#protalk

And then i found out that tumblr will recommend liked posts to your followers and i have a fandom blog with tons of followers, a lot of whom are minors, and i hardcore panicked because i didnt want to be putting it on non-sick peoples dashes and possibly dragging them in

So i deleted the blog and purged my likes. I still end up lurking sometimes on bad days but it made me more aware that people like my sisters or my little cousins might see what im doing and emulate it, so its easier to force myself to do the right stuff and eat as like, an example for them. Which is maybe not the healthiest reason but it helps

but any reason is a good reason! and i think a selfless reason like that where you’re thinking about the well-being of others is always a good start. i think going the step of cleaning out your likes and deleting is a step further then a lot of people take, and it’s definitely a positive thing! i’m proud of you for doing it 💛

i do find it interesting! this is very similar to the ways i felt back in my pro-ed forum days too. i think this really shines a light, because these spaces exist for the express purpose of shaming others into meeting ideals that are impossible for most people to achieve. after a while of sticking around and failing, you really only have two options: you can either make peace with its unobtainabilty or convince yourself that you deserve the misery. pro-ed spaces are really good at making you choose the latter, but after a while of failing and convincing yourself over and over again that you deserve or even want that suffering, you can’t help but notice what a scam it all is. and how UNFAIR it all is! that’s why i chose recovery too, and i’m glad you never “succeeded” in hurting yourself. it’s a good thing to fail at!

hard agree! i definitely have lasting damage from the “tricks” pro-ed blogs taught me too, and i consider myself to be pretty far along in my recovery! even though i’ve left these spaces, they really never left me. it’s interesting that you kept looking at that content during the beginnings of your recovery, that wasn’t my experience but i’m sure recognizing that cognitive dissonance is the wake up call a lot of people need to walk away from those spaces! thank you for sharing ❣️

i’m so sorry for your loss, but i’m very grateful that you survived this and ended up leaving those spaces. it’s really hard to talk about the grief we experience at the hands of eating disorders, and i’m so glad you shared this.

honestly, the big eye opener for me was to stop looking at those posts for a while, while I was attempting recovery (I know it's hard but it really helps) then coming back a few months later and realising how fucking dumb it all was. I really don't mean any offense by saying that. I get it, I did all those fucked up things too but like,, the sheer liberation I experienced when seeing those pro-ed posts about 'how to keep your intake below 500 calories' or 'how to hide the food you didn't eat' and just thinking 'well that's fucking dumb. I can't function on 500 cals a days and even if I once could, why would I have to'.

eventually I don't know if I have any advice besides sharing my experience maybe just,, really try and cut yourself from that community, especially if you don't have friends in it, it's so toxic and I hope you'll realize that at some point. also, if you can, surround yourself with supportive people who don't encourage diets and just don't put that much emphasis on weight and looks. i know they're hard to find but there are quite a few out there and they'll really help change your perspective.

anyway, sorry the long ask. thanks for running this blog, take care!

i think that’s ultimately great advice! i love your reaction to those pro-ed “tricks” 😋 because it’s true! if you already have an eating disorder and understand the basics of the nervosa, those posts appear extremely silly when they’re presented as legitimate advice. because like, i wasn’t doing this because i thought i worked or was good, i was doing them because i have a disorder! it really is pretty dumb, thank you for telling it like it is!

a lot of the asks i’m receiving (some are still in the queue) have some version of “i had to leave before realizing how awful it really was,” and i think that’s probably a sign for anyone who needs it that you should try your best to disconnect from pro-ed spaces, because it’s easier to see how they melt your brain once you’re no longer active in them.

i think the fact that you say they weren’t supposed to be pro-ed is very interesting. i find that to be true very often, a lot of supposedly neutral spaces for eating disorders end up reinforcing the disordered behaviors anyways, unless they are explicitly centered in recovery (and even then sometimes it ends up happening!). spaces for people with eds to commune without being judged or pressured to immediately “just get over it” are very important, but i’ve never seen them work out in a healthy way before. because if there’s no active condemnation of the harmful behaviors, they always end up inspiring competition and comparison whether they intend to or not. so i’m very glad you learned to want to recover, and that recovery has gotten easier for you since leaving those spaces! thank you so much for sharing this 💛

you’re totally right that even after a while in recovery, that pro content still feeds some impulse inside you even though it inevitably makes you feel miserable. i totally feel that, and that’s why fighting against the compulsions to look at those blogs is among the hardest things for some people in recovery, because there is some part of us that still finds ways to enjoy it even though it’s designed to hurt us. thats really the lasting damage done by pro-ed and pro-self harm communities, because they teach us that there is an aesthetic pleasure in triggering ourselves on purpose 🙃 thank you so much for sharing this!

i mean this is a perfect analysis of those impulses and advice on handling them in my book. this is a prime example of a healthy relationship with relapse and disordered impulses. understanding that even recovery itself can be triggering is very important, and its a mature observation about the recovery cycle too. i can often tell that i’m going to relapse when i notice myself becoming too comfortable or happy because like many, my ed comes from a place of insecurity and ego protection, and i panic under the fear that i don’t really deserve my well-being. and i’ll go back to pro-ed content almost as a way to comfort myself, because it’s safer to constrain myself than to be comfortable. you were spot on in the ways you described dealing with them—at a certain point in recovery, going back to pro-ed content is a sign that there’s some unprocessed emotion or stress that you’re trying to deal with by controlling or punishing yourself, and the best you can do is recognize that you can soothe those needs much better in other ways. thank you so much!