tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5217271428057557189.post2857806697414912057..comments2024-03-24T16:08:20.300-07:00Comments on Training on Empty: Same As It Ever WasLize Brittinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00851523224709625399noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5217271428057557189.post-23181313475667103302017-05-27T19:04:07.686-07:002017-05-27T19:04:07.686-07:00Eating disorders are unique among pathological com...Eating disorders are unique among pathological compulsions in a few ways. One is that EDs, though progressive and sometimes fatal if untreated, are sometimes more apt to ruin you psychologically than they are to cause direct and undeniable damage to your day to day life in the form of getting fired, being arrested, and so on. The cost, apart from the physical damage that may come in the form of a slow burn over years and even decades, is more likely to be terrible isolation, shame, anger and basically being unable to enjoy being you, and that is something no decent person ever deserves to feel. In this way, you may not run afoul of society while acting out in your psychopathology, because you aren't apt to experience serious, jolting consequences and (external) punishment.<br /><br />That's always been true, but now we have this great new social-media phenomenon where people can basically starve themselves publicly and receive praise for doing it. These aren't pro-ana sites in the nominal sense because they cloak the things they do in exercise, ultras, "healthy" eating, veganism and that whole train of giddy rationalizations. So, you can literally delete dissenting input and allow your page to full up with "You go girl!" horseshit that is entirely supplied by de facto bots and fellow anorexics and bulimics.<br /><br />What you've described here, the whole "I'm OK with myself and this is me" means of dealing with this kind of psychopathology, follows from these unique aspects of EDs as a form of addiction. You could never, for example, post photo after photo of yourself passed out in a pile of puke from drinking too much and caption it with "Nothin' wrong with partying! I accept what I am, messes and all! No more obsessing!" and expect a positive response, and you wouldn't get away with accusing your rightful critics of "Fun-shaming."<br /><br />Having suffered through similar periods myself, and being an admitted stickler for rational analysis of one's own running performances, I get very irked at the people who go from running 37-minute 10Ks to slogging through 50-mile ultras at 9:00 pace and claiming proudly that this proves that they are healthy. Never mind that these performances aren't in the same solar system, or that posting what amounts to the same photo of your abdomen literally dozens of times a year it ispo facto evidence of a mental problem of some sort no matter what the photos reveal.<br /><br />kemibehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14843360441074102811noreply@blogger.com