Internet Strangers

I was doing a google image search recently and ended up in an odd place. In google image search, the bottom frame of the screen shows the site where the image originated from. I was looking up pictures of Carrie Underwood after her recent engagement and was directed to a personal site with the header "Striving for Perfection". Intrigued by other bloggers' journeys through perfectionism, I scrolled down only to uncover a world I had only heard about on old episodes of 20/20. The posts consisted of calorie counts and pictures of frighteningly thin girls.This was a pro-ana site. (Pro-ana meaning the promotion of anorexia). I found an entire pro-ana online community on her site. I couldn't believe how open she (and the others online) were about this eating disorder. I was disturbed and intrigued. I began reading backwards to see who this girl was and where or how her struggle began. Her posts uncovered typical teenager turmoil and stress and then I read a post indicating some pain that ran a lot deeper. It was a letter to her mom, that her mom would never read seeing as how her site was a secret.

"F_ you mom, no you don't understand the depression. You don't know about the eating disorder, or the pain of just looking in the mirror at myself. You don't know I tried cutting. Your father didn't leave you, he didn't pick drugs over his own daughter... Maybe your not much better, yea your still here, but are you really? You don't know a thing about me and how I feel... you'll never understand or really know me. You don't even try, you just lie... And no, my depression isn't going to just go away if I work at it, don't be a dumb_. It's the same way you never really gave up drugs, and my stepdad will never give up drinking, it's a part of you...But don't expect me to let you in either... I tried that, let you part of the way in... It only hurt worse the next time you turned your head in ignorance."

I first felt guilty for reading something so intimate, never intended for my eyes. Why should I have access to this letter, when her mother had no idea it even existed? Then my heart broke for this mystery girl and her mother. I wished I could tell her mom, "Your daughter needs help! She's in trouble? She's drowning!" I kept reminding myself that this was a real girl. The posts were all current. This pain was happening in her life as I read along.

The internet, especially with blogs and personal websites, is a crazy thing where intimate information is made public for anyone to read. My own blog is not private. My thoughts and experiences are floating out in cyber space free for the reading. I don't have any poignant conclusions I've drawn from this or commentary about our society. I'm not really sure why I wanted to post about this. I guess I just wanted to share my strange and conflicted feelings of entering univited, but not necessarily unwelcome, into someone else's pain and the helplessness of watching a stranger sink.