I REALIZE THAT YOU THINK US DESERVING OF YOUR RIDICULE, and I realize that I am in no position to [nor do I have any right to] argue, but before you burden us with your punishments, please take into consideration the effects they will have, the motives behind them - your reasons for dealing them out. Please take a moment to contemplate what we go through each and every day. And please believe me when I tell you that your presence here is meaningless.

You don't need to punish us because our guilt does that for you.

We have to put up with a ludicrous double standard held against us by both men and women - with patronizing waiters asking if we'll be eating tonight, so-called feminists viciously enforcing their own vision of the ideal female body, and Kate Winslet and her throng referring to the prospect of thin being pretty as "bollocks." It's one thing to say big is beautiful, but when I hear someone go off on how nasty scrawny girls are, I just want to apologize - to curl up in bed where no one can see me and cry, because I really am as ugly as I think I am.

Why then, you may be wondering, don't I go into recovery? Why don't I rant and rave at my fellow flies until they seek treatment? Why isn't this site devoted completely to healing this demonic sickness?

FOR STARTERS, treatment is expensive - and no, this illness does not limit itself to the wealthy. Of course there's always the issue of proving you're anorexic - that gets old fast. And even if you can afford it and you do get in, your life is put on halt for months, cutting you off from work, school, family...everything. This suffering is in addition to the stress and sting of being forced to eat, which, even when done willingly, is enough to induce suicidal tendencies [assuming they aren't already present].

EATING IS PRACTICALLY PAINFUL TO AN ANOREXIC. Many compare it to having their face rubbed in their own feces. Personally, I feel like I'm drowning when I eat. I even have trouble chewing gum. And on top of all that, usually about two thirds of anorexics who are re-fed in hospitals suffer a relapse soon after, so why bother spending massive amounts of time, energy, and money on torturing yourself only to watch your treatment fail and your life sink? When it's all said and done, all that's been accomplished is the unwilling intensification of guilt and hopelessness.

So, why teach this self-hatred to others? Good question. The answer is we don't. Sites advocating anorexia as a "lifestyle choice" are not advocating anorexia, they are advocating ignorant methods of dieting. We hate this illness. Anyone who claims to love anorexia is not anorexic.

I've said it before, and I will say it again:
*BlueDragonfly is not a Pro-Ana site*

BlueDragonfly is neutral - we don't push perfection, we don't push recovery, and we don't push guilt. [We get enough of that as it is.] While we at BlueDragonfly do not encourage sickness, we also do not judge each other for being sick. This is a place of restfulness and acceptance, where we may come to take a deep breath and tell ourselves that there is hope - that there is absolution - that there is love left in the world.

You may think that whether we encourage it or not, building online shrines to it do just as much damage. Listen carefully:

SOME PEOPLE WILL TELL YOU THAT ANOREXIA IS A DISEASE, as though it can be spread by simple contact with those who are "infected". Anorexia Nervosa is a mental disorder that is present in the brain from birth and remains there until death, no more infectious than schizophrenia or depression. It is not contagious. You will not *catch* anorexia from this or any other website. We are not hurting innocent young girls looking to lose weight. We aren't capable of it. Don't you see that? How long will it take for people to realize that these sites are a symptom, not a cause? Why does the world hate us so passionately?

Because we are murderers?
Because we are vain?
Because we are thin?

Or are you one of those who think we are hell-bent on mirroring the supermodels and movie stars paraded around by the media? Why would we want to look like models? Have you seen how fat models are? They have muscles and breasts. We don't want that. We don't want to look good; we want to look thin. Thin is good to us, and [unlike the rest of society] we are more concerned with meeting our own standards than with meeting everybody else's. And while I'm on the subject, what makes you think models and stars and the media are responsible for eating disorders, anyway? We are all exposed to the same media in this country, and the media of other countries differs little. Why aren't you anorexic? Anorexia was first identified in 1689; the modeling industry as we know it didn't form until a good two hundred years later.

Models don't spread this sickness and neither do we.

ANOREXICS DON'T KILL. ANOREXIA KILLS. And this is not about looks, I assure you. It's about weight. It's about control. It's about perfection. And most of us aren't actually thin - not even by your twisted standards. If we were truly as thin as you envision us, we would be in treatment against our will. You know this. Don't pretend you don't.

Trolling our sites will not make us better. It will not make us save ourselves, it will not make us apologize. It will not make us disappear. [We've tried; it doesn't work.] Regardless of how good the intentions behind it may be, telling us to "JUST EAT SOMETHING" will not cure us. Eating is not a solution. Eating is not possible. If it was as easy as buying a burger, we wouldn't be here, and neither would you.

We don't need you calling us fat.
We don't need you calling us failures and bitches and monsters.
We know all of this. We tell it to ourselves everyday.

I ASSURE YOU, we have seen, heard, and felt it all before. For years, there have been trolls using such cliches as putting up pictures of concentration camp survivors and asking us if we "want to look like that." Of course we don't want to look like that - we want to be thinner. They have lectured us on the starving children in third world countries - a tactic rarely used on the obese. They have told us that men only like women with curves. No, they don't - and this isn't about men. Most of us have been raped at least once in our lives, anyway, so why would we want to attract men? And yes, they have even told us that they don't believe this, because no anorexic is pretty enough to be raped.

If you want to hurt us, you are wasting your time. Your kind has insulted us in every way imaginable, and can therefore have nothing more to say to us. There is no cruel joke, no snide remark, no blatant offense you can tell us that we do not tell ourselves each waking hour.

IF YOU WANT TO HELP US, LISTEN UP: don't simplify our sickness by blaming it on models and movie stars; don't pity us for supposedly being suckered into starvation; don't cheapen our suffering by justifying it. Eating disorders cannot be cured by simply replacing thin models with fat ones, or even by altering the general ideal. Your standards mean nothing to us, and even should you manage to change them to the cowardly curve-praising gimmicks you're always reaching for, we will continue on with our own struggle for perfection.

This is an illness, not a media ploy.

Don't mock our illness by labeling it a choice; don't harass us for being honest with ourselves; don't condemn us for offering each other a shoulder to cry on. We would not wish this pain on anyone, not in a million lifetimes, not for a million praises. We do not seek to spread our suffering, but only to dull it through solidarity and camaraderie - through sisterhood and solace.

There are no pills and no surgeries for us - only support and therapy and the ever-present backdoor of suicide, which [believe me] looks better and better with every bite. Though we ourselves are hesitant to believe it, there are worse people in the world than us. Please, go spend your hatred on them.