The Dark Net (22 page)

I couldn’t understand how such obviously dangerous and destructive sites – sites where starving, cutting and even killing yourself are encouraged – could be so popular, and so appealing. I went online to find out.

Self-harm sites are extremely easy to find. A simple Google search reveals a number of websites, blogs, social network accounts and image-sharing platforms all dedicated to self-harm, and all easily accessible. There is no need for special browsers or passwords.

The first pro-ana site I discover is a vast and varied multimedia experience, comprising image galleries, chat rooms, discussion forums, even an online shop for pro-ana products. Its forums include dedicated rooms for diets, relationships, physical conditions such as self-injury, and help and advice. At the time of writing, the forums alone had 86,000 members – of which 630 were online when I was visiting the site. Users create detailed profiles of themselves, including their age, location, interests. And like many other social networks, you can like and rank other people’s comments, content and profiles. Browsing through the pages, I noticed that almost every user was female, and aged between fourteen and eighteen. Alongside
basic biographical information, most also featured lists of weights: a current weight, a series of weight targets, and an ‘ultimate’ goal weight.

There is always something happening. In total, over two million comments have been made on the tens of thousands of conversation threads that have been started by users. Every two or three seconds, there is a new comment or thread being added by one of the hundreds of people online: a question for ‘three-to-six-a-day purgers’; a favourite diet; what do you see in the mirror?; how do you know when you’re ana?; how do you hide cuts when you’re at the gym? No matter what question you ask someone is there to answer: ‘For some reason, as soon as it reaches the evening time, it’s like this switch goes off in my brain, and I want to attack myself,’ writes one user, which is swiftly followed by an outpouring of helpful suggestions. ‘Oh my gosh, thank you so much everyone,’ she replies.

There are also forum threads for things beyond anorexia: upsetting things that people say, songs, bad days, how to reduce skin puffiness, favourite German words,
Coronation Street
,
Game of Thrones
, dating advice, dreams, pets’ names, homework, dragons and jean shorts. Rather than solely dieting tips and advice, the site provides a space for users to discuss what they like, but also, perhaps most importantly, issues only other anorexia sufferers understand. One recently created thread is titled ‘funny/disgusting’:

Allbones:
This thread’s for all of the yucky/funny things about your eating habits that you wouldn’t discuss with anyone else
. . . Let’s see. The other day, I binged on spoonfuls of peanut butter and after, I was sitting in bed and burped up this terrible acid/peanut butter liquid and it was all up my throat and in my mouth . . . and I re-swallowed it with pride.

Shard:
One word. Laxatives. I was at a concert once. Right at the front and I had taken loads of lax the day before, I did a huge silent fart and somebody behind me heaved. Ooops.

Will-be-thin:
This one literally just made me lol. This is so embarrassing when you’re in a public bathroom too with people in there because it’s just like plop. plop. plop. plop. At least fifteen times
.

This was far from unusual. The threads are all busy, and the vast majority of comments I read are positive and encouraging.

The site is a jumping-off point. Many users add links to their own sites and platforms. The pro-ana community has always been remarkably quick to pick up and utilise the latest platforms and portals. Although it started with static websites, online journals and Yahoo! groups in the late nineties, it quickly moved to blogs and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. I found hundreds of Tumblr blogs, Instagram and Twitter accounts for pro-ana and self-harming, where users post pictures, messages, images and videos for others to view and share.

One year after finding the pro-ana sites, Amelia joined Twitter. She noticed that a friend from the website had joined too, and was tweeting about her eating disorder. Through her, Amelia discovered a flourishing network of Twitter accounts just like her friend’s. Amelia
set up a new account purely for pro-ana activity. She began to tweet, and quickly became an influential member of a large network of Twitter users posting daily updates about their weight-loss efforts, and offering advice and encouragement to others, and to each other.

Amelia made several good friends online – people who sympathised with her, who always listened, and who always responded to her questions or thoughts. She began to feel like she was part of a community, and her Twitter network became increasingly important to her. ‘I never really talked about my ED [eating disorder] to my friends, although they knew about it, and I always hated talking to my parents,’ she explains. ‘Although they were supportive, they just didn’t understand. Somehow I needed to vent my feelings to those who did. On Twitter I didn’t have to hide or hold back, like I did in real life. There were times I didn’t go on for a week or so because I felt so down, but then I missed speaking to other accounts. I felt like the Twitter account was a part of me. If I deleted the account or just stopped using it: then I would have just disappeared without trace.’

As well as providing a space for users to discuss those aspects of a particular condition they may not wish to, or cannot, share with others, many of these sites also offer a space for users to simply talk through their problems. Following the temporary closure and reappearance of one of the largest self-injury websites in December 2013, its message board was flooded with posts from concerned users: ‘Rather ironically I cut more with the closure of this site! Did anyone else find this?’ asked one. ‘I found I cut more as well haha. Really glad it’s back I was checking daily aha,’ wrote another. ‘I cut LOADS more without the support I get from you wonderful people,’ added a third.

Gerard – a thirty-year-old American – credits a suicide forum with saving his life. Suffering from depression, he first tried to overdose at the age of eighteen, and was hospitalised. When Gerard discovered a.s.h. in 2003, he found it an enormous source of comfort. ‘I felt I had finally found a place I could be honest and open about my suicidal thoughts,’ he recalls. ‘To be heard and understood helped me much more than psychiatry. Putting up a front of “being OK” for friends and family is exhausting, and makes you feel really alone. When I’m really low I check the forum a lot throughout the day. I often write long posts late at night when I feel trapped and in despair. It’s always nice the next morning to read the kind and insightful replies.’

Al, a moderator of a popular suicide forum, thinks that Gerard’s experience is typical. His website is neither pro- nor anti-suicide. Al won’t encourage anyone to take their own life: but nor will he try to talk anyone out of it. (Unlike a.s.h., he will intervene if the conversation touches on methods or making pacts, both of which are banned.) Al is sixty-seven, and tells me that he has been suicidal since his teens. The site, he says, has helped enormously. ‘I’ve found that just being able to talk about life with others who understand and aren’t judgemental has made it much easier to not jump on the suicide train every time things go south.’

Support, explains Al, comes in varied forms, and is not always what outsiders might expect. ‘Sometimes the best support we can give is to suggest that certain members be very cautious of their endeavours, because of what could go wrong. For others, just to write “I do understand what you’re saying!” can be enough to take the immediate pressure off. I think that since we acknowledge the right of our members to feel however they feel – and that includes
feeling suicidal – and say what they like in a non-judgemental environment, it relieves, rather than encourages, suicidal tendencies.’ What people don’t realise, Al explains, is that there is often nowhere else for these people to go.

‘Running this group is not always easy,’ he says. ‘When it becomes obvious that someone has the desire to live then it pleases me. When I have to accept that there are reasons for someone to commit suicide and I’ve done the best I can to provide comfort during the time they are with us, that also pleases me. I’m saddened by their death, but I can acknowledge that they’re no longer in the pain that brought them here.’

He must occasionally want to identify people, I suggest, to find them professional help or alert the authorities? ‘No. If I try to identify people then I’ve lost the major advantage I have. Of course, I want everyone I come into contact with to have a long, happy, loving life. But sometimes that just doesn’t happen. I do feel responsible for helping every person who is active on the forum. But I’m not in the business of saving people. I’m in the business of trying to help them make the decisions that are best for them.’

The stated function of almost every pro-ana site is to help visitors achieve their weight-loss goal. The busiest and most popular pages on the sites I viewed were dedicated to ‘thinspiration’: material explicity posted to encourage others to lose weight. ‘This is a great place to share your own thinspo or link to great thinspirations you
see on the web. Thinspire others!’ suggests one forum dedicated to thinspiration, linking to almost 30,000 photos. According to Dr Emma Bond, thinspiration is the most common material posted on pro-ana sites and forums. Typically ‘thinspo’ comprises photos of very slim celebrities such as Keira Knightley, Victoria Beckham and Kate Moss, or of contributors who upload photos of themselves – albums that are created by users and then uploaded for others to view and comment on. Sometimes these are accompanied by motivational captions: ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day, don’t give up!’, ‘Waking up thinner is worth going to bed hungry’ or ‘That isn’t your stomach rumbling – it’s applauding!’

Most thinspo pictures are accompanied by praising comments from contributors, who often express their desperation to reach these impossible levels of skinniness and glamour. Under a picture of one exceptionally skinny girl I found the following:

Amazing <33

Beautiful

Love those legs. Really clear and beautiful!

Those legs are to die for.

I would give anything to look like this!

Thigh gap <33

I WANT

I’d do anything to have those legs

Wish i had your body. sigh. I have a long way to go.

Man, wish i was like this

Beautiful

Could she be more perfect?

I want to have this.

So perfect

So perfect and can I ask how much you weigh??

That’s what I needto look like. I can already feel my hip bones sticking out and my boyfriend can literally grab onto them, but I want to physically see those bones poking out.

Very nice!! respect

I know this girl . . . She’s at my school. Everytime i see her i die a little inside. Yuck im so ewww:-

Wish I was like that! I’m so jealous

Want

omg perfect!

Why god oh why? You have given me fat all over and no brains but this girl gets perfection?!?!?!!?
I feel huge looking at this picture.