Eating disorders, secrecy, and the media

Due to my current confusion over what I have read (because I didn't write about the books straight away they're now getting mixed up), and having parts of writing back on my other laptop which had broken, but is now fixed, but is at home so I can't get it until Christmas... I think I am going to give the ED books a break for now. Instead I am going to post some of my own thoughts. The below is white as I copied and pasted it as an extract from my diary but then couldn't figure out how to get rid of the white.

Is the media to blame for eating disorders?

This disorder is not influenced by others – it uses others. It does not stem from the media, but it can use the media to back up its’ own manipulations. However if the media does not back up the disorders' rules, then it will ignore it. I do not believe that if ‘fat’ came into fashion, that 'fat' was the look all the celebrities were aiming for, that all the ‘best looking’ girls had, that anorexia would suddenly disappear. It is still a mental illness and it has not been created by modern society. 

The secrecy within Anorexia

One reason people with Anorexia Nervosa often aren’t honest is because no-one can cope with the truth. And people tell me I’m not a bad person, but they can’t see into my head. (Will come back to this another day, can’t think right now).

I think people, professionals, need to start seeing anorexia for what is really is; an evil alter ego. There are two people living inside. People say this is too abstract, too dramatic, perhaps ‘romanticising’ the disorder, that this is a wrong description and identification. ‘Of course there isn’t someone else living inside of you, are you mental?’ Well yes actually, the colloquial meaning of ‘mental’ comes from the word ‘mental illness’ and an eating disorder is a mental illness. I would go as far to say that this other person is as real as a schizophrenics' hallucinations; and they are very, very real. It is so real that I cannot even truthfully say that this ‘other’ person is an analogy, but I let people assume that it is because otherwise people really would think I was mad. Either mad or pretending to be mad. I think the latter would be even worse.