it goes for other people or not but I didn't stop consuming pro-ana content until after I stopped starving myself. I needed distance from those behaviors and that mindset before I could look at it and realize "oh this isnt ~supporting me on my weight loss journey~ it's making me hate myself". The hardest/worst part is that those ideas get internalized and do lasting damage even after you leave, like I found myself thinking and doing things I learned from pro-ana blogs in like 2012-2014 during a brief relapse literally *last year.* Pro-ana is poison and I worry so much for the people who consume it.

hard agree! i definitely have lasting damage from the “tricks” pro-ed blogs taught me too, and i consider myself to be pretty far along in my recovery! even though i’ve left these spaces, they really never left me. it’s interesting that you kept looking at that content during the beginnings of your recovery, that wasn’t my experience but i’m sure recognizing that cognitive dissonance is the wake up call a lot of people need to walk away from those spaces! thank you for sharing ❣️

anonymously tell me your experiences in leaving pro-ed/thinspo communities: what helped you leave, the hardest parts of letting go, or any advice you have for others trying to do the same!

[recoveryfriend]

what made me leave pro-ed spaces was watching my friends die. I had a friend who I watched waste away and over time I realised how horrifying it was to see someone so vibrant just vanish. I ended up leaving after she died because I couldn't handle watching anyone else go like that, and I wanted to surround myself with things that reminded me of how fantastic she was and not how she went.

i’m so sorry for your loss, but i’m very grateful that you survived this and ended up leaving those spaces. it’s really hard to talk about the grief we experience at the hands of eating disorders, and i’m so glad you shared this.

anonymously tell me your experiences in leaving pro-ed/thinspo communities: what helped you leave, the hardest parts of letting go, or any advice you have for others trying to do the same.

[recoveryfriend]

I never really participated in pro-ed communities but I did come lurking on tumblr for a while and boy oh boy, the shit I saw. unbelievable. I've had an ed for nearly ten years, got better and relapsed pretty hard last year, around the same time I started looking at that type of content. weirdly, I didn't even believe the things those posts were saying, like I knew most of those weight loss tricks are bullshit and aren't even based in actual science, but it still felt good to see that I wasn't alone. you know, all of those jokes and memes about ed behaviours are nice for a minute but eventually they really contribute to keeping said behaviours in place and I wish I had realized that earlier (same goes for depression).

honestly, the big eye opener for me was to stop looking at those posts for a while, while I was attempting recovery (I know it's hard but it really helps) then coming back a few months later and realising how fucking dumb it all was. I really don't mean any offense by saying that. I get it, I did all those fucked up things too but like,, the sheer liberation I experienced when seeing those pro-ed posts about 'how to keep your intake below 500 calories' or 'how to hide the food you didn't eat' and just thinking 'well that's fucking dumb. I can't function on 500 cals a days and even if I once could, why would I have to'.

eventually I don't know if I have any advice besides sharing my experience maybe just,, really try and cut yourself from that community, especially if you don't have friends in it, it's so toxic and I hope you'll realize that at some point. also, if you can, surround yourself with supportive people who don't encourage diets and just don't put that much emphasis on weight and looks. i know they're hard to find but there are quite a few out there and they'll really help change your perspective.

anyway, sorry the long ask. thanks for running this blog, take care!

i think that’s ultimately great advice! i love your reaction to those pro-ed “tricks” 😋 because it’s true! if you already have an eating disorder and understand the basics of the nervosa, those posts appear extremely silly when they’re presented as legitimate advice. because like, i wasn’t doing this because i thought i worked or was good, i was doing them because i have a disorder! it really is pretty dumb, thank you for telling it like it is!

a lot of the asks i’m receiving (some are still in the queue) have some version of “i had to leave before realizing how awful it really was,” and i think that’s probably a sign for anyone who needs it that you should try your best to disconnect from pro-ed spaces, because it’s easier to see how they melt your brain once you’re no longer active in them.

anonymously tell me your experiences in leaving pro-ed/thinspo communities: what helped you leave, the hardest parts of letting go, or any advice you have for others trying to do the same!

[recoveryfriend]

The chats I used to be on weren’t supposed to be pro-ed but they functionally were. We didn’t want to hurt each other, but when one person says they want x, that desire gets validated in everyone else. It took a while for me to realize that that was what was happening. And then I had to actually learn to want to recover before I left those chats/servers. Most of us left around the same time having realized that we wanted other things out of life. 1/2

i think the fact that you say they weren’t supposed to be pro-ed is very interesting. i find that to be true very often, a lot of supposedly neutral spaces for eating disorders end up reinforcing the disordered behaviors anyways, unless they are explicitly centered in recovery (and even then sometimes it ends up happening!). spaces for people with eds to commune without being judged or pressured to immediately “just get over it” are very important, but i’ve never seen them work out in a healthy way before. because if there’s no active condemnation of the harmful behaviors, they always end up inspiring competition and comparison whether they intend to or not. so i’m very glad you learned to want to recover, and that recovery has gotten easier for you since leaving those spaces! thank you so much for sharing this 💛

anonymously tell me your experiences in leaving pro-ed/thinspo communities: what helped you leave, the hardest parts of letting go, or any advice you have for others trying to do the same!

[recoveryfriend]

Same as the anon before, I always used to lurk around pro ana content on here. It wasn't until I started to recover I realised how bad the pro ana content is. It's scary for me to think about now but I didn't even realise like, this is not normal or this is not even gonna work. It was probably because I was so young but as soon as I started getting better I found myself being less triggered by it and more worried? Even now I find myself scorlling through tags but it just makes me realise how bad life is while actively "fulfilling" your ed brain. (I know I still need to kick the habit of looking through tags, I'm working on it! x) Honestly I worry for anyone who was / is as young as I was looking at tags on here. I think I found them through recovery blogs that Tumblr suggested I follow, I shudder to think

you’re totally right that even after a while in recovery, that pro content still feeds some impulse inside you even though it inevitably makes you feel miserable. i totally feel that, and that’s why fighting against the compulsions to look at those blogs is among the hardest things for some people in recovery, because there is some part of us that still finds ways to enjoy it even though it’s designed to hurt us. thats really the lasting damage done by pro-ed and pro-self harm communities, because they teach us that there is an aesthetic pleasure in triggering ourselves on purpose 🙃 thank you so much for sharing this!

anonymously tell me your experiences in leaving pro-ed/thinspo communities: what helped you leave, the hardest parts of letting go, or any advice you have for others trying to do the same!

[recoveryfriend]

Though I’ve been in recovery for a long time, I still get this tickle to look at pro-Ana content sometimes, usually when it’s talked about in recovery spaces. I recognize it now as an act of self harm. My brain and body want a nasty jolt of fear/hurt/obsession, perhaps even seeing how far I’ve come, checking in to make sure recovery is the right choice. Sometimes I look, though I try not to. It makes me sad and makes my brain start spinning fast, questioning if I should adopt all these practices again. Then I leave the tag, and go back to my business. I think an important part of leaving pro-Ana is recognizing how it makes you feel and identifying why you want to look at it, and hopefully finding other ways to honor your emotional needs.

i mean this is a perfect analysis of those impulses and advice on handling them in my book. this is a prime example of a healthy relationship with relapse and disordered impulses. understanding that even recovery itself can be triggering is very important, and its a mature observation about the recovery cycle too. i can often tell that i’m going to relapse when i notice myself becoming too comfortable or happy because like many, my ed comes from a place of insecurity and ego protection, and i panic under the fear that i don’t really deserve my well-being. and i’ll go back to pro-ed content almost as a way to comfort myself, because it’s safer to constrain myself than to be comfortable. you were spot on in the ways you described dealing with them—at a certain point in recovery, going back to pro-ed content is a sign that there’s some unprocessed emotion or stress that you’re trying to deal with by controlling or punishing yourself, and the best you can do is recognize that you can soothe those needs much better in other ways. thank you so much!

tell me your experiences in leaving pro-ed/thinspo communities: what helped you leave, the hardest parts of letting go, or any advice you have for others trying to do the same!