[Note to mods: I am SO SORRY to break the rules, but my comments are too formatting-heavy - Reddit keeps giving me error messages when I try to post them, splitting the length changes nothing, and the formatting (embedded links, etc) DOES NOT carry over when I copy-paste and try again. I've been at it for an hour. I decided to just make a separate post before I lose my mind - hope that's alright.]
(Continued from Part 4.1.(https://www.reddit.com/HobbyDrama/comments/1ckor6b/musicbook_emilie_autumns_asylum_pt_4_the_great/))

“MIXED MEDIA AND ACRYLIC PAINT ON CANVAS”

You're so easy to read But the book is boring me (“Misery Loves Company”, 2006 🎵)

It is June 2023. An alert pings on your Instagram. Butter my muffins – your problematic teenage fave just posted! What has she been up to?
It's been almost a full year since EA's last communiqué. She was going to do an AMA on her new blog, Stark Raving Sane. Fans would submit their burning questions, and she would select twenty of them to answer in her next post. You could fill out a form with your name and email and question. Clearly, she didn't like some of the questions.
(Since then, the one interesting that's happened in the Asylum was when EA was listed as the opening act for one single Maroon 5 show in the Netherlands 📝, but that turned out to be – most likely – a Spotify glitch.)
You tap the notification to check out EA's comeback post. The caption reads:

Introducing 'My Heart Is A Weapon Of War,' and I painted her and I love her. Medium: Mixed media - digital (Procreate, Maya 3D Sculpting) and acrylic paint on canvas.” 🪞📝

The art style is yassified-oil-portrait-realistic, unlike anything EA has ever drawn or painted before.🪞 It's a pastel-colored portrait of a button-nosed, elven-faced woman shaped like a Rococo centerpiece. She's got an ethereal smile, a sheer pink heart on her cheek, flowers in her towering hair, and rockin' anime titties. The gold lamé of her skin-tight top blends with her actual skin at the neck, and her arms are non-existent.
You rub your eyes. This surely isn't... no. She can't possibly be serious.People in the comments are trying to be diplomatic:

EA, I've always loved and defended you, but this is clearly AI.

EA does not respond to the diplomatic people in the comments. Instead, she posts another portrait of a diaphanous woman with a cheek-heart and a weirdly levitating necklace. In another post:

Oh, if anyone is curious about my general process, I'm happy to share, as I'd love to see other artists try it. It is thus: I start in Procreate with an Apple pencil, move over to Maya/Zbrush and do some 3D sculpting and lighting to flesh things out and create otherworldly elements in incredible detail, go back to Procreate and... 📝

Commenters are now having mostly civilized back-and-forths over the ethical implications of AI. Many hope EA is reading, wondering if she is aware of those issues. Many say everything would probably be fine if EA would just admit to using AI.
EA admits to nothing and apologizes to no one. No: EA posts more art, in a slightly different, less generic style, that still looks nothing like her own. “Digital painting”, she maintains. Many are imploring EA to please end this charade and stop insulting her fans' intelligence. But then again, some fans are defending her (“She literally just explained that it was digital painting!”), so maybe she's right to do it...?
EA posts a picture of a “buried treasure” that she just randomly chanced upon – a pencil drawing from her teens, once posted on her website in the early 2000s. (It's the one I linked to earlier – the one with the “EAF” signature, and the false age, and the fire reference. Yes, this is the context in which she was posting that.) She's posting it, à propos nothing, because she literally just noticed that she still draws eyebrows the exact same way to this day! In fact, you can clearly, definitely, unmistakably see a very similar eyebrow shape in her most recent art! See?
People are gobsmacked, and dragging her to filth. Desperate loyalists are gently pressing EA to please just post a Procreate timelapse of one of her new “digital paintings”, so that people will stop calling her a fraud.
EA is happy to oblige, and posts a mini-timelapse 📺📝 of what looks like color splotches and blurs being removed from the top layer of a finished piece with the eraser tool.

I'm shriveling with second-hand embarrassment on her behalf. How is she not mortified...? 🐀

EA keeps posting. More generic AI girlies with pale skin and sad eyes, more abstract sploshes that she calls her “morning pages”, but also more Asylum member-berries (“...the original Unlaced violin part... someone please learn this!” 📝) – and more of the massive, medical-themed mixed-media sculptures that she started making the year before, even presenting a few pieces at Art Basel 2022. The difference in style is obvious to everyone but her.
She ignores the peasants screeching about AI, won't even deign address the existence of such a thing; it's all EA, OK? OK. She makes it look easy, because it is to her:

4 hours start to finish in Procreate only with Apple pencil. Did you know that [the art for a card deck she released in 2019] was the first thing I drew on an iPad, because I was recovering from a disastrous TMJ jaw surgery and my face was bandaged and I couldn't get out of bed? I didn't either until just now. 📝

...Because... because you just made it up...??
People are going full tinfoil hat now – she has to be doing this on purpose, right? She just has to.

I can’t help but find it extremely suspicious that she came back after a year of inactivity just to drop the very obviously AI-generated art pieces, refuse to forwardly acknowledge the controversy, and then immediately move on to posting a bunch of artwork that is very clearly hers. A part of me is genuinely convinced that this is some sort of publicity stunt... 🐀

What other explanation could there be to this madness?
Not everyone loves the modern art sculptures, but those are definitely her work. Some of them really have The Vibe. About a piece entitled “Manic Phase” 📺📝:

This is (...) a blueprint of brain activity during a very... interesting period. Just one of many over several years, until a very particular combination of chemicals conspired to bury them just below the surface (...) Every single day, right now, I am afraid of going back there.

Hoop, there it is. Girl... you just spent days covering every inch of a canvas the size of a patio table with spirals of text from your decade-old journals written in minuscule all-caps, after a disastrous three-week bender of trying to pass off obvious AI art as your own. Is it perhaps possible that you may be “there” already...?
The more art EA posts, the angrier people get, and the harder she doubles down. Some AI pieces are accompanied by lengthy blog posts where she elaborates on their meanings. Mostly old Asylum talking points and metaphysical ramblings (that, in some cases, only seem loosely related to the art), but also some concerning news... and another spoonful of denial for the road:

Biscuits has no tits and neither do I at present. I’ve lost them, along with my arse, and most of my muscle mass, because that’s what happens when you’ve got an auto-immune issue and it hurts to eat because your body is attacking itself. (I never say auto-immune “disease” because it’s an ugly brown and I don’t like the way the “s” that is really a “z” feels in my mouth, and it also sounds unnecessarily dramatic and that embarrasses me). I prefer not to talk about this. With anyone. I will fix it. I am fixing it. And I will be able to sing and dance. And that is all.” (“Biscuits” - Blog entry 📝)

...Well shit.
Despite her track record and the context of this disclosure, not many fans accuse EA of malingering (well, okay, some are really pissed and they do 🐀). An auto-immune disease does line up with things she has mentioned in passing for years (bad blood-works, diet restrictions, hospital visits...) – and she did look so thin in those Art Basel pictures that some people accused her covertly creating thinspo.
In light of this, some fans choose to cut EA some slack, or at least temper their disappointment with earnest sympathy and concern, as she is clearly struggling in more ways than one, and has been for some time. Others are less forgiving, pointing out that it's pretty manipulative of her to pull out the chronic illness card in the midst of the ongoing AI controversy. Everyone, everywhere, is shaking their head in sadness and disbelief.
And by everyone, I do mean a few dozen people tops. It's pretty echo-y in the Asylum halls these days.
This goes on for two months, into August 2023. The AI art drops eventually stop, but the controversy does not. EA soon restricts the comments on her Instagram. For two weeks, she shares more artworks made from old lyrics 📝 and partially melted medical supplies. Using a syringe, she glues a bazillion crystals onto a pink hospital gown. Then, one day, mid-project, she stops posting.
And as of this writing, that was the last we heard of singer-songwriter, author, actor, visual artist, and world-class violinist Emilie Autumn.

AFTERMATH

Other than broken hearts, bad health, and dwindling career prospects...?
I mean, what usually happens when a semi-obscure solo artist tells tall(ish) tales about... mainly their age and name? It took me three write-ups to explain why EA's absurd but ultimately harmless lies are relevant to anyone on Earth at all. TMZ is not interested.
Because most of EA's fabrications were so self-contained and irrelevant to anyone but her fans, most of the “consequences” remained strictly internal to the fandom. They never (as far as I'm aware) affected her interactions with the press, for instance.
In fact, there was a weird overlap between 2011 and 2014 when she still got a fair amount of new and positive media coverage, but it had become common and accepted knowledge within the active fanbase that she made stuff up. And no one beyond the walls of the Asylum cared, because why would they? Overall, EA is great at interviews: she's charming, funny, and gives amazing soundbites. Sympathetic outsiders were happy to print whatever wondrous things the dazzling lady had to say – about her connection to Alice Liddell, her artistic process, her larger-than-life projects, whatever – without much critical distance. She wasn't famous enough to fact-check or call out, and her creative license with truth made for exciting interviews. It was a frustrating time to be a grumpy EA fan!
Since the press was in on it, and the Asylum forum was strictly under EA's thumb, bitter Plague Rats took their whistleblowing elsewhere. Unofficial forums opened in the name of free speech; anonymous confessions, receipts, and snarky meme blogs started blowing up on Tumblr. But that wasn't public enough for some fans, who felt that EA should be shamed and exposed, lest anyone else “fall for her lies” like they had. So eventually, among other things, they took to Goodreads.
During the never-ending delay of the Asylum audiobook (okay, it was two years; but it felt really long) there was a noticeable influx of one-star reviews, some of which barely addressed the book at all, but went into great detail about the lies and crimes (and personal info) of its dastardly author. I don't have solid receipts for these, there aren't any screenshots – possibly because most of those reviews, while they were ad hominem attacks more than book critiques, weren't quite abusive enough 🐀 to go against Goodreads TOS. But things did escalate enough that Anne Rice felt the need to step in.
In 2015, the author of “Interview with a Vampire” – who takes cyber-bullying against novelists rather seriously... no matter what kind of novels they write 🔍 – shared someone's Facebook post 📝 about the “conspicuous, blatant personal attacks” targeted at author Emilie Autumn, along with a direct link to one such egregious review.
And that, my friends, is how EA's Goodreads page was durably purged of the really pissed-off comments, and TAFWVG's rating stabilized at a cozy 4-star-something. A bunch of indignant Anne Rice fans (or should I say, fangs? (no)) swooped in to mass-report the Asylum's most virulent escapees 🐀, while loyal Plague Rats flocked in with the 5-star reviews. Truly a bizarre week in the greater goth community.
As far as her fabrications go, that's about as intense as “open” fan retaliation against EA ever got. But it is sadly clear that ten years of successive call-out waves from her own supporters (and the mental gymnastics it must have taken to shut them out and not admit to anything, ever) have taken a toll on her general well-being, to a point where she no longer feels safe online... and seemingly can't engage with her audience, at all, in a healthy and honest way.

Slander and dissension They're parlor games to me Papers overrun with lies too mad to mention You say they never hurt you? No consequence, I'm happy We're much too far above it all – But oh no, that's not true! These wicked pastimes take their toll These tyrant vices break your soul Deliver me from all I am And all I never want to be I love you, doubt me not Re-write this plot for all to see (“Willow”, 2004 🎵)

As you can surely guess, it takes more than a handful of unsavory book reviews and anonymous call-out blogs to kill a fandom (and an artist's fighting spirit). In truth, I don't think that many people turned their backs on EA solely for her fabrications; a lot of fans were just low-key annoyed by them for years, and then it was something else that finally broke the camel's back.
There were so many something-else's to choose from.See, while EA's phony stories were an unending source of frustration, they were a mere backdrop to the years of actual, hands-on, ever-evolving drama that eventually brought the Asylum down.
And that's where we're headed in our final installments. Hope to see you there.

I repressed my eating disorder the past couple of years. It’s back and now I’m being obsessive. Looking at ed tumblr, Pinterest , Twitter , and even TikTok. I’ve been obsessive posting / blogging >! thinspo !< and scouring the internet for safe >! Low calorie !< foods that my boyfriend is buying for me right now.
My life feels a little out of control right now. My room is a mess. I am exhausted. I have been so sick, so many health problems. I need to get back to a normal sleeping schedule. I haven’t seen the sun in several weeks (dw I take high quality vitamin D supplements). I haven’t drove my car in like 3 weeks. It’s too much for me and I know I will feel better if I am more productive and have a better schedule and structure. I’m working on it. I know it will Take a little effort , but will be worth it. I want to have a normal day so badly while the sun is still out, get my nails done , go grocery shopping instead of boyfriend , try out that new cafe I wanted to go to, do my makeup. Just ugh. Venting.

Once upon a time, Tumblr was my go-to place for my ED. I never added people I knew and never talked about having an account so I could keep anonymity. But before the app underwent serious regulation, there were a billion blogs freely posting anything you needed. Recovery or otherwise tips, thinspo, workouts and safe meal ideas, people freely vented and commented on each other, etc.
Reddit is great and there are some other things out there I’m sure, but I miss the fluidity of under-regulated Tumblr. Anyone else?

TW for ED's (eating disorders).
I'm chubby, but I'm not fat or overweight. I work out everyday; I walk my dog twice a day, I do yoga, I swim. I eat healthy. I'm only 19 and within the past few years have accepted my body and embraced it.
I was on tumblr when I came across a post with my username #'d. It was a thinspo inspiration account. For those of you who don't know, these are accounts that post either ridiculously unhealthy skinny people or 'fat' people as inspiration for those with ED's. In my case, it was 'you don't want to look like her'.
I blocked and reported the account. I'm furious, I'm devastated. There's nothing I can do. I wish I didn't see it.

I'm 28, from 17-20 I was active on Tumblr in the pro ed community. I had an active eating disorder from ages 12-23, so no worries recovered! Although still carry a lot of shock I guess, can't believe I did that. Shit was dark. I would look at thinspo blogs all day and had my own. I would find tips on how to starve myself and also made friends, we would encourage each other with these terrible habits. It was a weird way to rationalize my behaviors. I think Tumblr finally got around to moderating these types of blogs although I haven't been active on the site since. I find it interesting I have never heard about this as far as content creators who review internet culture. But yea once again shit was messed up...

SOME TRIGGECONTEXT WARNINGS IF YOU WISH: naming of mental illnesses and drugs/substances by name, description of multiple drug use/abuse cycle, familial & domestic abuse, incest, child abuse, homelessness, eating disordebody dysmorphia, gun violence/witnessing death
• • •
This is a long story that starts before I was born and I am now 33. It’s ultimately about my recent realization that I have an unmanageable addiction and need help. But it’s also a short autobiography about diagnoses, attempts at getting help, genetics, brain misfirings, traumas, early “benign” addictions that all pointed to where I have ended up - all the tiny stones I stepped on that led me to this terrible, dark cave of addiction. I think it’s important to look at addiction holistically, which includes the environments, choices, and inevitabilities that led us here. I’ve started by being open about my diagnoses and various traumas, then it’s basically an excessively long chronology of the progression of my addictive personality. Ending with my realization last week that I need some fucking help getting off of this roller coaster that is going to kill me and ruin the ones I love.
Soooo…buckle up? You’re a champ if you read all of this personal bullshit.
A glimpse of little me: I was a happy, gifted, fiercely intelligent child. Learning was the reason for life to me. I had too much empathy and emotion for my own good. Everyone was owed kindness and respect. I had 70 dreams and fully intended to fulfill them all. I was an optimist, and people were basically good and deserving of fifth chances. Through all the trauma, I remained this way until I was 19 years old.
With that “before” picture out of the way, here are my professional diagnoses & family history. I have PTSD (CPTSD if it existed in the DSM yet), MDD, GAD, panic disorder, ADHD, and OSFED. Diagnosed with acute (passing) psychosis twice. Two suicide attempts with subsequent hospitalization. My mother is an addict and has ADHD, PTSD, and bipolar 1. My bio dad is an addict and has MDD, PTSD, and severe anger issues. My brother is an addict and has MDD, GAD, and BPD. One grandmother has severe GAD. I have a schizophrenic cousin, but I haven’t seen signs in myself yet b”H.
Major traumas: I experienced severe sexual abuse/incest and neglect for the first 6 years of my life, then verbal/emotional abuse/neglect from 11-17. I also became homeless during that latter time due to my bio dad’s drug/alcohol use, and experienced another incident of incest. I had a 4 year long emotionally/verbally abusive relationship through college. In 2019, a woman was shot directly in front of my house and I was the first on the scene. I held her hand, talked to her, and maintained eye contact as she died before the ambulance arrived.
What I’m doing about it: I’ve been in therapy weekly since I was six, and have been doing EMDR (an effective PTSD treatment) for 3 years now. I have journaled daily my whole life, read (scientifically-backed) self help books, connect with others with similar experiences, and I have seen a psychiatrist for 10 years (I am on 7 medications and still haven’t found the right ones/combo). I am getting the results of a gene test for psych meds back soon, and considering physican-administered TMS/ketamine therapy. Currently just lurking in addiction subs/forums and on addiction TikTok, but today I am choosing to tell the truth and tomorrow I’ll be attending my first meeting.
So, that’s the context of my baseline mental health without addiction in the picture. Let’s dive into that hellhole now.
I come from a family of addicts in generations of abject poverty. I don’t mean just my parents and brother - grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, both maternal and paternal. The vast majority of the generations older than my parents are/were alcoholics primarily, excepting my grandma who preferred barbiturates. My only uncle is opportunistic and will do whatever, but prefers psychedelics. Weed for everyone, when opportunity presents itself.
My parents were a slightly different story. Bio dad’s DOCs are alcohol (24 bottles a day + liquor), weed, cocaine, shrooms, meth here and there. Mom’s DOCs were (she’s in recovery) weed, crack, cocaine. She tried meth but hated it. They both dabbled here and there with other things, but those were the big addictions and those were the things that ruined our entire family’s lives.
From Kindergarten, I was acutely aware of the difference between my sober family and my intoxicated family. Between my family and my friends’ families. It was uncomfortable, dysphoric, I didn’t like it. I resented that their addictions caused me to be responsible for not only my own schoolwork, but also the housework, pets, dinners and breakfasts, and solely parenting my brother 4 years younger than me. I told myself early in life that I would never touch a substance like that - I would never want to look or act the way my family did. It was embarrassing and undignified and I made it my mission to distance myself from the culture of my family.
Fast forward a bit, and I am 12. I wear baggy clothes, but they never hide my abnormally large-for-my-age breasts (D cup at that point) or obviously female hips. It’s 2001, so all the popular girls and the ones in the media have flat chests and stomachs, pencil-thin arms and legs. No muffin tops or bra overflow if they tried. No back rolls. I didn’t understand why I didn’t look like that. I cried every time I saw myself in the mirror or got dressed.
Around that time, I had a Xanga blog that I used as a diary to share with my friends. Millennials around my age with body image issues - I know you know where this is going lol. One fateful day, I discovered something called thinspo. I had never been so envious in my life, I didn’t know it was possible to be that thin. These women were absolutely flawless to me. It didn’t take long before I was active in the pro-ana/mia communities and writing down lists of tips and tricks in my journal.
One poster said that since food is used for energy, and you feel tired when you restrict, you should drink a strong coffee each time you feel hunger. My bio dad was a heavy coffee drinker, so that one was doable. Within weeks, I was brewing myself a full pot with three times the grounds called for, dumping it into two large travel mugs, and carrying them to school. I spent all day every day sipping espresso-level black coffee. When lunch came around and I was forced to eat to keep up appearances, I would pick the foods I craved the most and eat them voraciously. Then I’d guzzle water and excuse myself to the bathroom, etc etc. I saw The Devil Wears Prada and heard that one line from Emily and followed it religiously - “If I feel like I may pass out, I simply eat a cube of cheese.” That still pops into my head sometimes. It got to the point where if I skipped coffee, I had blinding migraines two hours later. I drank that much until 2013, after I left a Starbucks job. Managed to cut down to 3 a day, then 2. At this point I only have one if I need an afternoon pick me up.
In hindsight - my first addiction was caffeine. My second was the control and power of an eating disorder.
Fast forward again. In high school, the most I ever did was get drunk with friends 2 or 3 times. I decided I hated the way it made me feel, and still don’t ever have more than one social drink tops. Dodged that particular bullet, however much that’s worth.
Jump to the week after I graduate high school. Senior year, I had fallen in love with a very manipulative, cruel girl that I was convinced was the one. She ended up destroying my sense of self, reality, and autonomy - but that’s a separate story for a separate sub. She let me move in with her at her parents house as soon as school finished. The relationship was disgusting from the start, but I didn’t know better and I was afraid to be alone. She was a year younger than me, so she still had to go to high school during the week.
This is when my third addiction began - TV and the internet. I didn’t get into the only college I could afford to apply to, so I lost almost a year and a half laying in my girlfriend’s bed with the blinds closed, mindlessly watching garbage television for about 15 hours a day. I stopped showering. I started overeating and gained a truly astonished amount of weight in just a few months - because I was eating massive amounts of trash and not moving for days at a time. When I did leave the house, I thought about the shows I was watching the whole time. It was bad. Luckily, when my girlfriend graduated and I finally got into the school I wanted (the same one she was attending), we decided to move the 1.5 hours away together.
In our new apartment, I quickly fell into a depression. In hindsight, it was a trauma thing - not only was I in my own peaceful space that I had control over, but also my asshole girlfriend was ruining the glow of it. I’d somehow made it those 19 years without mental health symptoms, so that episode knocked me on my ass. I’d never felt so low and hopeless and heavy.
We’d have friends over most weekends and they’d all smoke some weed and then goof around and play games. I always sat with them, and for the first time it looked kind of fun and happy rather than the resentful, neglected association I had with it. I was offered a hit. I thought about my parents. About how I hated that they ignored me when they were high. And then I thought about the deep pit in my chest telling me to kill myself, versus how happy and child-like all my friends seemed. I grabbed the bowl and it was immediate, passionate love. My girlfriend was thrilled I liked it so we started buying our own. Within four months I had failed out of college. I was unemployed with no experience. I stopped reading, writing, singing, painting, studying French - all my passions previously. I spent my days either high as balls on a dirty futon watching Jackass movies on a loop, or high as balls laying in a dark room with my eyes closed and music up attempting to astrally project. All while ignoring the moldy pile of dishes in my sink and the family of mice in my closet.
I was 19 when that happened. I did not go one day without being high - at least at night, but frequently all day - until I spent a week in Mexico THIS February. I spent my 23rd year in a shed behind my best friend’s house hitting GBs like we were in the 19th grade. We’d go to coinstar for money to re-up. All this time I thought it was a medicine that was helping me with all sorts of things, when it’s become apparent (after a week of absolute mental stability and decent sleep away from it) that was no longer the case. It’s making my conditions worse and affecting my ability to eat without it. Fourth addiction - cannabis.
Fifth addiction - benzodiazepines. In that 19-25 window, I developed severe panic attacks. I’ve had anxiety my whole life - my body essentially exists in flight or freeze mode - but it had never hit me that hard. A friend gave me one of her Klonopin and that was that - I experienced existing without anxiety for the first time in my ENTIRE life. I was on top of the world, convinced it was a miracle drug. I got a prescription from my psych and took it as prescribed for a year or so - it allowed me to socialize, sit still with my thoughts, be spontaneous, avoid obsessive thought loops. I honestly was thriving for a moment there. And then…how the story goes…I hit tolerance. My doc refused to increase the dose but I was so constantly anxious I was considering suicide again. So, I upped the dose myself. When that first high dose kicked in, I remember thinking, “Oh fuck yeah, thank you.” The script was 30 PRN per month, and I ended up going weeks without from dosing higher. Then anxiety would rebound. Then I filled the script again. Etc etc for nearly 3 years. At my worst, I was at 9mg Klonopin a day for a week at a time. I did the dumbest possible thing after reading about benzo withdrawal syndrome and flushed all my meds, and told my doc I’d been feeling better so we could skip filling the next one (didn’t mention the abuse, of course). I don’t know what noble I did in a past life or whatever, but I somehow did not have a seizure, tremors, aggression, or psychosis. I fully recognize how lucky I am and what an anomaly that was. I just told my psych my anxiety was worse again and asked for a non benzo so I wouldn’t be tired, and Prozac did the trick for a bit.
Fast forward again! My therapist one day notes to me that I can never stop fidgeting during our sessions, which she assumed was anxiety. But she also started to notice me losing my train of thought mid sentence, becoming obsessively focused on hobbies or interests or people, and regularly forgetting appointments despite being on my calendar and having reminder emails/alarms. She suggested I get tested for ADHD. Saw a psychologist for 5 hours straight two days in a row. She determined I have severe ADHD, PTSD, and OSFED, but she believed the depression and anxiety stemmed from untreated ADHD.
I meet with my psych a week later and send her the report. She glances over it and says, “Sounds good! Do you want to try Adderall or Ritalin first? They’re basically the same.” I was a bit taken aback by the choice, but arbitrarily said Adderall because I knew nothing about stimulants. She started me on 10 IR in the morning, and when I felt nothing bumped me straight to 20 IR twice a day.
When I tell you I sobbed for hours the first day I took those…my physical and mental anxiety disappeared. My body relaxed. My mood went from “wanna die but don’t wanna hurt wife” to “I am capable of getting my life in control and being a good person who does good things.” My depression dissipated. My thoughts slowed down, and I was able to follow one at a time without a thousand others shouting to be loudest. I felt like I had just been born, like this is how I was always meant to be. I started really throwing myself into being creative and proactive at work (I’m a nanny, so that means expending tons of energy + fun cleanup). Cleaning/organizing the shit out of my house (my wife was starting to resent my inability to get over the executive dysfunction. Taking my dog on hour-long walks when I got home. Joining a women’s choir. Reaching out to old friends to reconnect, and actually going to see them. Got really into hobbies again - painting & illustration, poetry, reading, guitar, hikes, friends & family. Even applied to my local community college to start finishing my degree. I was on top of the world, I felt better than ever, and I felt that I had finally unlocked the secret to being a functional adult.
Well. I don’t have to explain what happened next, you guys know how it goes. As soon as the initial euphoria faded, I was redosing. When that stopped working, I increased the dose. First it was a month’s worth in 3 weeks, then 2, then 1.
Then my psych left unexpectedly. The practice assigned me to someone else - graduated less than a year ago from a nursing degree mill and also practices real estate. It’s her first job. She decides she dislikes that I have my medical cannabis card and that I’m on too many meds (7 not counting the controlled ones, on which I’d been stable for YEARS). She takes one away, drops the doses on three, and changes the formulation for one. Oh, and adds trazodone even though I told her my most debilitating symptom is fatigue/lethargy. I left that appointment and immediately made one with a different practice. That was two months away, and I was about to leave for a week in Mexico.
When I was on vacation in Mexico and didn’t have either Adderall or Klonopin, I was shocked at how okay I was. I think it was mostly being in an exciting beautiful place away from my problems, but a few days in and I was like “I got this.. I’ll quit.” Two days before we headed home, I started to panic about both the plane rides without Klonopin and returning to work without Adderall. Klonopin is prescription only in that country, and they don’t sell Adderall period. I did some internet digging and ended up buying two boxes of pregabalin to replace one, and four boxes of Modafinil & Armodafinil to replace the other. Smuggled that shit through five airports like a damn idiot.
I took that pregabalin for a week. Decided it was shit, got rid of it. The modafinil lasted about a month. No euphoria or mood/focus improvement, but it kept me awake enough to actually function and not look like a zombie. I ordered more online “just as backup for when I’ve slept badly”. Keep in mind, I wasn’t taking a higher than suggested dose - just using it for unhealthy reasons.
I see my new psych, the one I found after dumping the real estate agent. In our first appointment I told her I wasn’t doing well and she said, “Let’s get you back on those stimulants, huh?” It was as if something took over the controls in my brain and my mouth moved without my consent - “Yes, please. I function better than I have in my adult life when my ADHD is treated.”
That happened on 3/18/22. As of today, 4/8/22, I have one Adderall left. Between then and now, I have spent two days up followed by 15 hours sleeping then repeat, ignored/avoided everyone who has tried to contact me, called out of work five times, have had countless panic attacks, clenched my jaw so hard I can’t relax it and I chipped a tooth, followed obsessive/jealous/hypochondriac thought loops for hours and hours, dissociated on the sofa for big parts of many days, became delusional and started running/hiding from everyone in my house but my wife, thought my wife was cheating but didn’t say anything about it b”H, forgot to drink anything for 3 days and got a salivary gland infection, got multiple canker sores and peeling lips, and felt truly suicidal for the first time in many years. I take days off of Adderall and always cave and take an AModafinil because I don’t feel I can withstand the exhaustion.
I’m set to pick up an early script this Monday because it’s a brand that works better for me. My psych asked if I was okay with that decision and I fucking said “Yeah, thanks for solving the problem!” I told her I’d flush the rest of the “bad” script. I know I need to, but I haven’t yet.
I know I need to tell her what’s happening, but I haven’t yet. I know I need to tell my therapist, but I haven’t yet. I know I need to tell my wife, mother, step father, brother, rabbi, friends. But I haven’t yet.
I know that feeling I got during the honeymoon will never come back. Why is my brain lying to me and saying it will be there? I know I need to stop before I literally kill myself. Why is my brain saying I have the willpower to take it as prescribed only? I know I need to fess up to my doctors. Why am I afraid of never being trusted again, or having access to medical cannabis (which I need to quit for a while anyway)? I know I need to tell my empathetic, intelligent, compassionate wife. Why I am I DEATHLY afraid of causing her - a grown woman - disappointment?
I know all the things I need to do, rationally. Something hijacks my brain each month and tells me horrible lies and I fucking listen to it like a naive asshole. If I’m being fully honest, I don’t want to stop. Or I’m just afraid to stop because I was useless before I took them. But again, I know they don’t work anymore. I know I am about three feet away from a bad psychotic episode. I need to fucking stop and I don’t know what to do. I don’t have anyone to talk to. Not even my addict friends will listen because I’ve ignored them for months.
If you’ve gotten to the end, I commend your attention span. Thank you so much for hearing my story. I’ve told some people little bits and pieces, but I’ve never laid it all out together like this. Writing this was really cathartic. Any encouragement, empathy, or advice is most welcome <3

I'm a pretty regular at the gym and I'm I'm in good shape, I admit that my diet could be better but I am by no means overweight. I'm 6ft tall with an athletic build and in high school I did track and cross country. I am a size 12 in jeans and workout 4x a week. Last week I was approached by a guy that worked at the gym who said he noticed I do a lot of cardio and asked if I was interested in personal training. I met with him a few days ago where he took my stats and other health measures and he told me that although I am 25, I have a biological age of a 30 year old and that at my age I should at least be biologically 23. He then asked me if I am emotional about my appearance and I should aim to lose 15 pounds in 6 months. I asked him that if I need to lose weight, why would it take 6 months to lose 15 pounds, especially because 15 pounds isn't a lot. He said he is a Christian, and there is probably a purpose for us meeting and changing my life. He didn't give me a direct answer, but the whole consultation made me feel bad about myself and the way I looked, despite the fact that before I was happy with it. I now feel awkward whenever I go the gym and seeing him there, it's very uncomfortable.
When I was a teenager, I used to follow thinspo and pro anorexia blogs on tumblr. The whole interact with the trainer made me feel bad about myself because it's not like he's a doctor who knows my health history. I feel very triggered now and I feel like I'm going to develop ED habits. Right now I'm starving, but I'm not going to eat because I feel too fat (even though realistically I am not).
I am sorry if my post is stupid. Advice to overcome this feeling?

Hey y'all. This feels a little weird, feels like I'm poking my head into the AA meetings when I've never even tasted alcohol before. Still, I'm looking for some tips and y'all seem like the perfect community from which to get them.
I do not have an eating disorder, but my partner does. I'm not going to claim it's been easy for me, but I'm not here for me, I'm here because I want to help her through this to the best of my ability. Her recovery began three years ago, long before we met, but she still finds herself struggling against it fairly often. Physically she's doing well, but mentally she's still in quite a bit of pain. What makes it more difficult for her is that she has Body Dysmorphic Disorder, among other things. Without going too much into detail, life has not been easy for her. She's often told me that she's never felt loved or safe until we got together, something which is flattering but also overwhelmingly sad. Helping her process her traumas may not be the easiest thing in the world, but it's extremely rewarding.
That said, I'm not exactly an expert in this. I want to be a supportive and helpful partner, but this is something that I've never dealt with before. I've never even had a friend struggle with eating disorders around me before, much less a partner. This relationship has been a whirlwind of new terminology for me. I'd never encountered the words "Pro-ana" or "Thinspo" before now, and while I'd certainly heard of "thigh gaps" and "hip bones", I'd never heard them uttered with such reverence before. I'd also never seen someone react negatively to the word "healthy", nor seen someone desperately want to be classified as underweight. To be honest, I find the euphemistic language of the communities surrounding eating disorders frustrating. It's not forcing yourself to vomit, it's "purging". It's not forcefully starving yourself, it's "discipline". It all seems very toxic to me. It seems to me there is a culture of taking on eating disorders as an important part of one's identity so that one cannot attack the eating disorder without the sufferer feeling like they themselves have been attacked.
When this relationship first started I was completely at a loss with how to help her. I'm someone who's never really placed any kind of emphasis on appearance, of myself or the people in my life. In fact, it's extremely rare that I actually see someone as attractive, the vast majority of people just look like people to me. It's only like once every couple of years or so that I even momentarily find someone attractive. As a result, I mistakenly took this as a simple difference in priorities and did my best to be reassuring. As time has gone on, I've realized increasingly that although she says it's about the various things she doesn't like about her body, the root cause is her overall lack of self worth. She has told me many times that she feels as though she has to be skinny because she "[doesn't] have anything else going for [her]". As a result, we've talked about ways we can work on her self esteem and self respect. She's made pretty good progress, I'm super proud of her. Every day she's made little steps towards valuing herself more. She's even voiced interest in me helping her purge her social media of pro-ana stuff and help her get rid of the gigabytes of pictures of girls that look like holocaust victims off her phone. Those are pretty big steps, I think they'd help her get to a mentally better place for sure, but I want to make sure that she's in a good spot when we do it because I know it's going to be emotionally taxing for her.
I've also done my best to paint eating as a good thing. This is fairly easy since I already do, there's something weird and primal in me that urges me to keep her fed, safe and just alive in general. I may have gone a little hard, she's at least partially convinced I have a sandwich fetish, but it's not my fault that she's really cute when she eats sandwiches, it's hard not to smile and squee like an idiot when she does so. The calorie limits she's been imposing on herself are also a bit more reasonable now too. Still, I get the impression she struggles to see it as a good thing for herself, though she does have the occasional breakthrough.
All that said, I have been far from perfect. I have gotten confused or frustrated on more than one occasion, and every time that happens I'm afraid that she'll just start keeping things from me because she doesn't want to be a burden. So I did a bit of googling and stumbled on this here subreddit. I read through some of the articles in the resources the pinned thread, as well as some of y'all's recent posts. I'm not ashamed to say I was reduced to tears. This article in particular really hit home for me. I already feel like I've learned a lot in just some brief research, but I feel like y'all might have some tips and bits of advice that might prove useful. I really want to help her through this, I know she's suffering and I know she can't stand to have the claws of this beast in her anymore. This is her journey, but she shouldn't have to do it alone. I don't want her to feel like a failure because of the occasional stumble and I want to help her learn how to, if not love herself, at least not hate herself. I've told her I will be there with her every step of the way, so if she's going to lean on me from time to time I just want to make sure I don't managed to lead her off a cliff.
Thank you all, I hope your recovery goes well. No one should have to go through this, but I'm glad there's a community to help those that have to.

I guess this applies to pretty much any type of social media but...

Tumblr is TERRIBLE. I run two blogs on there, and I always come across Thinspo, Purging and restricting glorification, demonstrations on how to do said things, pro-anorexic and bulimic quotes, extremely low-cal recipes, fatphobia and really damaging content that can cause someone to relapse. It caused near-relapse episodes for me but I have been strong enough to remind myself that this content is unhealthy and that's not what I wanna be...I wanna be healthy; I want to eat what I want with no regrets, I want to be able to withstand the cold, I want to be free of hospital trips and constant illnesses, I want to live.
I'm staying away from Tumblr for a bit, or I will at least use it less - and I encourage others, whether you're in recovery or not, to do the same. Needless to say, I block and report this stuff. I don't want to see it or engage with it. I'm tired of dying now, it's time to live.

ED=Eating disorder
There is a certain YouTuber with an ED who I shall refer to as EC. When I started to watch YouTube around 10 years old I was addicted to her YouTube and then I followed her on every live platform streaming she has ever been on. My mum noticed my decline in school. I'd be tired the next day and I was really irritable. It was addictive to watch EC pull silly pranks. She is exactly where I learned what dildo meant when she talked about sticking it up a turtle. I know it sounds effed up now but back in the day when I was younger I found it quite hilarious. Especially when I found out what it meant. I was waaaaay to young to know what these terms meant and way too young to be watching EC.
I know it would be easy to blame my parents but my mum and dad didn't know how to use the Internet back then. They just thought YouTube was some sort of video channel with funny videos with cats and kittens. In reality I was glued to EC. I admired her. When she said she was naturally thin I started to think well maybe I am too. I never really focused on weight until I started to watch EC. I think it's because it was brought up a lot during the streams and she would pose.
The older I got the more I started to believe that I was not worthy because I was a size 8. I know it's small but back them when I was 14 I thought it was huge. I'd stand up against my computer monitor and try and compare myself to EC. Things started to spiral out of control when I would read the comment section of her streams and videos, and alot of people would comment links to Thinspo blogs. It didn't take long until I joined a Pro Ana group.
I know you will probably say that it was easy to just stop watching her and to stop comparing myself to her. That it's stupid but I idolised her. I had no friends in school because I was painfully shy so I felt like EC was my best friend, she would talk to all the fans who commented and once I even suggested a prank and she did it, that pulled me in even more in the early days I was so excited like I met brad pitt or something I was so so delighted. I gave up on my education because her streams were at opposite hours to mine but I'd make sure I'd be logged in to watch. In the UK our parents can be fined or jailed if we miss school and my mum kept receiving letters. I was so selfish to my mum. I'd begrudgingly go into school but I'd be filled with anxiety I'd miss anything from the streams or videos I'd panic throughout the day and effed up my education.
My mum was at her wits end watching me deteriorate. My father who is a man who never crossed a stern word to me, made sure he voiced how he felt. He was feeling quite hurt that I chose to starve myself mentally and physically. He begged me to tell him what is wrong but I couldn't just say that I wanted to be like my best friend. He'd not be happy one bit. I was so effin lonely and depressed inside and EC was my escape.
The problem was that EC was the face of the pro Ana group I was in online and she was the ultimate celebrity representing Thinness. Its not that I was aware I had an ED. I would just let everything spiral because I was consuming EC's videos, streams and image for years. I'd weigh myself and I even thought the hand on the weighing scales moved slightly up, I'd punish myself. The thing was that when I was at my lowest weight I was actually gaining weight on the scales becsuse any fluid left in my body was making its way to my body and my limbs. I was like a cactus in winter. I would now stick my fingers down my throat and bring up balls of acid. I ruined my front teeth.
Incase anyone was wondering my mum and dad did take me to multiple doctors through the years. The mental health care in the UK is diabolical so I left each time back to square one. The thing is when I was at my lowest weight Of 4 stone which in american terms is 56 pounds. I was exercising and I was doing abdominal crunches and next minute I passed out with a crunching pain inside, and started to vomit blood. Luckily mum was at home at the time and heard me gurgling. She likened the noise to donkey braying. She was so scared. She ran and I was on the floor with blood coming from my mouth. She called 999 . Put me in the recovery position. She couldn't do chest compressions because there was a ball she could see moving through my skin I was that thin.
So to save to gory details of what ensued, I broke a rib during my exercise and I pierced my blood vessel, was about 4cm away from piercing my kidney. The surgeon reckons that if I did pierce my kidney then I would be dead, my body wouldn't be able to take it. I was actually touch and go for a long time. Even in my haze I stupidly kept thinking about EC. During my hospital stay I requested my mum to bring me my tablet. My mum was seeing a Councillor in the hospital unbeknownst to me and the Councillor was asking about my online activity and if I was consuming a lot of Internet. My mum told the Councillor that I was always in my room on my computer and I'd be always on my tablet or phone for years on end.
The councillor gave my mum an Internet safety brochure and it was all about monitoring my online activity. I was 16 so my mum felt bad for checking. She got her friend to help her because she was computer illiterate. Her friend brought up all the different tabs I had on EC and all the platforms about her. Also the Pro Ana group. My mum told me all this in later years when I was fighting toward YouTube changing their policy. She told me that her friend kept repeating "I am so sorry" over and over again. My mum was shaken up by EC.
My mum broke the news to me when I was in hospital that the doctors will not allow me to have the Internet and that after I'm better and healed that I will be going into an ED clinic for 8 week treatment. If I progress I can be let out but it may take a little bit longer. I was so angry I started to scream but my voice was the only thing I could use because my body was so weak. I cursed my mum and dad. Used every profanity. Was basically a little bitch for a while but when the EC fever started to break I started to see the nurses and doctors going around saving peoples lives, complete strangers, with care and compassion, and I started to get emotional. I started to see that EC was killing me. I know that seems excessive but she was like heroin to me, sweet and nice but the side effects was deadly.
I actually ended up in the inpatient clinic for 13 weeks. I did the outpatient for a year after. I was really sad leaving the clinic because they saved my life but I knew after a year of doing my outpatient visits that I was ready to fly on my own. I started to realise my ED was not because I hated food. It was because I was so lonely and broken. I grasped onto EC to comfort the fact I had no friends. I watched her way too young and I began to grow up with her. The psychologist described it like having a malignant twin. I was giving my everything to her to keep her alive. Meaning I was giving everything of myself to EC to make it seem inside my head that we were closer than ever. If we went through the same battles then we were closer than ever. In a depressed and starved mind this made sense to me. I know it wouldn't make sense to a healthy mind but I literally believed she was part of me.
When she said "I love you guys" I'd believe she loved me. The reality is that she didn't miss me off the streams. She didn't even know who I was. She had the same reaction to everyone. That's her Job and I'm not dissing her, she's an entertainer and she has no actual relationship with people on her streams it's all about keeping the money flowing and her name trending. I understand that now but to a incredibly broken and lonely child, I believed she did love me and cared about her fans IRL. Now I see her as a showman. She puts on a show to draw in the crowds. To make the money. I realise that she got excited when people tipped big and was all over them
And if someone tipped a dollar she say thanks but it wouldn't be hyped or excited. Her voice gets higher and excited when it's big tips of money. The majority of her viewers are kiddos with not much money so a dollar of their pocket money is a big deal just to get Eugenia reacting. I know I saved up for weeks to give her a big tip and she was all excited with me. So I felt like that was a huge rush and I'd save up just to send her tips to hear her excitement.
I am now fully recovered. I am 19 now. I am studying toward becoming an ED Councillor. I'd love to be able to help others like the clinic helped me. I still pop into the clinic to volunteer. They say that when I am qualified that they would love to welcome me as part of the team. So I am excited. Hopeful. I was part of a campaign to change the laws of YouTube. Specifically around EC. They refuse to deplatform her so we can only ask that parents check their child's viewing material no matter what age.
Someone in our campaign from the USA had their child watching Disney and EC as the little mermaid showed up as a suggestion. The child said "Mom why does Ariel look so scary". The mom quickly got it off thankfully and had to explain to her child that it was some lady dressed up for Halloween. The child had nightmares for a while. That's how shocking it is. This was only recently. I am aware of what EC looks like now and I am thankful that I got my treatment before the current EC because I wouldn't be alive today. Let me assure you that.
Anyway I know this was a long post and some people will want a TLDR so
TL:DR: Was lonely and depressed child. Started consuming EC on YouTube. Got down to 56 lbs, broke my rib exercising and pierced my vessel, nearly died, spent 13 weeks inpatient and 1 year outpatient to get better from an ED. I'm better now and I am now fighting to save others with an ED. ♥

I think the bots auto delete posts containing certain keywords, so I will refer to this popular subscription-for-content website as "OF". If it were a store you would think it was selling nothing but air circulation devices. You know the one.
Hi Reddit. Throw away account here.
My GF and I have been going out for 4.5 years now. We get along quite well and rarely fight about anything. We argue maybe twice a year maximum. I love her, and every time I see her, it brings me joy.We have discussed marriage, but decided to wait until she is finished school before adding the "Stress of a wedding." (She was late starting Uni, she's got 1.5 years left for her degree)
We have had some issues with honesty in the past, as she has a difficult time telling the truth out of fear of peoples reactions. She will blame traffic instead of "I'm a little late because I stopped for Coffee", and various small lies, and sometimes lie about larger issues. It's something I have learnt to deal with, as I generally can tell when she's lying and I trust her not to do anything truly harmful to the relationship (such as cheating).
Well, last week on Tuesday, I went over to her place to hang out after I finished an appointment. She was stuck late at work, so I decided to grab her Ipad to read the news and get stock market updates - like I have done a million times before.
However, this time, she had left a tab open - and it was an OF tab.
It turns out she had created the account as an adult model a week before on Friday (5 days ago?). There was a twitter, instagram, and tiktok she had created and posted photo's on to promote her page aswell.
The photo's she was posting were not *nude*, but rather *lewd* - her with her shirt and bra lifted and her hand down her pants, her naked ass, naked chest with the nipples covered by her fingers, and various lingerie photo's in various states of undress. I should mention that her face was not visible in any of the photo's, and she had always (though barely) covered her nips and genitalia.
I'm shocked, as this is something she has never expressed an interest in. She's always been very modest, she won't even wear a bikini on the beach, and if a dress shows her shoulders she will wear a jacket to cover them. (By the way, I encourage her not to be so worried about it - I personally feel that she should dress confidently - and I feel that wearing a jacket over a dress because it "shows her shoulders" is kinda silly. But I support her decision either way, even though I sometimes feel weird being out for dinner with her wearing a jacket in mid summer, but it is her choice and I respect that.)
I know she is self conscious about her "large" breasts and her "weight", despite being 5'5 and weighing only 125-130lbs. Her ideal weight is "Thigh gaps and you can see my ribs", which I have been working to build her confidence and make her realize she's actually quite skinny and extremely attractive, perfect the way she is. I tell her sincerely daily how beautiful she is, and when she sends me pics I always tell her she is gorgeous, sexy, and amazing. (Girls, please don't go on those ThinSpo blogs on Tumblr, they are seriously messed up - no one expects you to look like that!).
But that brings us back to the issue at hand. I confronted her about it and calmly asked for her reasonings and such. She lied to me about the account 23 times in the first 30 minutes, "OF? Never heard of it" "Oh I looked at the page but I would never have an account" "Okay well I made an account to follow this yoga person, the site doesn't just have porn, I would never post" "Okay well I made an account and thought about posting pictures but decided not to" and etc etc lies).
When I showed her the evidence, She finally stopped lying and said "It's not a big deal, it's just my ass and boobs and i'm not showing my genitalia." She also explained that she thought she could make some good easy money doing it, and that she wasn't going to tell me because "I didn't think you would find out, and no one can see my face so no one knows who I am."
So I broke up with her.
But then she came over a few days later and apologized, told me how much she loves me and misses me, and she's so sorry she did such a stupid thing and she doesn't know how she convinced herself that it was okay, and she knows it wasn't, and she's sorry for hurting me, and nothing like that will ever happen again, and she's ashamed and horrified that she posted that stuff because it's "not like her".
She then also said that she's going to start seeing a therapist to overcome her "compulsive lying".
So that brings us to today folks. My friends all have told me to "run the other way", except for our mutual friend who says that I should give her a second chance because "this is not like her".
I am willing to forgive what happened, as I believe people make mistakes and I really want to give her a second chance because I love her more than anything in this world.
But I also feel like this has a lot of red flags for potential similar repeat issues and I think I will just get hurt down the road.
Any thoughts? I will do my best to reply to questions, as I wanted to keep this post as brief as possible, but I know it's a complex issue.
TLDR; GF started an OF, lied to me about it, but wants me to give her a second chance. I want to give her a second chance but all the bones in my body are telling me to run the other way.
Edit: As far as money and desperation goes, she's in Co-Op making a decent wage right now, and she also has $11,000 saved up, so she isn't desperate or even close to broke.

idk how common this is (probably very) but it's something i struggle with so much. a classic example in real time is i'm scrolling a blog and seeing someone is fasting and using this app to track it and at the top it says "601,866 people are fasting right now" and idk how ppl cope with seeing that shit. knowing that hundreds of thousands of people are exactly the same as you. thinspo hits similarly, i love it, but at the same time it's hard for me to see tiny girls, it's hard for me to see frail, delicate, beautiful, ethereal little wisps that are probably as light as a feather and look like they tumbled from heaven, who in reality are just 'better' at their ed (disordered thoughts courtesy of my brain).
i know why this is, it's because the human brain tries to wield flaws and issues and amalgamate them as part of our personality, our identity, our individuality. so it's deeply uncomfortable when people are the same. it's like 'no, wait, not you too, that's my thing. that's mine.' it feels like other people are almost trying to take it from you or copy you, it threatens the brain's sense of self. and i feel like this is something pretty under-spoken about.

I’ve been struggling with an eating disorder for 9 years now. I don’t recall ever having a normal relationship with food. I’m honestly saddened that I’m 18 now and it’s stuck with me into my “adulthood”. I have shuffled through many different EDs to the point where I’m just physically sick and tired. From the proana blogs to the thinspo tumblr pages, I feel like one sick veteran. I just want to get better and I have found my outlet but my brother hasn’t been making it easy. I have become a little bit of a clean freak and scheduling junky, but it’s helping me recover. I’m constantly cleaning, studying, and organizing just to keep myself side tracked from my poor relationship with food.
My brother is currently in that stage where he doesn’t know his career path. He gets upset with me easily, rages, leaves messes, and plays video games all day. I’ve been coming home after 8 hr shifts to his big messes only to clean it up and instantly tire out due to lack of nutrition. On days he stresses me out, I binge, purge, and sleep only to wake up with him yelling at me for eating something he wanted. He calls me every little trigger word in the book causing me to further relapse.
But in more seriousness, I’m scared. I noticed he’s reverting back to how he was in high school. In those days he wouldn’t just yell, he would hit me too. Back then I was chubbier, but now I’m boney and I bruise just by bumping into a wall. Yesterday after I got mad at him for tracking mud into the house, he hit me with the door and continued to play video games. I understand I’m not a saint and I shouldn’t of yelled at him for the mud. It was an 8 hr shift and I was tired and easily angered. Anyways, after the incident, I woke up to a nasty bruise on my arm. His temper has gotten worse which has made me even more scared to be at home.
My question is, how can I help him? I’ve tired helping him with career tests, buying him stuff at the store after I binge, suggested college councilors, etc. I’ve even tired telling him about my ed a few years back, trying to open up to someone only to be called a drama chaser. And for anyone suggesting my parents, they have also tried and talk to him, but nothing gets better. He slams the door on my dad after being told to pay for rent and get a full time job if this continues. After my mom told him to pay for his calc class that he failed twice, he yelled at her to shut up and continued to play video games. After the constantly years of babying him, they’ve given up which has caused him to become this way now that reality is settling in.
If you read this, ty. It’s really jumbled and I’m sorry for that. I relapsed today so I’m quite over this situation and open to any ideas. Ty again <3

From someone who's been body dismorphic and struggling with food to a point where 1 calorie over my limit would make me think about a suicide plan.
Not too long ago I was part of EDTwitter, aka literal hell. I thought once I'd finally get that discipline I'd be happy. Once I'd finally lose x amount of weight I can allow myself to be happy. But the self sabotage continued throughout this time, and my self worth was at an all time low. I didn't understand why I was so miserable and out of control.
Now I realize, it was my environment. Not necessarily at home, but the things I saw online. The constant comparing myself to others. The constant tearing each other apart for our mistakes.
I now have migrated to Instagram. Where I follow tons of positivity blogs. Now every day when I check my socials, I don't see "thinspo" and words like "starve" everywhere anymore. I now see that I am good the way I am and that I am allowed to live RIGHT NOW. No matter my weight, looks, etc.
There's nothing wrong with trying to improve yourself and getting fit/staying healthy.
Just remember that your body loves you. Give it back that love. 💕

I had a blog for a year and a half and gained 5k followers so I thought I was safe from being terminated. I never posted any thinspo or "tips" or anything like that, just memes and venting. I made a meme about general mental illness and it got really popular. The next day an ED meme I reblogged got removed and the day after that I was terminated. I made a new blog and it got terminated a few days later.
I've been posting my memes that I can find from my terminated blog on EDanonymemes but some of them don't strictly apply to EDs so I don't think I can post them there. If I post in other mental illness subreddits will people report my account on here for having ED content?
Sorry, I'm new here so I don't know how it works.

I use tumblr for thinspiration and as a place to vent. I've been deactivated 3 times now. Most recently about a week ago.
But this time it was inspired by a blog. This guy had similar tastes to mine. I found him again. He'd been terminated about 2 months ago judging by his archive. Nothing he'd posted seemed to me to violate any of tumblr's guidelines.
This time:

• I get notifications by email when someone follows me. This allows me to look them up and tell them my new name.
  
• I keep a google docs sheet with a link to blogs I follow. In the ED arena they don't last long, but it's enough to start rebuilding.
  
• If I like a pic enough to reblog, I save it first, then upload it. I'm convinced that reblog chains is one way tumblr uses to decide who to terminate. I get terminated when I get significant reblogs. Or maybe it's just random. This also gives me a stock pile of images to blog afresh.
  
• One person said that allowing empty blogs to follow you was a mistake. I'm not convinced.
  

To find new blogs:
Find one image you like. Right click the blogname, open in new window. Go to his archive. For pics that interest you, right click, open in new tab. Again he will have gotten the image from somewhere.
Try the various spellings of the banned keywords. Look at the tags. If an image you like is tagged both #thinspo and #thinsp0, try searching or thinsp0. Combine abbreviations. #anaboy #anamia. Try them without the hash tag to find blog names.