It's odd, after all this time I still struggle with thoughts of self injury. I haven't cut in a very long time, but i still think about it — a lot. I have to constantly stop myself. I have been successful for years now, but it still takes willpower.

It's very different for my eating problems. It's been a long time since I've been even tempted to purge. It just doesn't interest me anymore. I still struggle with body image issues, but purging isn't even on the table.

Self-injury and bulimia are very different beasts. They are both quick solutions, but the timing of the result is different. I wonder if that has anything to do with it. The effects of self-injury come immediately while the effects of bulimia are long term. Perhaps that is the difference. Perhaps bulimia just lost its twisted appeal to me while self-injury didn't.

In a way, self-injury not losing it's appeal is a blessing. It keeps me from letting my guard down. It reminds me that I can slip backward and by doing so it ensures that I continue to actively push forward.

Poll #1016853 American Beauty vs. Fit Light Dairy
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Who do you find more attractive?

ganked from recoiling:



I know it may seem odd that this message, a message broadcast until now primarily by radical activists, is being picked up by a beauty corporation. There may be worry about whether or not Dove actually believes the message or sees it as a powerful marketing ploy. However, I do not think Doves intentions here matter as much as their actions. By broadcasting this message, they are lending vast resources to the message that this message would not otherwise have had. They are reaching audiences that are not normally within the reach of radical activists. Corporations have vast resources and they aren't going away anytime soon, it is better to have some of them on our side.

I just filed my first abuse report:

Deadly Contests 0_thinspiration holds contests in which the anorexic participants try to lose the most weight possible in a short amount of time. This is a potentially deadly contest, and I would hate to see lj share in that liability. The information about the contest is listed on their profile. from the profile of 0_thinspiration: Competition [06.20.05 - 07.20.05] This is a little weight loss competition that is just meant to keep people on their goals. It runs for a month and members compete to lose the most doing whatever they want (fasting, binge & purge, excersize, pills). We put their starting weight & height in a special entry, and we announce the winner at the end.

Some of you will note that this is different than my old attitude towards pro-ana communities. While I never much cared for the communities, I thought they should be left up for two reasons: 1) free speech issues 2) attacking the communities was in effect attacking the victims of anorexia and not the root causes (the marketing, entertainment, news, fashion, and beauty industries).

The first point has always been shakey in my view, as LiveJournal is a privately run forum, and therefore has every right to monitor the content on it's servers. LiveJournal has always censored content. There would need to be no new precedent set about the pro-ana communities.

As far as the second point goes, my views on the root causes has not changed. I still firmly believe something must be done about the problem. However, pro-ana communities (especially ones that hold contests or rate users) promote, spread, and worsen eating disorders. I don't believe people should go into these communities and tell the people in them off. Harassment will help no one, further victimizes victims of corporate culture, and causes members to become insular and separated from those who could help them. Shutting them down, especially when they cross some very fine lines, is more appropriate.

I hate the media's and the medical community's mixed message on weight. First, the medical community's weight standards, which they refuse to revise anyway except downward, suggest a weight that is unattainable by many people and studies are showing isn't actually healthy. A bmi of less than 25 actually puts you at greater health risk. Some padding is actually a good thing. If it weren't people wouldn't have evolved the ability to make padding. If would be much easier for the body to just expel the excess calories, so there must be an evolutionary reason for keeping them.

The news media repeats the medical communities dire predictions about the "obesity epidemic". Warning people that if they don't achieve the unhealthy and often unachievable goals that not only will they die an early death, but it will be their fault. They will cause their own demise, cause the suffering of loved ones, and be a general burden on society as a whole. What a cheerful message to tell people, considering that the United States Health Department's demented guidelines list two-thirds of Americans overweight. This message refuses to be swayed by evidence, as the thin obsessed elite press to make sure everyone fits into their model of "attractive". The goal is a perfect world with perfect conformity.

While the emaciation-obsession of the entertainment industry is more well known, it is growing in its destructiveness. Every year, the parade of starvation in the entertainment media increases in severity and prominence. Women in entertainment are regularly below even the government's unrealistic guidelines for a healthy weight. American Idol judges tell woman the government would consider of normal weight that they are too fat to compete. With the backing of the medical community and the news media, the entertainment industry has become emboldened and belligerent in it's attitude to the slightest drop of fat.

And then these same assholes sit and scratch their heads at the alarming rate of eating disorders. ED suffers must be mentally ill or narcissistic they reason. It can't be the simple fact that when people can't realistically achieve the weight desired by the media and the medical community, they turn to less healthy methods, because for many they are the only way to achieve the only acceptable physique. The pro-ed sites have to look no further for the "thinspiration" images they display on their webspaces than the entertainment industry. The problem couldn't be the images of severely underweight stars labeled by the mainstream as "sexy" and "ideal", it must be the anorexics and bulimics fault for looking at them as "sexy" and "ideal". It can't be that until the eating disorder becomes critical they receive endless complements and encouragement for their weight loss from friends, loved ones, and even their doctors. It can't be that they are actually listening to the media and the medical community. Instead they are treated as evil, selfish, and mentally ill. The pro-ana communities are seen as cause not symptom. When the eating disorder is revealed, the vulnerable are treated with contempt and ridiculed by the very people who had been complementing and encouraging their unnatural weight loss.

i'm twitchy
i'm going to take a day off shaving
i don't need to look perfect every day
i don't need to worry about passing today
i'm not going anywhere anyone would care
i'm just going to go to purpleglitter's
relax
write some poetry
i wish i wasn't so twitchy
i don't know what's wrong
i just can't get rid of the twitches
my stomach is not feeling good today either
i think my twitches effect it
i'm going to take some ativan
and try to relax
i'm not doing good
i'm having bad urges
but i'm containing them
purpleglitter is going to pick me up in an hour
i'm going to get merryperseis to sit with me until then
so i don't do any bad things
i don't feel good
i'm very twitchy
shakey
but i'm doing better than i was
i haven't been twitchy most of the day
just now
the last few hours
i hate the twitchies
i will be doing better later
just right now i am not good
i will try
i'm going to stay out
out of the psych ward
....
phone call
it's myenergy (my mom)
gotta go

Spy Pond is absolutely breathtaking right now. I sat on a snowcovered bench and watched the lights on the far side of the pond poke gently through the mists rising above the rippling water. Everything about the outside is beautiful right now. Gentle unblemished snowdrifts. Waves of snow flowing over silent streets lit by the soft glow of the ever faithful streetlamps above. I would stay out there for hours if it weren't for the relentless bite of the bitterly cold winds. The blizzard absolutely raging right now. Glorious in its fury. Definitely worth the venture out.

Note to self: The next time you see fit to run off into a blizzard in the middle of the night for no particularly good reason, wear gloves.

Went Man Ray with purpleglitter and pillowkisser. I was surprised that purpleglitter went. She's spent so much energy the last few years to rid herself of her gothic "albatross". Regardless, she seemed to have a good time. She's always big fun to have along on any excursion.

I saw many old friends and met a few new ones. I'm always excited to see people that I've lost contact with. It's so hard keeping in touch with people sometimes, especially when life becomes hectic. I'm going to make a more concerted effort to keep in touch with people. I don't like drifting away.

I danced with laurellily. Our hands found each other, and we sat staring longingly at one another for some time. Something about her makes me swoon. Swoon. She is strong, yet inviting. Powerful, yet gentle. Commanding yet kind. There is something between us. I can see it in her eyes. I can feel it in her touch. I can taste it on her lips. I don't know what it is. But there is something there. What will become of it, only the future knows.

I'm an ugly evil bitch. i hate me i hate me i hate me i hate me. if i just messed up my own life that would be fine. no i have to make everyone around me miserable too. i hate me i hate me i hate me i hate me i hate me i hate me.

Late last night, purpleglitter and I watched Gia. Wonderful movie. Angelina Jolie is absolutely drop dead sexy. The character of Gia reminded me of riga_mortia in many ways. I don't mean Gia's heroin use or the problems surrounding it, I mean she's like Gia in the youthful, take-no-crap, in-your-face, strong, powerful, sparky, sexy, sensual, outrageous, over-the-top, and simply amazing ways.

-----

I don't remember going to bed. purpleglitter told me in the morning that I was freaking out when I went to sleep. Probably one of the floaters went to bed. I remember when I was growing up, I'd be playing outside, then the next thing I'd know I was waking up in the middle of the night or the next morning, often on the couch. I lost a lot more time back then, but lately I've been catching up.

-----

merryperseis, pillowkisser, and I signed the lease this morning along with the landlord. All that's left is for laurellily to sign. Hopefully I can arrange that for Monday morning. It's been a chore getting this all arranged, but it looks likes it's working out. East Arlington, here I come.

While I find the nude body beautiful, I fail to find it "sexy". I don't know why, but nudity just doesn't have that spark for me. I find that people are often sexy when they are clothed. I really like how clothing works with the body. When I fantasize it almost always includes clothed people. I don't know how many other people feel this way. It seems that American culture is obsessed with the idea that "nude = erotic". I guess the link is probably drawn because nudity makes sexual stimulation easier to accomplish, but I don't think eroticism finds it's truest form in stimulation. I think eroticism is more in the longing to twist together with another one in unbridled desire. I believe it is about setting. I believe clothing only adds to the setting. Velvet and silk only add to sensations of touch. For me, clothing that complements the form, adds to it, is the most erotic of all. It tantalizes the eyes to explore and devour what is before them.

I want to cut again. I already did a little. The last cutting wasn't pure. It was tainted by thoughts of food. I don't want to cut over food. I have better cutting to do. Pure cutting. Let my blood flow, because the pain heals me. The ugliness complements my ugliness. Let me bleed. Let my skin break. Let me feel my pain on my arms and my leg. Let the torments of my soul come forth onto my flesh. Let it.

This doesn't even come close to how upset she really is about this.

Some guy is tearing up our front yard. We used to have pretty rose bushes - gone. The wonderful little evergreens - gone. Now we have dirt. Knowing our landlord, they're not going to be replaced. The guy has also pruned the fuck out of the remaining shrubs, so now they look like shit. The house is being uglified.

i am ugly. my face is an eyesore. i hate being ugly. i hate it. i hate it. i want to dance on the stars, but instead i cry on the floor.

I know that by my own politics my weight doesn't matter. I find other people who aren't skinny more attractive than those who are. So, why do I get hyperparanoid about my weight? Why do I care? I don't know. I really need more therapy, I guess. I need more than this two half-hours a month crap I've been getting. I need real therapy. Something's just not working right in my logic.