The Real Result of Hatemail

I wonder, sometimes, what result people are hoping for when they send me hatemail or leave mean messages in the guestbook. Calling me a "Hitler Nazi bitch" and a psychopathic murderer with no conscience and no self worth. Trying your damndest to make me feel like absolute crap.

Do you think that insults and belittling help get your point across? And what IS your point? Do you disagree with the site? Fine, go ahead and disagree. Lots of people do. I have no problem with that; in fact, I expect it. The "eating world" and the "disordered eating world" are very, very different places and it's nearly impossible for a person from one to be in synch and comfortable with the ideas of the other.

If you're trying to get me to shut the site down, know that that is not going to happen until I'm ready for recovery -- and yes, that will happen someday. Not necessarily today, but someday. I don't want to die of a heart attack before I'm 25. Until that day comes, no insult or threat is going to make me take it down. This site is no longer just mine -- it belongs to every eating-disordered individual that comes here looking for hope and understanding. No one should be alone.

When you come here and to the guestbook and to the message boards and attack me and the CB members, you are only reinforcing the idea that this is the only safe place we have, that the rest of the world can't and doesn't want to understand us. One of the girls on the board put it best: "What are they thinking? This angry mob coming after us with pitchforks and cheeseburgers? Don't they know it only drives us in deeper?" The site and the boards have become like family for many of the members, and instead of breaking people down and forcing them out, trolls and haters just make us band together into what is affectionately called the CB Family.

If you're trying to get me into recovery, trying to shake me up and make me think about "what I'm doing to myself and my family and my friends," well, how is calling me a worthless, cold-hearted bitch going to help? I suffer from low, low self-confidence, which is one of the contributing factors of my eating disorder. I can't stand being in my own skin. Insults and put-downs are just reinforcing the idea that I will never be good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, perfect enough to deserve to get better. The absolute last thing that anyone with an eating disorder needs is more negative voices screaming at them -- we have plenty in our own heads.

And those of you who tell me to go starve myself to death. I spend most of my life just wanting to die, to escape the pain of living with this monster inside my head. I envision myself lying in the middle of my floor and not moving for days on end, watching the flesh melt away from my bones, as a wick emerges from a burning candle, until nothing but my skeleton remains. I want to die. You may say it as a joke or an insult, or just out of sheer callous stupidity, but to me it is reality.

Finally, to those of you who say I'm killing people and that I get some sort of sociopathic pleasure out of manipulating impressionable innocent girls into starving themselves, I say this: Grow up. No one develops an eating disorder overnight. They take years of psychological stressors -- abuse, perfectionism, loneliness -- to develop. Instead of blaming me, take a good, long, hard look at the life of the eating-disordered individual and figure out what needs to be fixed inside them, not what needs to be taken off the web. No one stumbles ignorantly onto a site like mine and suddenly realizes that AnA iZ WiCkEdC00lZ yo! Please. No one wants an eating disorder. Honestly, what normal healthy individual would see a photo of an emaciated girl and suddenly decide they want to look like walking death? They may want to lose weight, sure, but most people would never actually work toward that dying body. They would work towards a body like [insert relevant popculture star here], who's "hot" and has the body guys go for. No one wants to hug a skeleton in a romantic way, only in a "let me help you" way. But I ramble. The point is simply that my site doesn't teach anyone anything, as the people that come here do so purposefully and knowingly, in the midst of their eating disorder, looking for understanding and community.

And no, I don't get any pleasure whatsoever in knowing that there are so many girls and guys suffering from anorexia, bulimia, ED-NOS, COE, BED, and a myriad of other eating disorders. Every time someone joins the message board I feel a twinge of sadness. "Here's another person whose life has driven them to self-inflicted starvation." It's unfortunate as hell. Behind ever username is a person who has pain and self-loathing beyond anything that a "normal" person could even imagine. I love each and every one of them as if they were my brothers and sisters, because no one else does. The only joy I get is in seeing these individuals make friends and express themselves openly and unflinchingly -- they have finally found a safe haven where they won't be told to "just fucking eat."

Oh... and to the people who post multiple times in the guestbook... that is so pathetic. Why waste your time here when there are bigger issues that need to be addressed? Go find a child porn site or a pro-KKK site and harass them. They're the ones that are ACTUALLY hurting people.