My therapist's job is to listen to me, and he's so good at it that when he starts talking, I'm hard-pressed not to listen in return. The other day, I talked to him about the pro-ed material that fills the web, about the servers that don't allow it, and the forums - like diaryland - that do. I told him how I don't believe the problem is only as deep as the visible manifestation, that we can heal the pain simply by taking it off the web. I believe pro-ed material signifies a need that isn't being met, and to simply censor the misled manner in which people are trying to meet that need, won't do them any real good. I think of it like my eating disorder, which so many people wanted to stop, squash, take away. If they'd been able to do so, instead of having to wait impatiently while I learned replacement skills, I would have lost my language but not all that I needed to say. My pain, for a time, would not have been visible, but it would have been real, just the same. And I do believe it would have erupted in another way, just like I believe this will erupt in another way, if the anti-ed-glorification camp is able to take all this material off the web. My therapist, who I trust and can't help listening to, agrees with all of this. He also believes that the material needs to be taken down and taken down now. Because there are people who would never have developed eds had they not seen the sites on-line. (This is not to say they would never have felt pain or needed help, but the added life-or-death risk of an eating disorder is something many learn over the Internet.) And I'm not sure how we balance it. I'm not sure how we close the forums and make sure that every person using them is redirected toward real and true support. I'm not good, to be honest, at imagining less than every single person finding help. It hurts too much to think of the statistics, of what I see on-line, at diaryland, in my day to day life...It hurts too much to think of the pain I'm in now, the pain I was in then, the pain so many people live with and die from daily.

And if I could just find the magic way to ensure everyone else's healing without jeopardizing my own, I'd employ it in a second. Sometimes, what scares me most, is the idea that if I knew how, I might not even bother to make sure I was safe. I love so many so much, and I hate this disease, and sometimes I'm willing to be a martyr to the cause. But you know, people die from this disease everyday, and as much as it hurts to know this, the best contribution I can make, truly?- is to live.

I remember now another part of my story, the part that says, "yes, there is a great deal of healing to be done, but first, we need to heal this manifestation to the point your health's secure." And I'm planning to rejoin stop-pro-ana.

Mary

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