Eating Disorder ProAna Blogger Focused on Body Image and Self Esteem

Miley's Twitter reaction to the fat attack

Hannah Montana has grown up to be a wonderful young woman, with beautiful curves and a flowing mane — but what do we see?

FAT

Yep, just another fat ass, just like Demi Lovato who ended up getting (successful) treatment thank God.

I hope and pray both of these brave women will stand up and fight, and keep fighting, not breaking down to the pressure to be something that does not exist. The challenge has got to be completely overwehlming since at the end of the day its just…

YOU

and the

MIRROR

And we all know the mirror lies as we are criticized. A day can start out all bright and sunny, only to
turn ugly, fat and gross due to a sly comment from some irrelevant bastard. Your body has not changed, your mind has, but somehow you convince yourself the bastard was right. Your thighs are disgusting. Your arms? Kinda big, no? And your stomach, from the side, is a lot pudgier than 7 hours earlier, really sticking out, you look kinda pregnant actually. Out comes the evil scale that proves your thoughts, the number WAY higher than it “should” be.

And there the downward cycle goes, eventually into the toilet where you upchuck after breaking your fast out of pure desperation, leaving you feeling like the big – fat- loser that you are.

Let’s watch (and pray) Miley proves them all wrong. Pray she withstands all the naysayers trying to bring her down, giving her strength to strap on her boxing gloves to keep posting pictures of Marilyn so she becomes the new “norm.”

What a world that would be.

mV

XO

I got home from a business trip at 1am, and went in to snuggle up with my 8 year old son before heading to bed. As I left the room, I noticed he had tacked these “RULES” on his door, and I had to share.

I’m thinking I am adopting these rules in my life as well….if only life was that easy.

mamaV

XOXO

Crap, I’ve had a hellava couple months so hope you are in the mood for a rant.

Diagnosed with mono (again). I mean, come on — I am 42 years old (total grandma to most of you I know, plus its not like I am making out with some dude behind the bleachers — happily married soon to be 15 years!)

Anyway, I’ve been through a battery of tests. Everything normal. Actually, perfectly normal. I am healthy as a horse, except for this mono mystery virus that keeps pulling me down every few years. Needless to say, this doesn’t feel normal to me, I can’t help thinking there is something more behind it you know?

In case you don’t know mono is caused by the Epstein Barr virus. Basically, you have to have it in order to be diagnosed officially with mono. Same deal with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or CFS.  I don’t know about you, but CFS is the last label I want slapped on me. I don’t feel like carrying that ball and chain around the rest of my life. Plus, in the US of A,  CFS, just like Fibromyalgia are in our societies crock o’ shit diseases category.

Its in our head.

Lady, seriously, see the psych already.

Have you tried caffeine?

All statements that have been said directly to my face by arrogant doctors, including a kiddish resident that called me ma’am. I called him dude. Tit for tat.

So in the cyclone of these doctor appointments I catch a glimpse of my online chart which states I have a “mood problem.”

Seriously, a mood problem.

Those of you who know me know that anxiety is one of those old friends I have tried to ditch my entire life but failed. So, I resorted to medicine, prescribed by a highly skilled psychiatrist whom I respect very much. Meds that literally changed my life, allowed me to read, concentrate, be a better mother, perform better at my job, and basically be a real person. The little cocktail of pills that I wish to God I had known about way back in my teenage years.

But to the kid, to the oh-so-wise resident doctor, this medicine is basically for total losers. Plus, my prescribed dosage is WAYY the hell to high, in fact he is shocked because he has never, ever seen a patient taking these dosages of psych drugs (which is not saying much since I think I was his first patient EVER).

But still, his words sting.  I know you know what I mean. 

Here’s the point, we’ve got to blow off all the people that regard mental illness as some sort of weakness. Its all in our head, we are all mad. Might as well bring back the sanitariums and shock treatments to get these crazed people under control already. To this day, I struggle with this, but ultimately I come out on top.

In this situation (you’ll get a kick out of this), I listened to the kid rattle on with his ball of crap philosophy, asking me questions like

“What do you have to be so anxious about? So you just hang your hat on believing anxiety is genetic?” In the next breath, he went on to tell me there is simply NO WAY I have mono. After all, I don’t look sick. He tells me how people with mono can barely walk, and me? I look perfectly healthy.

I insist on the test anyway. He acts pissed but runs it. I ditch out of the office before getting the results because I’ve had my fill of this dude.

Mono tests come back positive.

The guy is a genius! I wonder what his face looked like when he saw those test results…man I wish  would have stayed around for that.

So here I sit. Resting. Resting. Resting. And thinking about how glad I am ME and not HIM. Thinking about how proud I am that I express these things here in the hopes that one of you may relate and feel just a little bit better about yourself.

You are not nuts. They are. Save yourself a lot of heartache and trust me.

Love,

mV

XOXO

Found this list on Facebook written by Sarah and wanted to share. This just struck me as a really cool idea…add thoughts as they come about and read through them to reinforce positive reality. See list in process here

-Move forward eagerly, while embracing the now.

-I am free to choose to live as I wish and to give priority to my desires.

-Remember that your body only is not you. The sum of who you are is more important than your body.

-I’ll definitely remember who Stephen Hawking is – but not who won Miss Universe’s last contest.

-I am thankful for all the parts of my body that function correctly

-I appreciate all the movements that my body let me perform

-I am thankful for being able to touch, see, smell, hear and taste

-“I don’t ask for more: the sky above me and the path under my feet.”Robert Louis Stevenson

-Our physical body is a key part of our existence.

-I listen to my intuition.

—–

I think this is the very first post I have ever written about religion. I am not sure why I have avoided the topic, but if I had to guess I would say the topic tends to be off-putting to some (and I certainly don’t want to seem like some holy roller).

So, on to the topic; do you pray?

I started wondering about this when I responded to a direct email I received from an eating disorder sufferer. I found myself almost typing the advice to add prayer to her life, but then I thought it was inappropriate since how do I know her background, culture, and other factors of her beliefs? For me to state she should pray seemed rude.

What do you think?

I have a regular prayer that I somehow made up in my head, I have no idea when, it goes like this;

“God, help show me the way and help me be the best person I can be.”

(more…)

I love to find hidden blogs, those focused on body image and eating disorders, they are like little gems just waiting to be discovered. I found Patricia,  the blogger of Beutiful, because she posted on a comment here about her blog. If you enjoy her poem below “Raisins, I highly recommend you go check it out, and sign up for her upcoming newsletter here.

AND, lets do something new,  please post your blog URL so I can find you, I’ll add you to my blogroll, and if you would return that favor that would be great!

XOXO, mV

—-

Raisins

Yea. I used to look in the mirror. Naked. Hoping. For perfection. Yea. I used to eat raisins all day. I used to want to be everything you wanted and never thought about anything that I wanted. I didn’t know. All I knew was that that mirror had better say “perfect.”

I saw the way you loved models. And celebrities. I saw the media. I saw the fitting room, how my body could not look “right.” To feel guilty for eating, to feel guilty about one pound, to feel anything at all, just to be “perfect.”

(more…)

This is a picture from Bergdorf Goodman‘s website. They depict the 19-year-old model Inna Pilipenko in clothing from Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen’s brand  The Row.

This is sick ok?

Not sexy. Not pretty. Not anything but totally sick.

(more…)

Now that I am done hyperventilating over this situation, I think I am in a half way reasonable state of mind to write this post about the Diesel Be Stupid ad campaign, sent to me by the mother of a 14-year-old daughter who was subject to this ad from Nylon Magazine.

Read full story here and comment

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I have had the craziest week, no time to post, sitting here lol at these sites I read in Wired so I figured I’d share;

Look At This F-ing Hipster (these dudes got a book deal out of this)

People of Walmart (I am headed out to my local store, honestly — the place is a freak show)

Passive Aggressive Notes

The “Blog” of unnecessary” Quotation Marks

That’s about all the hilarity I can take for the night folks,

Enjoy!

mV

I recently was interviewed for this ParentsCanada feature story on eating disorders.

For those of you who don’t know my real name is Heather, in the article I share some of my worst struggles with an ED during the hell-ish modeling days in Paris.

I don’t miss the baby food
Or the 3 hour workouts,
Or feeling like shit about myself
Or analyzing every-single-imperfection on my entire face and body even though there were none.

Thank god that I came out the other side alive, healthy, happy, and only semi-neurotic. The anxiety freak is still in me, but tamed….I’ve grown to like her.

Do I think I will ever go back there?

No way in hell.

There is literally no way in hell.

Never ever did I visualize I would live to see that day that my every waking hour wasn’t spent crisis-ing about what I put in my mouth, what I weighed, or how I was being judged. It took six years of heavy duty  deprogramming to erase the brainwashing my psychotic modeling agents thrust upon me as a mere child, the ones who rigged the scale, told me to not eat, prodded me to be sexier, to get a boob job, to build up my shoulders, and to continually pound my body into the sand for the love of fashion.

But I beat them, and I beat my evil ED.

And you can too, with dedication, commitment, and a positive attitude.

Pick yourself up each time you fall down, and sooner or later you will find you are standing tall with a free spirit and soul that is just waiting for what life has to offer.

.mV

We live in an insanely eating disordered society.

A society that is so totally out of control that we have 9 year old girls dieting, models dropping dead from anorexia, and fat people being treated as if they are a piece of crap. Yet, the world keeps spinning, brands keep pumping out the B.S and we keep on sucking it up as fast as they create it.

Our fear of fat drives young women to choose death over fat.

Losing their parents over fat.

Even cancer over fat.

Is that ok with you?

You’ve got to stand for something.

This is all too much for me. I am not one to sit around watching this madness unfold and act like this is ok. So – I fire off my blog posts and hope it matters. Maybe my thoughts change a few attitudes here and there, makes a few women think before they criticize another, or possibly stops you from weighing in on your worthiness today. And maybe, just maybe, a few lives lives are changed in the process.

At least I would like to believe so.

What I care about;

Children and how they are impacted by our demented media and fashion industry.

Women who are wasting their lives hating themselves and their bodies for absolutely no reason.

Mothers that are so sucked into body hate that they knowingly impact their children but do not know what to do about it.

Men and fathers who feel lost when it comes to helping
their wives and children with self esteem and positive body image.

Anyone who feels degraded in a society where we discriminate based on weight and we have allowed our fear of fat to completely control our universe.

What I write about:

I write about the what I believe are the culprit(s) -

Media, fashion, celebrity culture, plastic surgery, the diet industry, the cosmetic industry and everything else in between. If I knock some sense into a few people here and there, I’m happy.

If you think I am full of it, rant away.

Why I blog:

To influence change, a different line of thought; hopefully help you think different when you page through a fairy-tale fashion magazine.

To be a voice of reason for our brainwashed young women and girls (thank you for all the emails of support telling me this matters – keep ‘em coming, even I get down sometimes and need a boost!)

To debate. I love a good debate, differing points of view…we can all learn something, including myself. I always read your comments and stay in the conversation after I post (I’ve always hated that when a blogger posts and then you never hear from them again on the thread of comments – I like to be part of the discussion – and it gives me a chance to admit when I am wrong!)

And I have always promised myself that if the day comes where I am no longer passionate about these topics – I’ll quit, cold turkey.

Why it matters:

One of the coolest things about blogging is it brings together individuals from various backgrounds and experiences, to discuss topics sometimes civilly and other times not so nice. Without the community of people that come together to read, this blog is nothing, its just a big pile of me babbling, so I thank you for reading and responding (stop lurking already and post your comments already)

Your life is now.

-mV

I am finally ready to post about male eating disorders; thanks to my husband finding the book Skinny Boy by Gary Grahl at the library a few weeks back.

Gary Grahl is from Wisconsin…kind of freaky since the last book I
read Purge, was also written by a Wisconsinite. Plus he attended UW
Milwaukee – just as I did. That combined with the many references to
the Milwaukee Brewers, and Grahl's one time idol Jim Gantner, made me
feel like he was my neighbor going through this tragic hell.

Man, does Grahl have a story to tell.

You'd think I have read it all, heard it all, seen it all – but this one threw me for a loop.

It seems guys are burdened with the ole' perfection gene that us girls are, but in this case the body image focus was on sports, extreme (and I mean extreme) exercise,  literally working the human body so far beyond its capabilities…that Grahl is damn lucky to be alive.

I thought I was exercise obsessed back in the day, but I've got nothing on this guy;

- Grahl describes the pure panic he felt during inpatient when unable to exercise…but he still found a way to burn calories by flexing calf muscles and abs continually while seated.

-The bathroom was a regular exercise retreat, where he managed to burn the maximum number of calories within 3 minutes by frantically jumping, pushing, and lifting at a pace that defies all logic.

-Near the end Grahl is literally fighting this disease so hard, that he lost complete and total control of all bodily functions, and describes in grotesque detail what that experience was like. This section of the book took my breath away. I debated even reading it, and when I did, I wish I hadn't, but its probably good I did.

Because that is how ugly this disease is.

Throughout the book Grahl has an inner dialog with this "IT", a style I liked because it made me drop down inside this guys head and really get what he was feeling. IT was basically his perfectionist stalker…demeaning him at every turn, and convincing him that he was worthless (sound familiar anyone?)

Thank god he came out the other side, alive and well….only to go on to get married, have children, and help others suffering as he did. Grahl was so courageous to publish his personal story, and I am convinced his words are helping many others.

Another great read,

mV

Ya think???!!!

This woman is 5'11 weighing in at 108pounds. C'mon-

A) How did she make it this far without being flagged an anorexic?

B) This is not an attractive figure by any means, so don't fool yourself.

C) This is a sick, sick world my friends. Keep your head on straight by avoiding this crap at all costs

Do NOT buy into the media/fashion worlds ideals, unless you want to end up very ill, unhappy, and dead.

Be Strong,

-mV

Is Vegetarianism a teen eating disorder?

Time Magazine recently studied this topic, which brought back many memories of my early-teen-disordered-eating habits.

I was about 15 or so, when I decided to cut the meat out of my diet. I remember it clearly because I love meat, but no one would know it. 

No hamburger, no tacos, no chili, c'mon! And don't even get me going on steak, and pork tenderloin.

My entire decision revolved around one thing and one thing only;

MEAT = FAT

I know now, of course, this is not true.

But it sure is easy to convince yourself of it when Hollywood is all-vegan-all-the-time, and you've got PETA exploiting it with skinny mini actresses showing off their bods to send the clear message "Veggies-R-Us"

The Time study showed;
-20% of the vegetarians turned out to be binge eaters,
compared with only 5% of those who had always eaten meat.

-25% of current vegetarians and 20% of former
vegetarians in the same age group said they had engaged in extreme
weight-control measures such as taking diet pills or laxatives and
forcing themselves to vomit.

Only 1 in 10 teens who had never been
vegetarian reported similar behavior. View complete report.

My experience showed:

-It's easy as hell to hide your eating disorder behind vegetarianism. In fact, people applaud you for it.

-Cutting out meat was a first step to the slippery slope of disordered eating, which then lead to convincing myself chicken and fish should go too.

-When you don't eat any meat…there's not much too eat at family affairs. You've created the perfect excuse at Aunt Betty's house, when she serves an all-meat-buffet, with a side of bacon laced potatoes. Suddenly, sitting there eating 4 lettuce leaves doesn't seem so odd so you fly under the radar.

I do hope this study raises awareness with parents that vegetarian-ism can be yet another warning sign of an eating disorder creeping its way into your child's brain.

-mV

Are you pregnant and struggling with your eating disorder?

Discovery Health is producing a documentary focused about expectant women whose pregnancies are exacerbated by a difficult circumstance in their lives. They are seeking an ED sufferer who is currently between 5-8 months pregnant to share their personal story. Payment for participation is $1500.

I can't help but be protective when I receive these types of solicitations….so please think before you respond. Think about how your involvement may impact you, and be sure this will be a positive move for your condition, and your growing baby.

If you are interested in more information, email me at mamavision@gmail.com

-mV

So many posts, so little time! Here is a bunch of interesting info that has come my way that I need to share in Cliff's Notes fashion!

Pro Anorexia Documentary
Watch for "The Truth about Online Anorexia"
airing in the UK April 9th 21:00 on ITV. After it airs, it can be
viewed online here by those of us residing in other countries. I am sure
this will spark much conversation.

Cerulean Butterfly
Pro Ana support site or high school drama queen landing place? More to
come on this…if you have info to share bring it on. The stories of
admin abuse going on here is completely unacceptable.

Side note: This picture from the homepage of their site really, really creepy and it should probably be a warning to wannabe members that some evil-ness lurks inside.

Looking Glass Foundation
Canadian Eating Disorder center produced these awesome ED commericals with DDB. They will leave you breathless:

"This disease takes our best and brightest."

Words spoken from a glassy-eyed father, arms folded in defeat, as he tells of his once genius-level violin playing daughter who can now barely hold down a part-time job. 

"Where will she go?"

Inquires a small business owner, and mother of a 17 year old anorexic daughter, as she fights back tears to explains that her daughters insurance coverage will soon expire.

"I am here for my daughter."

Echos a voice in the back, where a proud mother and her elegant, college-aged daughter are seated united for their cause.

These and many others spoke at the NEDA STAR Program Legislative Hearing in Madison, WI on March 17th. I was honored to attend and take part in this changing day for eating disorder sufferers. 

The Worldwide Charter for Action on Eating Disorders big. Really big. 

Here's why:

This legislation will require insurance coverage for eating disorder sufferers. No more bogus assessments, no more worrying about random discharge from inpatient, and finally there will be official recognition for this mental disease.

Here's what you can do:

1) Sign the charter….this takes 6.2 seconds, please do it now!

This is a global, worldwide initiative with major supporters and lobbyists on our side.

2) Rally.

Find your government official in your US State or Country of Residence, and participate in the STAR event in your area. If you missed the event in your area, find out who is in charge and call them to find out how you can get involved.

3) Stalk.

Legislators literally say they have a "rule of ten," meaning if 10 people call or email on a certain issue they will take notice. T-E-N, that's insane how low it is! Please, please, please call and email your legislator. Post back here to let us know who you did your part!

US State Representatives

Other Countries: Please send me links to your government representatives for me to post.

4) Talk

Start talking to people you know and educate them on why this matters. Ask them to sign the charter or make a call.

From the bottom of my heart,

Thank you!

mamaV

——-

PS In the meantime, here is some information to help you deal with insurance problems in the US:

How to navigate insurance issues

Other Countries: Please send me links to post.