Personifying Your Eating Disorder

The issue of whether giving a name to your eating disorder (e.g. 'Ana' 'Mia' 'Ed') is a highly contentious one, so I thought it is probably a good one to write about.

I'm fairly sure the initial idea came from pro-ED sites, which is why a huge part of the eating disorder community reject the nicknames. You see girls and guys on these sites saying stuff like "Ana is my best friend" or "Mia? Where are you? I need my motivation back!". No joke, actual comments. And so the backlash against such names is  totally understandable. Pro ideas are almost totally despised by people with eating disorders, for the reasons I stated in the previous post. This idea of personification is surely just another one of those ideas? I saw one person, when discussing this issue, say; "You don't give diseases names, it's sick. You don't suffer from leukemia and refer to it as "Luke"!" which is a fair point.

Personally, I am all for the personification of eating disorders. (TOTALLY PERSONAL OPINION, FEEL FREE TO DISAGREE!!). For me, it was useful in two ways. For starters, it is a fairly accurate representation of the mental schism that anorexia forges; the feeling that there are two people in your one brain. One is the sensible, rational you, saying "do you want to die? No, of course not. If you were ugly, you wouldn't have a boyfriend. Your friends don't hate you, they just invited you over. How will starving yourself help ANYTHING?". I'm sure a few of you can relate, that voice you wish you'd listened to more, rather than the other voice. "Stupid, fat bitch. Put down that apple. Will it make you happy? No. It'll make you FAT. Fatter than you already are. Stupid whore, your boyfriend doesn't really love you, nor do your friends. They will when you're thin though." You know, the voice that screams in your ears every time you try to eat. So personifying that voice helps you to separate the two, in my view. I was able to believe I wasn't the fucked up one, it was just this stupid bitch Ana, who had got inside my head and was making me act fucked up. Because it sometimes really is your eating disorder clouding your vision when you look in the mirror, or making you run to the bathroom and stick your head down the toilet after a meal.

The second reason, for me, was the idea that it was something I could BEAT, or rather, someone. Naturally competetive, yes, but the main reason is linked to the first; if it is a separate being to you, it is something you can overcome. You can never overcome what YOU are. You can overcome Mia or Ana or ED, because they are just someone you're competing with. You CAN tell them to shut up, and get out your head, and you can pick up a fork and eat just that tiny bit of pasta. Each mouthful allowed me to feel like an accomplishment; I was winning.

So for me, I totally relate to why people choose to personify their eating disorder, but in truth why should it bother anyone either way? Slagging somebody off for using Ana to describe how they aren't feeling themselves is judgement, and way out of order. In the same way, using "Ana" as some kind of fucked up motivational figure is out of order in my eyes. At the end of the day, it's others' people way of coping with an impossible state of mind, not really ours to judge.

Difficult issue, would LOVE to hear you guys' thoughts.