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Sparkle (3)
I saw one of the most disturbing images on my student's laptop. Her background image is the picture of a young girl whom upon first glance conjures would leave most people with one response. Cringe. The girl is much too thin. She looks malnourished and sickly. I held my breath and asked J., "Who's the girl?"
I knew when I asked that no matter the answer it would be a long afternoon. Everything about the photo bothered me. The fact that this emaciated girl was striking a pose under dramatic lighting and served as the background image for a 16 year old's laptop meant there would be no easy answer to my question.
Right out of the mouth of my favorite student, I heard, "Have you ever been to Pro Ana (dot) com?"
"What are you doing at that kind of website?" Silly question. I know what kind of place that is and why young girls go there. I didn't really need to ask her that question. I just needed to buy myself a little time to think very carefully about how to respond.
"So you know what it is?" she asked. I nodded. Pretty sure that the expression on my face said it all but I knew I'd have to say something. Especially after she said, "I get them."
Not sure of where to start. Not confident that I could have this conversation without getting emotional or betraying myself. "What do you get? J., you need to stop going to those websites. Whatever you're thinking, don't do it."
"Gosh, Erin! Those girls are mentally ill! I'm not crazy." [Her emphasis, not mine] Actually this is a huge step up for J.. When she said the word mentally ill, I thought back to how much she's matured in the past nine months. Just six months ago she wondered why there was such a public outcry about teenagers committing suicide just because they were being bullied. J. foamed at the mouth when she said we should just let depressed people off themselves if that's what they wanted. I couldn't blame her for not understanding a mental illness like depression, but her abysmal lack of compassion for human life blew my mind.
"I would never want to look like a skeleton. Those girls take it too far. They're sick," she said. You probably can't tell how she said "sick." You can't hear how the word was smothered in judgment. The way she said it made me think of people who kick puppies, made me think of the worst kinds of people .
"Yes, they're sick. As in they have a mental illness, J., which you just acknowledged. They're not crazy. But looking at websites created by someone with anorexia, for people who have anorexia, is a pretty crazy thing to do. It's like you're saying that you find something attractive about an eating disorder, about mental illness."
"The girl who started the website isn't anorexic."
"How do you know?" I asked. I knew exactly what she would say.
"She doesn't look anorexic. She's the same size as me." [The girl who started the website isn't the same girl on J.'s desktop.]
"I don't think you know the criteria someone has to meet for that kind of diagnosis. You can't just look at someone and tell."
"Pretty sure I do. If you look anorexic, you're anorexic. If you look like you don't eat and the world can see your bones, you're anorexic. The problem with these girls is that they don't know when to stop. Skeletons aren't sexy." [She has quite the way with words doesn't she?] It goes without saying that I wanted to shake her. At least twice a day I have to remind myself that these kids really are just kids. If they seem ignorant about everything, it's because they are -- and to some extent they're supposed to be.
Two minutes into a conversation with this kid and my head was pounding in pain. "Maybe it isn't that they don't know when to stop but that they can't stop," I said.
"They can if they want to."
"Then why don't they?" I asked. "J., I'll agree with you on one thing you said. No one looks at a stereotypical anorexic body and thinks that's attractive. It isn't cute to see someone's entire skeletal system poking through their skin. It pains most people to see bodies in such an abused state. So either, these girls can't see their bodies in the same way the rest of the world does because their self image is so incredibly distorted or they think
