Recovering Online
The contradictory world of “pro-anorexia” forums
Before you begin this article, please be aware that it contains details about my own eating disorder and experiences on ‘pro-ana’ forums. If you struggle with disordered behavior or body-image issues, it may be best to avoid reading on. I do not advocate the behaviors I describe.
I have been using “pro-anorexia” forums on and off for eight years. When I started, aged 14, I was at the height of my illness. To this day, ‘Ana Sophie’ lies nestled in my contact list, the ghost of an online friend with similar height/weight stats to me, her phone number long disconnected. I wonder if she is okay.
It used to be that I only turned to the forums when I was having a relapse. They were a shameful secret, a dark phenomenon that had sparked thousands of articles. I liked the infamy. It meant that logging in was the mark that I was really out of control.
I was out of control, undoubtedly. Pro-anorexia communities saw the posts that tracked the three weeks where I spat most of my meals out before swallowing them, the two weeks of the “ana boot camp” diet I managed before I fainted, the week I decided that standing in a cold shower would force me to burn calories to warm myself up. Like family photo albums, the forums archived all of my awkward phases. The most famous of the websites housed progress…
