#and they don't do things that make me uncomfortable or idk. mental illness support circle i guess since we all just Get It

[nerime]

I had breakfast at a "vintage cafe" and this is what I was served on

fellas ...... we old

[girlcalledwhatsername]

Hello! I saw your post about not reporting blogs where people express feeling suicidal and venting. Somebody in the reblogs mentioned the same applying to ED posts, so I wanted to ask, does that mean we shouldn't report pro-ana blogs either?

Hello!

Yes I saw that addition, I was going to reblog with it but completely slipped my mind.

This absolutely applies to pro-ana blogs. They are highly triggering, yeah, maybe they're even anti recovery, they are all sorts of things, but at the end of the day it's just another hurt mentally ill person in need of support. You can easily unfollow these blogs, you can see easily block them. I would encourage doing so absolutely, it makes me uncomfortable too.

The basic thing we need to understand is what "reporting" someone entails. Think of it as going to the authorities and complaining about this person, that's what reporting is like. Which is why it's fine to do it for hate speech and harassment and spam bots and all that. But when we report mentally ill people for showing signs of mental illness we are giving them up to the authorities to be exterminated or locked up or hidden away and cut off from society and possible support systems or losing a space to vent. No one should have that authority over our lives.

The bottom line is that whether a mentally ill person is recovering or not recovering or doing it in a way you don't like, they still don't deserve to be locked up for it. Idk how the application of such laws works in different cases but the vague wording of "is this person harming themselves or shown the tendency to harm themselves in any capacity" (such as exists in most Psychiatric laws) can easily extend to pro-ana people and then they'll just be further traumatised and that's not gonna help anyone.

Block liberally. Block the tags, block the accounts. But understand at the end of the day that it's no different from vent accounts that just need a space to honestly and in an unfiltered way talk about their depression and self harm and suicidal ideation because it's always better for people to have it out than to hide it away. The more people interact with each other, even if they're sharing tips for such harm to others who are choosing to engage this way, the more community they have and the more chances of having if not recovery then at least a support system to fall back on when things get bad. And remember here to not infantilise mentally ill people by saying they don't know better and are getting badly influenced by pro ana or vent blogs. They are there engaging because they have the same thoughts and need someone to talk to about it in a particular way.

I know people who have been in these circles and yes there is harm happening, but cutting those people off from their community doesn't help them, it just drives them into isolation. People find their way out when they're ready and when they are exposed to different ways of dealing with these things.

Ik I'm not gonna come out looking as a model of sanity for this but I got a lot of my self harm under control through harm reduction that included "allowing" self harm in certain situations till I stopped associating it with coping completely and I've been clean for a long while now.

These things, these self destructive techniques we see are a symptom of larger underlying issues and just stopping that behaviour from being seen or isolating it isn't helping. Being able to vent till you detangle the underlying issues is the way to go about it.

Let people be in charge of their recovery or their choice to not go into recovery yet.

It's their own business.

And trust me, pro ana blogs aren't recruiting people without EDs to start having EDs any more than someone venting about being suicidal is trying to get other people to join them in killing themselves.

Thanks again for the question!