#I know there's family pressure factors and neurotypical factors and all sorts of things so please no one grill me on that

[distort1xn]

life is honestly the weirdest thing any of us could possibly go through.

i had bronchitis a few weeks back, took my meds, felt better for weeks, and now my chest is acting up for reasons i couldn’t even begin to explain to you. during this time, however, i rediscovered a writer i absolutely adore and have been binging her books like a total fanatic. last night, when i woke up in the throws of actual suffocation due to my chest simply having closed up completely, it was her writing i turned to to keep me sane while i sat around at 2AM, waiting for some kind of relief when my meds wouldn’t work.

changing the context, but not the topic.

i got a promotion at work a few months back. i work in finance and i’m quite good at my job, but i inherited an unprofitable book of clients from an ex-colleague and have been fighting an uphill battle ever since. fighting that battle, though, hasn’t been nearly as anxiety-inducing as this promotion. not because i am in danger of losing said promotion, but because it was given to me by my sister and brother-in-law and i really don’t want to mess this up for them. they are applying exactly zero pressure and expect nothing of me other than to do my job the way i was already doing it, but lately i’ve just been fighting work stress like a motherfucker.

more context change.

my baby brother (24) is getting married soon. 14th of september, to be exact. long gone are the expectations that i, as the eldest sibling (my sister is a year older, but we also honorarily adopted her well into adulthood), should be married off and living in domestic bliss by now. my family is well aware that marriage, kids and suburban banality is not my idea of happy-ever-after. but i still feel pressure. i still feel like i should’ve made something of my life by now. not necessarily emotionally, but in some other significant way. i am painfully aware that this is my (extremely likely) thrice neurodivergent ass measuring myself by neurotypical standards. i know, okay? not to mention, we have another brother, between the ‘baby’ and i (he’ll be 26 in december) who isn’t anywhere near marriage yet, either. he has a business that did quite well for a while, but shifting socio-economic factors in our country has made him a bit strapped for cash, too, as of late. so, we’re in the same boat. but i’m not judging him – just myself.

add to this that my mother is seemingly utterly clueless about any sort of trauma whatsoever, because she just sent me a puff piece article about my ex music teacher who was so beyond abusive i can’t even utter his name without getting a panic attack so severe, all the king’s benzos and all the king’s zen couldn’t put me back together again. the man’s abuse of me was emotional, mental and sexual, and i have literally never recovered. 12 years down the line and i have probably uttered his name maybe a handful of times. but, sure, mom – you’re right: i haven’t rehashed those 2 years of trauma in a while. thanks so much for reminding me!

things just haven’t felt ‘normal’ for a while now. i feel scrutinised and weird and like i’m walking on eggshells around myself. i feel like i’m letting people down, even when no one has any expectations of me beyond what i’m already doing. maybe it’s imposter syndrome. anyone who knows me knows that if ‘negative interoception’ was something that could exist on a scale of ‘good’ to ‘bad’, that’d be where i’d fall.

i just wish i could find some way back to myself. i’m watching myself slip into old, bad habits in survival mode, and i don’t need to be here. i’m not in any ‘danger’.

life is weird. emotions are hard. living becomes surviving without any one of us noticing far too easily. help.

[kingofthewilderwest]

I have a super hard exam Monday morning and I really think I can't make it. I have been studying, but I can't understand a think! I thought It was the way I was studying but it's too late to look for alternatives. I have been reading my notes crying all day (I'm doing it right now and sobbing) but still no light.

I’m really sorry about the stress you’re going through. Exams can be extremely tough and I feel for you on that one. I’ve cried over tests and schooling and all that as well. It sucks to feel this stress. Academia many times pushes us to the brink beyond what we should be given, and I hope that you come out of this on the other side feeling relief.

When I was in school, one of the ways I calmed myself was to think about long-term. In less than 48 hours, this stressor will be completely gone from your life. It’ll no longer exist because you’ve taken the test. It’s a stressor, but it’s one for a VERY short time frame in your life. In the long scale of things, it’s very soon going to be out of your life and over with. And while tests can change our grades and that’s important, in the very long scale of school and academia… it’s not a big impact on our life. We can retake a class if we need to, or do better on the next test, or any and all sorts of options that will all result in a happy, fulfilling, awesome life of many years to come. This test is a very, very small part of the grand scheme of your life, and it’ll be completely over with and out of your life very, very soon. Whether you get a good grade or a bad grade here, your life will move forward, and provide you many great experiences to come. My happiness for the decades I will live is not reliant on one number on a sheet of paper.

I don’t know if that helps you, but it always helped me: once I remembered how small this thing was in the grand scheme of things, and how soon it’d leave my life as a stressor… it helped me realize… it shouldn’t be a stressor even now.

I hope I don’t sound like I’m brushing aside what you feel, because I mean the opposite. I know there’s many situations going into why academia feels SO IMPORTANT in our lives, both for our personal situation, and in the way society trends go. I do hope it helps to say that, in the grand course of whether or not your life will be complete on one test grade, it’s a minuscule thing, and I hope that that perspective can give some ease.

You’ve done your best. You’ve been studying. You’ve been working extremely hard and I want to commend you for that diligence. You’ve rocked that. And that’s something important. You have already shown a lot of character and drive working on this, and that’s better than any number you get. You’re already a hero and a succeeder in my eyes.

And, it’s not a shortcoming on your end that you don’t understand things. We all need time to understand anything; all information we first hear is something we don’t understand at first. That’s okay. That’s the nature of it. Every single human on this planet doesn’t understand things and may take a while to understand something; you are not ever going to be a failure for being confused, even if it feels understandably frustrating to not understand.

It’s always fine to talk to instructors about your struggles. I don’t know if you have or haven’t yet, but honest conversations with instructors can work wonders. I’ve taught college courses and have definitely played the mercy game with my own final grades once a student has come to me. I’ve been on the side of mercy with professors, where they’ve been willing to extend deadlines or work with me one-on-one to succeed. Many, many teachers want you to succeed, and will extend extra help and understanding to you if you talk to them. I know how much mercy can be given once they understand how much you want to succeed, and show you are willing to talk to them about ways in which you can. And I hope your instructor is one such person who will listen. It’s always worth talking over, and it can ease buttloads of stress.

Also… though you are on a time budget… if you’re really feeling this stressed, please give yourself a break. Please give yourself sleep. Please give yourself something nice, even if it’s eating a special treat for dinner or watching half hour of your favorite comedy show. Your mind in this state won’t learn the material most productively. Stepping back away from studying will actually help you and make a more efficient and productive study schedule.

I know it’s late in the game and you think there aren’t other ways to study, but if you want, I’m happy to list off some of the ways I’ve studied before. I hope I’m not overextending my bounds. I know you came here to vent and you might not want advice, but if you want some studying suggestions, here’s things I’ve done. We all learn different ways, and you’ll notice I tend to be text-oriented (with some hearing-oriented)… but maybe something here will click. Some of these studying strategies are time-consuming (not helpful for you right now), some of them are fast, but they’re different ways to work at the same material:

Do NOT just skim read notes or engage in “passive” reviewing. If you’re just looking over the books or old homeworks without engaging, it’s less likely for it to stick. Rereading is one of the least interactive ways and least demanding ways to try to “study,” and thus is often not effective for long-term retention and mastery of concepts. Make your study sessions as engaging as possible without destroying your brain cells and giving you a migraine.

Build up. Start simple, with easier learning devices, and then make it more challenging for yourself. For instance, for foreign language, I might start with flashcards or matching tasks. Then, I’ll eventually get to the point where I will try to write my entire vocabulary list from memory. Build up from easy to harder.

Multiple study sessions throughout a day or throughout the course of a week (when you have it) will almost always be better than one massive study session. Repeatedly engage with the material.

Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat frankly is always the way to go.

PRIORITIZE. Focus on problem sections. Focus on sections that are most likely to be on the test in large quantities. Prioritize what you work on. You don’t need to know every tiny detail to get a passing grade; you just need to know what big stuff is most likely to be hit.

Tackle one section at a time. Don’t think about the full breadth of the unit. Master one concept at a time. Smaller chunks are always more manageable, more efficient, and more effectively learned. If you don’t understand the full breadth of your test, start with the smallest thing you can, work on that, and get that one thing right first. Just that one thing. 

Try to engage in the different styles of learning. Reading. Speaking. Acting out. All these will help you retain the information in different ways. For some subjects, this may be easier than others. But do what you can.

Flash cards. When you go through the flash cards, don’t go through each card once. Put aside the ones you get wrong. Rework the ones you get wrong a second time… or a third time… until you get them right. Then put them into the big pile again of every flash card and restart. ENGAGE with these things rather than quickly skim over the fronts and backs.

Draw diagrams. Venn diagrams. Tables. Charts. STUFF. Organize your information in new ways.

Make tests for yourself. Create tests that are multiple choice, fill in the blank, short essays, anything. Then, after you make those tests, give yourself a break, go back, and take your tests. See what you do and don’t remember.

Make memory devices! Memory devices for the win! Make them silly and absurd! Make it fun! Make memory devices from puns. Set key phrases to musical melodies. Make silly analogies. Do whatever you need to to memorize the material, even if in a dorky way. Like, I first learned the kanji 白 was ‘shiro’ because it looks like the character Shiro from Voltron. It’s got a square face with a scar in the center, and even a little tick at the top to represent Shiro’s WHITE hair floof (and ‘shiro’ means ‘white’ woot victory!). Other times, I’ve memorized numbers by setting them to tunes.

Rewrite your notes or key pages from your textbook. Type up your notes from class, or rewrite them, or take notes from your book again. Note that you can rearrange your notes as you do this; maybe you could make a page that’s all about X topic?

Study with friends! Quiz each other, talk to each other about problematic points, try to figure out difficult sections together. And don’t skimp, but don’t be afraid to make it fun. Learning goes better when it’s fun.

Write a “study guide” or “cheat sheet” for yourself of all the most pertinent material.

Talk out loud as you reread your notes. Engage with the material both with eyes and ears.

Try to quote your notes. Talk to yourself about what you remember. Then look and see what you didn’t talk about.

Try explaining to someone else what you’ve learned. This is a really good one. This will help you really pinpoint what you do and don’t know, and will mentally solidify the things that you do, in fact, understand. Nothing says “learning” like having to tell someone else what you’ve learned.

Especially if it’s mathematical, but also for other subjects, rework problems from your textbook or homeworks, get new problems from textbooks, or go online to find other problems with solutions. 

Find tutors. Or talk to teachers. Seriously, talk to teachers!

Any academic videos on YouTube explaining concepts? What about Wikipedia? Other websites on these topics to help you see the information presented in a new way? My ass got saved in Mathematical Logic due to a good logic wiki.

Give yourself breaks. Everyone needs different break points and has different levels of concentration ability, but one not-terrible-rule to consider is 50 minutes studying, 10 minute break. I personally prefer longer sessions and will do something like 2 hours, then 30 minute break. But that’s for you to decide with yourself.

SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. You do no favors for yourself if you don’t sleep. Sleep as best as you can. Fatigue prevents us from using our full mind, will prevent the recall we could have had if we were more awake. Fatigue prevents us from learning and retaining information we would have learned faster in a more rested state. Sleep allows us to process the information we’ve just thought about; we’ll wake up with a more solid understanding of materials because there’s been some unconscious processing. I know you want to maximize those study hours, but you’ll be wasting those 75% of the time if you’re up to 3 AM trying to work on something and can barely keep your eyes open. 

Make it about you. What is it about this material that you can care about? Find ways to relate it to what you care about, whatever the subject.

I know that’s not a very widespread list - I could write a lot more - but unfortunately I have to get going to my own time crunch for work. And I know I’m not covering every angle in which this is a stressful situation and how we may engage with it, and how people with different learning styles and minds and social situations interact with materials… but I hope that something in here helps you nevertheless.

Please give yourself a break right now.

To say the least, I’m wishing the absolute best for you. I’m rooting for you. I’m sympathizing. My heart feels for you. And I hope that you can find a bit of stress-relief in the midst of this. Take care, friend, and please take care of yourself through all this.

[dolugecat]

On some Japanese social issues I had learned about at uni and abroad):

(Rb ok!)

Legit had an epiphany about the true hidden meaning of the last arc of Mob Psycho 100. It’s hella projection but for real there is nothing neurotypical about Mob or Mob Psycho. I do not wish to enforce my interpretation on others (ironic bc I do that all the time but this is a serious social theory). There are some interesting and very sad social issues in Japan that the west really doesn’t understand but would I think help people understand a lot of context behind not only Mob Psycho, but also a lot of other anime. I learned this at my shitty university (prestigious but horrific) and while studying abroad in Japan and talking with Japanese peers. Get ready here we go (and tw for bullying and darker things):

Unfortunately in East Asian education systems, bullying can be extremely intense. Growing up I assumed it was over exaggerated extremely in anime for drama but it really can be so horrific. From what I’ve heard, there is often a single kid or so who is just shit on by everyone else, even the teacher. Mogami land *is* the reality of some Japanese kids. I’ve read that in Korea, this social punching bag sometimes is just the darkest skinned person (yayyy colorism /angry) and or someone who does not fit in. I mean, we have that in America too, but maybe not as common for the bullying to be as focused on one misfit rather than several. These kids just can’t escape the stigma too, kids from other schools find out they were a major victim at their old school and it starts anew. Thus there is so much stigma and incentive to join in on bullying so you aren’t the one. Sadly, this also ofc leads to higher suicide rates. That’s where the “shoe on building roof” anime trope comes in, bc somehow taking off shoes is relayed to death (I forgot why sorry)

There is a difference in how intense in general high school vs college is too. In the West, commonly college is the more intense curriculum and is harder than high school, but in Japan it’s usually the opposite. Grind suuuupppeeerrrr hard for entrance exams (huge standardized tests that determines what college you can qualify to) bc unlike the ACT or SAT here, that test is by far the most important factor for college admission. Then chill and relax a bit in college. Can’t relate. Name and prestige is very critical for job application, more important than here. That’s why planning out your future is sooo much more intense for Japanese high schoolers than in America, and why there is sooo much more pressure to excel in high school than here. Japanese school years and holidays are done different than ours, I’d suggest looking it up.

Social prestige of going to an American high school or college is nuts. Like whyyy do you value our shitty education, Japan’s is much higher quality (it’s bc we neo colonized them). Being able to speak English is very, very highly valued and any association with Americans make you cooler. From my experience, some Japanese students got very excited to practice speaking English with us, and their biggest issues with learning it is pronunciation, lmao. Wasai english is unique slang that is indeed English words but it’s kinda different and it’s kinda jarring to remember lol. So, Teru having parents that are working overseas isn’t too uncommon, idk about leaving him absolutely alone, but I did have a ex-friend who just came from Japan in middle school who’s situation probably wasn’t too far off from that. Empty wealth with no love, it’s no wonder those kind of people can end up being huge bullies (minori?)

I did a presentation on 引きこもり(hikikomori) for which means “shut in”, (like Serizawa) and it’s fucked up. It’s a social phenomena where according to some Japanese researchers a mix of undisciplined parenting, guilt/not living up to expectations, and hopelessness makes an alarming amount of youth/ young adults literally never go out side their house/room. Often a parent is “enabling” the behavior by supporting them, but idk the articles seemed a bit victim-blaming to me when I read it, but I don’t think I should make a judgement too hard, not my place. I will say I do suspect and believe I read something to support that ASD might play a role in hikikomoris (there is pitiful resources for autistic people in Asia, much much less support than even here, to the point I don’t think most know it exists). Like come on, with the other points I laid out my personal opinion as an Asian American with autism is that it really seems it’s unknowing ableism against autistic classmates, but I didn’t grow up in Asia so I don’t want to say.

Mental health in general is tragically quite abysmal in Japan, and with it being so hyper competitive and brutal work culture, it’s no surprise birth rate in Japan is so low; some Japanese young adults say it seems unethical to bring a life to such hostile world. Suicide rate is of the highest in the world. It’s fucked, I’ve interacted with some of the locals in Tokyo and they were so nice, but the business men just looked dead inside, it’s so sad.

Relationships between child and parent is also strained bc of this intense work and school culture. Quality time is too scarce when you gotta work so much. And the pressure from parents to do well in education or else you might end up socially stigmatized is rough. Bc your job is who you are, it’s hyper capitalism (thanks us for making them do this)

With autism being so unknown, support for parents in raising autistic kids is almost nonexistent. What happens if the “darker” side of ASD shows up in kids? I used to be a menace when I had meltdowns, I felt so bad but really just became so indiscriminately violent. See where this is going? Legit, I think ESP is a sort of metaphor for neurodivergance to ONE. There is so much stigma around it, and even less way for kids to understand why they are different than the others. My Korean family can’t admit we all got ASD, too much fear and internalized shame.

I got finally diagnosed with ASD as an adult and I’ll tell ya, I relate too much to Mob hurting Ritsu. I felt so bad, but also not in control, I knew what I was doing but not how to stop. Luckily, is was blessed in that my hyperfixations involved science and logic, so I did well at school. Sadly, our boy Mob just don’t got the passion or ability to do well at school. His kanji is very bad, even to point of not being confident he wrote a kanji (世) they learn when they are 9, in elementary school (thanks @katyatalks). Him being a bit berated by his parents for having bad grades and bending spoons seems harsh to Westerners I think, but IMO it’s pretty tame from what I’ve seen of some Asian parents (I get to say that lmao). Ofc, however the shaming is very real and Mob just agreeing with them about how weird and stupid he thinks he is so sad. There is even more pressure for the eldest to be better than here, I feel from some interactions. Nonetheless, it’s implied Mob is quite emotionally detached from his parents, even though he loves them, which also adds to his emotional complex. Combined with originally fragile self esteem and feelings of worthlessness, we got one emotionally stunted boy. However, contrary to common belief people with ASD are sometimes hyper empathic and experience emotions very intensely. We are prone to having “meltdowns” which if not assisted with can be quite violent if very intense. For me, my worse meltdowns as a kid came from when I didn’t understand why I wasn’t getting what I wanted, it seemed selfish and cruel of me but I couldn’t control it. I wanted to be a good kid, so why did hit my moms leg at target when she refused to buy me Pokémon toys? I couldn’t come up with a good reason for why my mind just commanded my body to do bad things, just a single thought was controlling me, I want I want I want I want I want ____. Which I argue could be what ???% represents… bc well…. Yeah….. hmm….. not in control of self (mob unconscious), selfish (not actually, I’ve forgave myself but my “normal” kid self was so ashamed), destructive, hurt family, wanting to stop but can’t, that’s kind of…. Too relatable.

But legit, since realizing my new HC, I’ve started to think of the last chapter of mp100 when I “explode” and it helps me feel better and I do gain “control” a bit easier. I don’t feel so bad anymore either, Mob!

[thisisdefinitelyaboutyou-blog]

My beef with ‘To the Bone’

(... and no, it’s not just because its triggering)

When I heard about ‘To the Bone’’s upcoming release, I was moderately excited. As someone who battled eating disorders for almost 20 years and has been in recovery for the last four, I’m always pleased to see the subject being given more prominence, even if it’s the ‘Netflix’ equivalent of a Lifetime Movie.

‘To the Bone’ details the struggles of a 20-year-old, white, middle-class woman struggling with anorexia, while trying to manage some very tense family dynamics. After unsuccessfully seeking treatment in four different live-in facilities, Ellen (Lily Collins) is placed in the inpatient care of Dr Beckham (Keanu Reeves), who is lauded for his ‘radical’ approach to therapy.

While receiving rave ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB, the movie seems to have been critically panned for the larger part. The Guardian called it “uninsightful, insipid and insulting”, while A.V. CLUB called it out on its almost unsettling corniness. The Independent - along with scores of other publications - accused it of missing the point as much as it glamourises eating disorders. 

Eating disorder specialists and charities don’t seem to be on ‘To the Bone’’s side either. Speaking to Teen Vouge,  Dr Dena Cabrera - an eating disorder specialist - criticised the movie for failing to address the realities of what it takes to get better. Eating disorder charity Beat  admitted “disappointment” at certain aspects of the film.

The following unnecessarily long rant is my take on the movie. Just so you know, it’s probably not something you’re going to want to read if ‘To the Bone’ is your new favourite film.

‘To the Bone’ started out on the wrong foot right off the bat, facing extensive backlash for being triggering in its depiction of anorexia. This criticism - as far as I am concerned - is only partly warranted. Representing anorexia on television or in film is never going to be an easy task and I’m not entirely sure that there is a “right” way to do it. A protagonist who's perceived as too thin will be accused of being triggering, but on the other hand a protagonist who isn’t thin enough will prompt neurotypicals everywhere to say shit like “How can she be sick? She looks fine to me! She’s actually, like... fat!” (yes, I am indeed taking a dig at that uncalled-for comment about Emma Stone’s weight).

Even though I have developed a healthy eating pattern and self-image in the recent years, in certain instances I still found myself gazing admiringly at Ellen’s sharp collar bones, deep-set eyes and small wrists, longing they were my own. I also found myself missing the heady rush of a low-blood pressure combined with prolonged ketosis. It goes without saying that people with eating disorders - or in recovery from eating disorders - will find this material triggering. Calories and kilograms are both assigned numerical values, although this happens a lot more fleetingly than the show-casing of Ellen’s body. 

As much as the content is triggering, I support Lily in her decision to lose a drastic amount of weight to play Ellen. If she feels - as a person recovering from an eating disorder - that she has the mental fortitude to pull off a stunt of this sort without relapsing, I applaud her. However I do worry that inadvertently viewers may come to think that this feat is broadly achievable. Generally speaking, losing weight to a very visibly unhealthy degree is not something the average eating disordered person can bounce back from without having the relapse of all relapses somewhere in between. I was also intensely irked by Lily stating that she worked with "a nutritionist to lose weight for the film in a healthy way”. If you’re at what is medically considered a healthy weight or above, you cannot reach a point where you look full-on gaunt “in a healthy way”. These reservations aside, Lily’s performance is strong and convincing and it’s easy to understand why Ellen’s character has already garnered a solid fanbase.

So what’s my fucking problem with ‘To the Bone’? Allow me to elaborate: ‘To the Bone’’s biggest failure is that it follows in the narrative of every other movie about eating disorders: here is another white, middle class, young woman with an unstable family life. To be fair, there was a feeble attempt to dispel the untrue notion that all eating disorder patients are young, white women struggling with anorexia. The treatment centre featured a bulimic, pregnant, 30-something-year-old blonde (Megan) who later suffers a miscarriage, a 20-something-year-old anorexic, male, ballet dancer (Luke) from London and a nameless black, lesbian teenager with binge-eating disorder. Another patient who’s hardly out of her tweens (Tracy) offers tips on why ice-cream is best for purging. A slightly older girl who needs a feeding-tube (Pearl) uses unicorns and ponies to escape the grim reality of her illness. And then there’s the token girl with the barf-bag under the bed (Anna). It’s a pretty diverse bunch until you realise this is all you’re ever going to learn about these characters, with the exception of Luke.

Initially I thought that the film was turning tables on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl concept by writing that done-to-death trope as a man instead of a woman. I learned I was expecting too much when Luke lied about Ellen and him having cancer to buy beer without I.D.. Besides his manipulative streak (which is also exposed when he tries to emotionally blackmail Ellen into staying at the clinic when she decides it’s time to leave), Luke is written in a manner that is almost borderline perverted. Their is nothing ‘flirty’ or ‘romantic’ in asking a woman whether she’s ever been sexually assaulted “because it’s a big rexie thing”. Worse still, he then proceeds to ask a clearly uncomfortable Ellen whether she’s a virgin and if she’s ever had an orgasm before talking about his boner and planting a wet one on her lips. I suppose Luke was intended to bring a romantic angle to the movie, but given the serious subject matter and Luke’s extremely unlikable character, the budding relationship felt forced at best. 

If providing more details about the token patients wasn’t a priority, I feel that some of Dr Beckham’s supposedly ‘radical’ methods should have been explored further. Eating (or not eating) whatever the fuck one likes at dinner in treatment facility sounds like every eating disordered person’s dream, but it isn’t exactly going to help them recover. Neither is a rain room, poetry recitals or throwing patients out the facility if they can’t maintain or gain weight. Dr Beckham tells Ellen that he doesn’t do talk therapy, so what exactly does his treatment involve? Well, there’s morning group sessions and a 15-minute reflection about the day in the evening. In between patients do chores to earn points to get their iPads back or leave the facility for a few hours (unsupervised of course). They also have the added bonus of changing their name to anything they like. Say what you like, but I highly doubt this treatment plan would pan out successfully in real life and giving people considering recovery any illusions that it’s half that much fun is almost cruel. 

Other highlights of Dr Beckham’s treatment included providing patients with gems to the effect of “Tell the anorexic voice in your head to fuck off”. This is about as effective as telling a diabetic person to control their glucose levels by shouting them down into submission. I decided that Dr Beckham should have his medical license permanently revoked when he told Ellen that dealing with mental illness is all about growing a pair. Misogynistic bullshit aside, illness is never a case of mind over matter. ‘To the Bone’ hit its lowest point right here, in its implication that a mentally unwell person who is triggered by a traumatic event is weak. In the movie’s miscarriage scenario, emotional regulation would have proven difficult even for a healthy person, so expecting it from someone whose very illness prohibits them from having appropriate emotional responses is a real punch in the face to the mentally ill community. This is the sort of neurotypical nonsense I didn’t expect from director Marti Noxon who has first-hand experience of an eating disorder. Recovery from any mental illness is an extremely difficult and painful process, usually fraught with a lot emotional fall-out. Thanks to Dr Beckham’s conveniently sugar-coated therapies, ‘To the Bone’ avoided dealing with any of this unpleasant shit.

The movie also made a brave attempt at addressing the subject of pro-anorexia through the storyline with Ellen's tumblr, which she shut down two years prior when one of her followers quoted the blog as a contributing factor to her suicide. Much like the characterisation of the other patients in Dr Beckham’s facility, this incident is brought up, poked at with a splintery barge-pole and dismissed. It would have been far more interesting to watch Ellen’s internal struggle with this tragic event than any of the rain-dancing-in-the-dark drivel.

While striving to point out that both genetic and environmental factors contribute towards the onset of mental illness, the movie then went on to compare Ellen’s illness to an addiction. There is no doubt that disordered eating can lead to compulsive and ritualistic behaviours with food and eating, but there’s a good reason recovering drug addicts don’t share a facility with persons with eating disorders. Lumping these two diseases together as if they were interchangeable detracts from the seriousness of both conditions and certainly doesn’t help in understanding either illness better.

It also pained me that Ellen has no support network (because she has no friends and her entire blended family is composed of complete asshats), which is essential for long-term recovery. Her father is never showed onscreen because he fails to show up at all her appointments. Ellen’s biological mother has bipolar disorder, so helping her daughter is understandably challenging. Both step-mothers seem to think Ellen’s just a spoilt brat who’s acting out. Only her step-sister seems to have her back, but then again she also tests Ellen's ‘calorie Asperger's’ at the beginning of the movie so I’m not sure what to make of that relationship either. It’s the bizarre bonding-ritual between mother and near-death daughter that took the cake though: Ellen is bottle-fed rice milk in her hippie mother’s lap, as they lounge in a posh tent under the moonlight in the middle of the fucking dessert. Read that again and tell me - with a straight face - that it doesn’t verge on the bizarre. 

In the film’s final scenes, Ellen - who has wandered off into the dessert and fallen asleep on a rock - has a dream sequence which draws on Anne Sexton’s poem 'Courage’ and inspires her - as if by magic - to say ‘yes’ to recovery. I understand that if there was ever a time where survival instinct would kick in, it would be when one gets as close to death as Ellen did. I just wish that her will to recover was driven by something more psychologically and emotionally challenging than a dream in which Luke encourages her to swallow coal (in his wink-wink-nudge-nudge tone, of course).

‘To the Bone’ provides a bird’s eye view of eating disorders. Sadly, the bird is directionless. When it comes to discussing - and especially dispelling myths about mental illness - that approach is simply not good enough.